Afford Anything - The Surprising Solution to Overthinking, with Jon Acuff

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

#311: Do you find yourself overthinking and getting stuck in unproductive thought loops? According to a study commissioned by today’s guest, 99.5 percent of 10,000 people said they overthink. Chances are, you can relate. That guest is Jon Acuff -- a New York Times bestselling author who loves to nerd out about goals. In this discussion, he shares 10 signs you're overthinking, explains the differences between overthinking and being prepared, and presents a framework called the three R’s (retire, replace, repeat) that can transform your destructive thought loops into healthy soundtracks. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode311 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything. You just can't afford everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention, anything in your life that's a limited resource. And that opens up two questions. First, what matters most? Second, how do you align your daily decision-making with that which matters most? Answering those two questions, is a lifetime practice, and that's what this podcast is here to explore and facilitate. My name is Paula Pan. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast, and do you find yourself stuck in loops of overthinking? Do you get stuck in analysis paralysis? Well, today's guest is

here to discuss solutions to that. Today we're talking to New York Times bestselling author, John Acuff. We'll be discussing the 10 signs that you're overthinking something. The differences between overthinking and being prepared, and the three R's, retire, replace, and repeat, which can help you transform your overthinking thoughts, those loops, into more productive thoughts that serve you. And you can apply this to any facet of your life that you tend to overthink, whether that's your finances. You've been thinking about the fact that you'd like to start investing, but you're scared

and you don't know what to do, so you just get stuck in analysis paralysis and then never make a move, or whether that's your career, you've been thinking about making a move to a different company, or even transitioning to an entirely different industry or field. And you want to be cautious and prudent. This isn't something you want to do impulsively, but you're not sure if you've crossed that boundary between prudence versus just overthinking, or whether it's some business or some side hustle that you want to start and you're overthinking it, whatever area of your life that you find yourself overthinking in the tips that John Acuff shares in today's episode might help you break through some of those barriers. John Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of

seven books. His most recent book prior to this, which was on the topic of finishing what you start, hit the number one spot on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. He is a well-regarded speaker and thought leader on the topics of productivity, leadership, and goal achievement. We're going to hear from him in just one minute, but before we do, I want to make a very special announcement. My team and I, here at Afford Anything, have dedicated the last five years of our collective lives building and iterating and improving this course on rental property investing. It is our flagship course, and by flagship, I mean, it's our only course. We decided not to build multiple courses, at least for now. we've put everything that we have into building and iterating one and only one so that we could

focus on it entirely and make it shine. We only open this course for enrollment twice a year, once in the fall, once in the spring. And so I am beyond thrilled to announce that the spring enrollment for this course on rental property investing opens today. You have, if you're interested in rental property investing, you have one week to enroll in this course. It is a high-calibur cohort experience. For all the details, go to afford-anything.com slash enroll. All the information is there. You can learn tons about it. You can see our 10-week syllabus. You can hear stories from other students. We've got loads of Q&A. We've got videos about exactly what's in the course. So go to afford-anything.com slash enroll to learn all about it.

Enrollment opens today. Enrollment is open one week only. After Monday, April 19, it will be closed. So if you want to enroll in the course, if you're interested in rental property investing, I highly, highly encourage you to take this course. This is exactly what I would have wanted when I was starting out.

Again, that's afford anything.com slash enroll. With that said, here is John Acuff to discuss overthinking and analysis paralysis. Hi, John. Hey, Paula. Thanks for having me today. Oh, thank you so much for spending this time with us. Yeah, I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

Absolutely. So you've written about the solution to overthinking. And before we jump into the solution, I first want to jump into the problem. What is overthinking? And why is it something that can get in your way? Well, the way I define it is, overthinking is just when what you think is in the way of what you want. And sometimes people say, well, how do I know if it's overthinking versus I'm just being prepared or I'm detailed or I like to be organized?

And the difference is being prepared always leads to an action. Overtinking always leads to more overthinking. You never actually pull the trigger. You never actually start the blog, buy the house, you know, write a book. And so overthinking is just when you get stuck in kind of a thought loop. And it was an epidemic before the pandemic and now it's even working. because everything is a thing. Every little part of life we have room to overthink. We asked 10,000 people, the PhD researcher I work with this guy named Mike Peasley, we asked 10,000 people if they struggle with

overthinking. And 99.5% of people said yes. So it's rampant and it gets in the way of the things you really want to do. Would overthinking be comparable to analysis paralysis? A hundred percent. That can be one of the forms. Sometimes they're not, you know, analyzing anything. They're just stuck. Like, for instance, I talked to somebody the other day that said 12 years ago, I got fired. And now at my current job, every time an office door closes on a meeting that I'm not part of, I worry I'm about to get fired. And so they overthink that moment. And overthinking steals time, creativity and productivity. Let's say he only thinks about that for 10 minutes, 20 minutes a day. But imagine how many doors closed at his office every day all year. and he's spending time overthinking something that happened 12 years ago.

Right. And that example illustrates how overthinking can apply, I guess, in these different facets of life. So earlier you talked about they don't start the website, they don't buy the house, they don't write the book. So there can be that element of overthinking about something that you want to do in the future. And then there's also with regard to the other example that you gave, overthinking with regard to worrying or some degree of paranoia related to something that happened in the past. Exactly. It goes forward and backwards. And so, you know, another example would be somebody that says, okay, I want to start a blog, but I'm worried that someone will steal my ideas. So I'll start a blog as soon as I

talk to a copyright lawyer. What? Like the hurdle you've just put in front of you, the ideas don't even exist yet. And you're already like, what if somebody steals them and makes t-shirts and makes money? And I don't get that money. And you go, but you haven't even registered a URL yet. you're a lot of steps down the road. And so, yeah, it can be something from the past that you kind of believe and repeats. It can be something in the future where you say, okay, this is a thing that I'm concerned about. So I'm going to kind of just sit on this thought again and again and again and again and never actually do the thing. Are one of the two worse is overthinking about the future worse than fretting about something that happened in the past or are they equally bad? I don't think so because they have the same effect. You don't do the thing. The goal of the book is to teach you how to do three really simple things. retire broken soundtracks. And a soundtrack is just my word for repetitive thoughts. Some people say, you know, a thought is a leaf on a river. It's a car on a highway. It's a call in the sky. For me,

it's a soundtrack. So the goal of the book is to teach you how to retire broken soundtracks, those ones that aren't helping you. Replace them with new ones. And then repeat the new ones so often they become as automatic as the old ones. So retire, replace, repeat. And so really, whether it's about the past or the future, the result is the same. You don't ever turn that great thought. to a great action, which gets you a great result. That's how it always goals. Your thoughts turn into actions and turn into results. And I think most people don't understand they get to control and choose what they think. And so then they don't really ever get the actions they want. They don't ever get the results they want. We'll talk more about those three R's in just a moment.

But before we get there, I'm sure that there are many people who are listening to this who are thinking, well, I am part of the 99.5% of people who definitely agree that I overthink. But how bad am I? How do I compare? If almost everybody says that they overthink to any given individual who's listening to this, they're wondering, all right, do I do it more than the average person? Am I in the worst of the group? So you've got 10 signs that you're overthinking. Let's dive into those. Yeah. So, I mean, one of the signs, like the easiest sign is you write down something you want to do. So imagine, okay, I want to start a podcast. I want to pay off debt. I want to rent it apart, you know, list a goal you have. And then listen to the very.

first thing that pops to mind. So the very first thing, because I always say a reaction is an education. Every reaction is an education. So what's the first thing? If you immediately hear, I can't write a book because every other good book's already been written or somebody's smarter than me has already written the book or nobody knows me. Who am I to do that? You should write that down and go, wait a second. That might be a broken soundtrack. So that's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is, have you been working on projects longer than they're required? You know, as an author, you know, when people find out you're an author, I'm sure in the same way that when people find out you have a successful podcast, they'll say, I've always wanted to start a podcast. And a lot of times you'll go, well, how long you've been thinking about it? And they'll go, five years. And you and I both know, it doesn't take five years to start a podcast. There's no such thing as a half decade preparation for a podcast. So that's another sign that, okay, maybe you're overthinking. I mean, a third sign, a really easy sign is what is your community telling me? You know, what is your spouse telling you? What is a friend telling you?

Everyone who overthinks at some point has had somebody who cares about them say, I feel like you might be overthinking that. And so there's all these different signs that are pretty easy to see. And once you see them, you'll go, that's right. I am donating a lot of time, a lot of creativity, a lot of energy to something that's not helpful to me. And I'm not getting a ROI on that. Let me pause you right there because I've got a follow-up question on that one. So with regard to that five-year example, I certainly have some ideas that I've placed in what I refer to as

the someday maybe bucket. So these are ideas of things that I could do in the future that have popped into my head, but I'm not committed to doing them. It isn't that I'm scared to do it. It's just that I have a limited time and energy. And so these ideas live in my someday maybe bucket. I have thought about them for a long time, but they're not a priority. And so yeah, so they are something that I've thought about for five years, but I've consciously decided not to take any action because it's just not a priority right now. Sure. You're intentional with that. You used a lot of words that are like deliberate. This isn't the right time. You're intentional about that. And there's other things in your life that you're focused on right now. So it's not that you're not focusing on anything.

It's not that your whole life is a someday bucket. You're saying, okay, these are the things that matter and here's the evidence I'm working on them. Here's the someday. My friend calls those wine ideas. One day, my friend Al Andrews said, hey, do you ever feel like as soon as you have an idea, you have to share it with everybody right away? And I said, yeah, all the time. He said, well, you're living a keg party lifestyle with your ideas. People are coming in and getting their ideas instantly. And he said, you need a few wine ideas. Ideas, you put in a bottle and you sit on a shelf and you let them mature and you let them kind of grow.

And so I'm a big fan of having wine ideas, but that's an act of being deliberate to say, here's my someday kind of file or here's that I'm going to work on. But that's different than overthinking where an overthinker doesn't have ideas they're currently executing. It's every idea feels some degree of stuck. And then again, like 81% of Americans, for instance, want to write a book, according to the New York Times, 81% and less than 1% do every year. So you know, like, no one who's stuck has a doubt that they're stuck. We all have felt, okay, wow, I'm stuck in my career. I'm stuck in this relationship.

I'm stuck in this decision. So stuckness isn't hard to find. It's an act of going, okay, I am stuck. I need to retire some thoughts that are in the way. And I need to figure out what are the thoughts that are going to help me get out of my own way. Excellent, excellent. Now, we were talking about the 10 signs that you're overthinking. Yeah, so we've gone through three of them. Another sign that you're overthinking is that, again, similar to your idea of the someday bucket, how big is your someday bucket? Is your entire week a someday bucket? Or do you have evidence that, no, here's things that I'm actually creating. Here's things I'm actually launching. Here's things I'm actually doing. That's another sign that you say, okay, I have evidence that these things are in motion. These things are being productive, these things I'm getting done with. And that makes a ton of. of sense. I think those are the four I see most people struggle with. A fifth sign, and it's a

specific one is imposter syndrome. It's one of the biggest things people struggle with when it comes to overthinking. It's just thought of, what if I get found out? What if I'm not a real mom, a real writer, a real CEO, a real business owner? And so imposter syndrome is one. Another one is perfectionism. Okay, I'll do this thing as soon as it's perfect. And that's, you know, a really common, really common kind of source of overthinking is as soon as I have all the details lined up, as soon as the conditions are perfect, you know, I'll move when everything is right. And you and I both know there's not going to be a time when everything is right. There's never a perfect time to do the thing. And so I think that's another one that I see

people struggle with a lot. Right. Imposter syndrome and perfectionism are both concepts that I've heard many people in the Afford Anything community talk about quite a bit. You see people run into it. How does it manifest when it comes to money? Oftentimes, take imposter syndrome, for example, a person might say, you know, I'd really like to buy this rental property, but I don't even own a personal residence myself yet. And it feels ridiculous to be a landlord before I'm even a homeowner. Or they'll say, I'd like to buy this rental property, but I'm in my 20s.

And it feels ridiculous to call myself a landlord at the age of 27. So I hear that conversation come up quite a bit. I also hear the, I didn't study finance in college. So who am I to, exactly, who am I to think that I can buy stocks? Who am I to think that I can make investments? You know, shouldn't I just keep all of my money in cash? I don't know anything about the stock market. I hear that come up quite a bit. Yeah, I would say that's one for me, that would be another one of the signs that's signed seven, which is kind of expert status, that other people have expert status and I don't. So, So I need to understand the stock market before I can do simple changes financially in my own life. And you go, wait, whoa, whoa, you don't have to be a master at the stock market to make some simple financial decisions in your own life. But there's this worry of, okay, I have to be an expert. Another sign is unfinished goals. If you look at your life and you've got an elephant graveyard of unfinished goals where you started them, you're really excited. But then along the way, you started to overthink them.

For me, I started my first blog in 2001 before any social media. And it was going well, but then I started to overthink it. And I started to go, okay, what am I really going to do? And then I didn't blog for seven more years. And I look back on that, not with a great degree of regret, because that would just get in the way, but with some degree of regret of what could I have done if I hadn't taken seven years off of building a community, of serving an audience? Like, what could I have done with my platform?

So I think unfinished goals is another one where it's easier for people to look at that and go, I might be overthinking this. Another one would be when one single thing can change your entire day. So, for instance, you're a mom, you're working mom, you're three minutes late to the car rider pickup line, and you immediately play a soundtrack that says, I'm the worst mom in the world, which makes all the rest of the good things that happened that day invisible. So that you got your kids out the door, that you worked a full day, that you crushed the project, that you made sure they had lunch. Like every little good thing disappears in the evidence of that one three minute mistake. And so that extreme kind of like when one thing can wreck your entire day, you're probably overthinking a broken soundtrack.

Beating yourself up a bit too much. Exactly. Exactly. And that's another one. Another sign is if you talk to yourself in a way, you'd never talk to your friends. So what was interesting about the study that the researcher and I did was that we never found somebody who was overthinking compliments. So we never found somebody who said, my big problem is that I just constantly tell myself I'm doing such a good job. Like, oh, that's my big issue.

It was just the opposite. So a really easy way to think about that is, okay, am I talking to myself worse than I talk to a friend? And if I am, why am I doing that? And then the last one, the 10th one, is never being self-aware of the story you're telling yourself about yourself. Often when you overthink, there's a lack of self-awareness. And that kind of feeds the overthinking.

So those are 10 pretty easy signs that, you know what? Wait a second. I might be overthinking this. What am I going to do about it? A lot of the science that you've talked about, the deferring to expert status, feeling perfectionism, feeling imposter syndrome, beating yourself up too much over one tiny mistake, they seem rooted in some degree of low self-esteem. And granted, that's a broad term. You know, there can be an entire ancillary discussion on whether, you know, unpacking the notion of self-esteem itself. But to what extent do people need to get at the root of where these issues are coming from?

Like to what extent do we need that degree of reflection and need to build some degree of confidence in order to solve this? Do we all need to start journaling and meditating and going to therapy? No, no, 100% no. I mean, it depends on the person. It depends on the issue. Like, all issues aren't created equally. I don't have a ton of time in my life for like a 90-day silent retreat in Sedona. That's not how my life's built.

So it depends on the issue, it depends on the person. But for instance, I recognized one day that I was being a terrible boss to myself. Just terrible. Like I was so overstructuring my day. And this is ridiculous to even say aloud, but it's true. Like I would set a timer when I was working on projects. And if I needed to go get a drink of water from the kitchen to like go to the bathroom, I would stop the timer. Because like, I guess that time didn't count.

And I was like, if I had a boss that did that, that would be a terrible boss. If I had a boss who had a timer on their desk and was like, oh, you're going to the bathroom, I'm going to pause this because those 90 seconds don't count off your time. Like, that boss would suck. I didn't spend like the next three months, like doing bullet journaling with illustrations and trying to find my soul. I said, what would the best boss be like? Like one of the techniques is you flip it.

You flip a broken soundtrack to a new soundtrack. So I said, what would the best boss be like? And I've had good bosses. I'm 45 years old. I've worked for good bosses and bad bosses. So I have examples. And so it wasn't hard for me to go, here's the actions the best boss would take. So okay, my soundtrack is I'm the CEO of me and I'm the best boss. And I believe that whether you work for yourself or for somebody else, you are the CEO of you. You take personal responsibility for how you show up for work, for what you bring, for what you do, for the actions you take. So I think there's other times. where you might go, okay, I need to explore why this happens. I see a therapist. I think therapy's amazing. I'll always say like, yeah, definitely if that's something you want to go do, a hundred percent do that. But I think there's a real trap to going, okay, I found a broken soundtrack. And until I figure out that my dad didn't hug me enough when I was seven, I can't change the actions that this is, like the negative actions this is causing. I think you can say, yeah, I'm going to change some of these actions. And I love how Tom Ziegler and Zig Ziglar say it. Zigzigler, I got to have lunch with him

a few years before he passed away and talked a lot about motivation and positive affirmations. And one of the things that they teach, because I asked them, like, you believe in fake it until you make it, you know, kind of saying the thing. And they said, no, we don't believe that because it triggers cognitive dissonance. So if you're really out of shape or if you're really broken, you say, I am so rich. I am so rich right now. Your brain knows that's not. You're true and it causes cognitive dissonance. Like your brain knows you're lying to it and it doesn't help. Lying to yourself never solves anything. So what they say is instead tell the truth in advance. For instance, I'm getting fitter and fitter in every way every day. Like that's positive, true.

It's pushing you forward. I'm working on my money and getting better at my money every day and every way versus going today I'm incredibly rich when if you're not, your brain knows you're not and it won't help you. And that's sounds very much like staying in the present. Like I am taking steps to improve today. I'm improving the way that I spend money today. Exactly. And, you know, it's honest, it's positive. There's forward momentum to it. And your and your brain goes, okay, we can believe that. We can get behind that. We can push in the same direction. The other piece of what I'm hearing is that thoughts drive behavior. So it isn't necessarily, you don't necessarily need to unpack everything in order to just train yourself.

to have healthier thoughts that then drive behavior. You don't necessarily have to unpack the emotional content behind it. Exactly. You don't have to unpack every thought either. Like I always say start with the loudest ones. Everybody has too many thoughts every day to unpack every thought. Who has time for that? I always say like start with the loudest ones. Start with the ones that are, you know, kind of the loudest soundtrack, the loudest boombox, if you will, and say, okay, what do I want to do with this? I mean, that was one of the fascinating studies that I put in the book, NYU studied college students and they had them come in, two different groups of college students. And to one group, they said, okay, we want you to make sentences out of these words.

They gave them a word bank and said, make some sentences. To the other group, they said the same thing. But that group inside that word bank were hidden words related to being old. So bald, retired, Florida. And then they said, after they had both groups that made sentences, the second part of the test is down the hall. Please walk to the end of the hall. And they secretly timed the students and the students who had been exposed to work, that had old status or felt like being old physically walked slower.

Just the exposure to the words that were about being old made them act old. So there's so much research about the power of the thoughts you have, the words you expose yourself to cause a physical reaction in your life. And so that's where I tell people, if you can figure out, okay, I'm going to write new soundtracks, I'm going to create new soundtracks. It can change your actions and it can change the results you get. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient, but they're not just fast and efficient.

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Let's dive into the three R's, starting with the first one. Retire. Yeah, so retire is about saying, okay, here's something that's getting in my way. here's a soundtrack that, you know, I've been carrying around. And it might be, you know, it could be something based on a situation. We talked a lot about like, did a situation happen in the past? So, you know, one for me would be I've been taken advantage of in business situations. Like, I've had situations go sideways, whether it was somebody stole money or it just ended up being a bad situation. So it'd be really easy to come out of that moment with a broken soundtrack that says

everyone in a business situation is trying to take advantage of you, which wrecks my ability. to have a healthy meeting, which wrecks my ability to see opportunity because instead I'm looking for booby traps. Instead, I'm looking for, okay, I got to be real careful because remember, people are trying to take advantage of you. So I would need to retire that broken soundtrack. One, identify it and go, okay, that's not something I want and then retire it. And the way you do that, the way you figure out, okay, is there a soundtrack I want to retire? You ask it three questions. And the questions are really simple. You ask it, is it true? Is this thing that, I'm listening to, true. Second question, is it helpful? Does it move me forward? Does it propel me forward

or does it hold me back? And three, is it kind? Is the thing I'm telling myself kind? And if it's not, it might be a soundtrack that you better retire because it's just getting in your way. To the first of those questions, so is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? What happens if a person does believe or fear that it may be true? And we'll go to the deferring experts. example, I'm imagining somebody in this audience who thinks, hey, I'm terrible at managing money. And when presented with those questions, is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? They fear that the answer to, is it true is correct? Yeah, and it might be. It might be true. And that's why you asked the three questions. So if we only had one question, we'd never be able to retire a soundtrack.

But what happens for that particular person, let's use money as an example, because the listeners are curious about that. Is it true? I'm not an expert at stocks. Is it true? Yes, it's true. But is that helpful? Is saying that to yourself over and over and over making you more eager to work on your money or less eager? You and I both know the answer. We know that if repeating to myself every time I start to listen to Paula and go, okay, I'm going to change some things. And then that voice goes, you're not a money expert. That might be true. It might be 100% true. But is it helpful? It's 100% not. That's why it's a series of questions, not a single question. Hmm, right. All right. So is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? I'm not a money expert. I don't know much about stocks. It may be true, but it's not helpful and it's not kind. Exactly. So I need to change that soundtrack. So you could say, even just adding the word yet, I don't know a lot about stocks yet. That word yet is a gift. Okay. So there's a time where I could know more. And if I'll take the actions, I can change that soundtrack. I can lean into that. You know, I don't know everything about

stocks, but I know enough to get started. That's a better soundtrack than I don't know everything about stocks. Or the problem, too, is that our soundtracks kind of mutate. They always add words like never, always, forever. So listeners will say, I'll never know enough about stocks to feel comfortable working on my money. Never? Like, if you're 24, like, you've got 50 years of life left. In a half century, you've already decided at 25, you'll never know enough about stocks. Like, that's not kind. If somebody said to me, I'm interested in stocks and I said, you'll never know enough. You've got 50 years. You're so dumb.

You could spend a half century of your life. You'll never know. That's certainly not kind. It's certainly not helpful. So, again, that's why it's always more than one question because sometimes it will be true. Sometimes you'll say, you know, like I could say right now, I'm learning how to run my business. I'm learning how to be a CEO.

That's a new thing for me. I've had a business for eight years and I'm looking at my business and going, okay, there's things I want to do differently. What do I want to do? So I wouldn't tell myself I'll never be a good CEO. But I also wouldn't tell myself I'm the best CEO in the world because Paula, that is 100% not true. But I would tell myself a positive soundtrack of I'm learning how to be a better CEO every day because I am. That's a helpful thought because it encourages me to work on the actions, to interview other CEOs, to work with my team, to apologize when I'm wrong. So I can grow and lean into that positive soundtrack a lot better than a negative one that says I'll never be a good CEO.

What about the I'm too old soundtrack? Because I've certainly heard from a lot of people in the audience. Well, they'll say, hey, I'm 55 years old. I'm too old to begin building wealth. I'm too old to begin saving for retirement. It's too late for me now. Yeah. So what I always tell people is that fear is schizophrenic because one day it'll tell you

you're too young. I meet people just like you do. They'll go, I'm too young. I don't have enough experience. Too young to do that thing. And then one day, fear goes, no, it's too late. And you want to say, okay, fear, when was the perfect age? Was there a day when I was 34 and 17 days and I was the perfect age?

Like part of it, too, is that we over, we worry about, you know, whenever somebody does compound interest, they go, when you were a fetus, if you invested in compound interest, you'd have $19 billion. Right. Of course, if you're 48, you're like, I'm screwed. I'm not a zygote anymore. Like, I don't have enough time. And so, you know, it's kind of that old maxim of like the two-based.

best times to plan a trio 20 years ago and today. And so for me, I think you need to go, okay, there's a handful of things I am too late. Like, it's too late for me to play in the NFL. Like, it honestly is. I don't think at this point, Paula, there's a shot. I really don't. 45, a 5, 7 and a half. I don't think it's going to happen. But as far as saving money, as far as writing a book, as far as starting something new, if you're breathing, it's not too late. Right. Okay. So that first R is to retire that negative soundtrack. We've asked the question, is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? We know that this is a soundtrack. We've identified a given soundtrack that we need to retire. How do we stop compulsively thinking that unhelpful thought? Well, the first thing we do is we recognize it as unhelpful. As I mentioned, most people don't understand that a thought is something you control. They think a thought is something you have, not something you hone. They just let their thoughts show up on their own, whatever, which is why I will say things like, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or my thoughts got away from me, or I got carried away by my thoughts, as if they're outside of your control. So the first thing is to say, okay, I recognize that this isn't helpful. And I also recognize that. I also recognize that.

that I get to do something about it. Nothing kills momentum like apathy, going, oh, well, I guess that's how it is. I'm not good at money, as if money is a personality type, as if you'd say, you know, like, no, there's some people who are naturally born for money and everyone else isn't, it's not like height. Being able to work on your money isn't like height where you go, I'm not six three, so I guess I don't get to be good at money. So you recognize that, okay, this is broken. And then you recognize you have the power to do something about it, which is that second R that I get to replace that. And what's fascinating is even my most type A friends,

like my high performance friends who lay out their clothes for the gym the night before they go to bed because they know it'll ensure they go to the gym, they don't pick their thoughts out ahead of time. Very few people go, you know what, I got a big business meeting coming up on Thursday, big negotiation. I'm going to bring these three soundtracks. Like I'm going to think these three things to make sure that I get the result that I really want. They show up in the meeting and they let their emotions get away.

their thoughts get away. And they go, yeah, it's so weird, it went poorly. And you go, it's not. You planned every detail except what you are actually going to think, which actually drove how you acted, which actually drove your results. And so that's the first step of replace is understanding you can. So what happens when within that step of replace, when a person acknowledges that they can replace their thoughts, and yet that same thought continues to bubble up? Well, I mean, one, it's going to, So that's the thing. Somebody asked me the other day, let's talk about imposter syndrome because we've already used as an example. Somebody said, how do I get over imposter syndrome? That was the question she asked me. And I said, well, I think the problem is the word over is a broken soundtrack because over indicates to climb

over a wall one time as if you're done. It's a word of perfectionism. I told her, replace over with the word through. How do I go through imposter syndrome? Because you're going to go through it. I've written seven books. some of them New York Times bestsellers and there's still days where I don't feel like a real writer. So I go through imposter syndrome. It's not that books two fixed it, book three fixed it, book four fixed it. I go through it. So the first thing is going, okay, when that thought pops back up, it's not failure. It's not an indication that, okay, the new soundtrack didn't work. I've got the old one. If I had fixed everything perfectly, I wouldn't have this whole thought. The other thing is you give yourself time and space. It's kind of like a diet. You know, I write books. about goal setting. And I'll meet people to say, John, this diet is not working or this exercise plan, you know, whatever health thing. I'll say, well, how long have you been doing it? And I'll say, 10 days. And I'll say, well, how long did it take you to gain the weight? And I'll say, 10 years.

So you gave yourself a decade, 10 years to put on the weight and then 10 days to take it off. That's so unkind to yourself. So to somebody who said to me, okay, John, I'm trying to replace these things, but they keep bubbling up. I'd say, of course they are. That's appropriate. That's always what happens. You've listened to that soundtrack for a long time. It's pretty automatic. So you're going to have to have some time to replace it. You're going to have to be deliberate about replacing it and be okay that that's going to take some time.

What should a person do if they know that they don't know? So they know that this soundtrack is going to bubble up under a level of consciousness. It will be not a conscious thought, but rather a feeling or an unconscious automatic. thought and they're aware that that's going to happen, but they don't quite know when or how, you know, they might not be aware that they're having this thought at the time that they have it. Well, I mean, so I think at some point it becomes evident. If it's always unconscious in the sense that it's not causing any damage, if it's so unconscious you don't even notice it, maybe it's not changing anything. But usually the unconscious thought becomes conscious at some point where you notice,

wow, I really reacted the way that's not helpful in that situation. Why did I do that? So, for instance, we were at an anniversary party a couple years ago. Our friends had been married 25 years and their mother through this beautiful anniversary party. And it was really sentimental. And the mom was reading a letter to her kids and how thankful she was for them and everybody that knew them was saying these nice things. And I felt this thought in my head that was like, say something really sarcastic. Like say something really funny. And I had like, now if that's unconscious, it never hits my consciousness, so I can't deal with it. So if the question is like, how do you deal with things that never surface?

You can't, they never surface. You know, it's the Mariana trench. It's so deep. But usually it's going to surface in your behavior, your action, your words. There's going to be some sort of kind of thought that bubbles up, like a crab trap trap from the depth. And so in that moment, I was able to go, huh, why do I feel that way? What is that? And I could pause on it.

And I didn't try to fix it in the moment, but I definitely made a note of it. And I was like, huh, I need to probably explore that. Is it that being sentimental makes me uncomfortable? And I use sarcasm to try to change the moment because I'm uncomfortable. Is that I'm not good at handling emotions? Like, do I want the spotlight on me all the time? Is that about narcissism? Like, there was a number of ways I could interpret that.

But all I did was I recognized it eventually and I paused on it. And then I, you know, I wrote about it a little bit. Not fancy writing. Like, not everybody's a writer. You could certainly kind of work on it your own way. But I just paused and I recognized it and said, okay, huh. And I didn't say anything. There have been other times of my life maybe when I was younger or didn't have these tools

where I might have said something terribly sarcastic and kind of like train wrecked the moment. And so I'm glad I didn't, but I'm also curious like, huh, where did that come from? What is that right there? So that's what I would say. You also mentioned that sometimes these things may. may bubble up in the form of an action. I've certainly seen that in my own life in running a business where I'm sometimes not aware that I feel in a given way. I'm not aware that I feel frustrated, but I will snap easily. And then in looking back on it, I'll think, wow, okay,

clearly I was feeling frustrated. We see this often in money management where fear and greed often dominate the decisions that we make about money, particularly investments, but we don't often have the conscious thought, I feel afraid or I feel greedy. I don't think anyone sits there and thinks like, well, I feel greedy today. Right, yeah. I mean, Scrooge McDuck, maybe. Exactly, exactly. But that greed might express itself as a fear of missing out, for example. And that fear catches up with you to the point where you then start dumping all of your money in the latest Reddit stock, the latest Wall Street bets hype stock, because you're afraid of missing out on the latest trend. It's an expression of greed, even though it's not necessarily thought of in that way.

The thought expresses itself in the form of action, and it's only in retrospect, when you look at the action that you just took, you know, you wake up the next morning and you're like, did I just move $10,000 into GameStop, you know? Yeah, did that really happen? Exactly, exactly. Well, so, I mean, in a situation like that, again, I think there's a degree of self-awareness. And so in a moment like that, I think it's healthy to say, okay, I've done that a handful of times, or I have a pattern of doing that, or I have a habit of doing that.

What's really going on? I call it pulling the thread. Pull the thread behind that action and go, okay, what was the thought that might have contributed to that action. You know, I felt like I acted thoughtlessly. In a moment of clarity, I wouldn't have done that. But I did do it. So is there a thought behind that that I maybe haven't seen clearly yet that's actually contributing to that? And you pull that thread and go, okay, wait a second. Yeah, there's a series of thoughts or, you know, there's some fear. What I know is that if you don't have access to your feelings, if you're not able to name them, you know, work with them, you miss so much of life. And you miss. so much of a relationship too. It reminds me maybe about a month ago. I was walking with a friend of my name Ben. He lives in my neighborhood. We go on long walks. I feel like walks had a huge 20-20. Like everybody just got into walking and like looking at birds and sourdough bread. Like those three things just crushed. Right. So we're on a walk and he was like, what's going on? I said, you know,

I saw this opportunity recently that I missed and it made me sad that I had missed it. And it made me afraid that I missed it because I feel like it was a really big one. And maybe there was a really big one. and maybe there won't be any more opportunities. And it made me jealous because I know the person who got it and I was jealous that they got it. And so I shared that with him. And he said, well, let me ask you this. If you got that opportunity, what would you have more of that you don't have right now? And I thought, that's a really good question.

And then he said, you know, if you got that opportunity, would you have gone deeper into your ego or deeper into your heart? And I didn't have to think about that one for a second. I knew I would have gone deeper into my ego as an ego type of opportunity. And he said, well, that makes me sad because I don't think you would have valued these walks and this relationships and I would have missed out on it. And so if I don't share with Ben or you don't share with whoever, I feel sad, I feel scared, I feel anxious, I feel whatever, you don't get to receive the gift of that conversation. And so I think, you know, at some point, if your actions are causing enough pain, it behooves you to say, you know what, that ain't it. That's not what I want to do. I want to make better decisions.

So I'm going to pull the thread and see if there's a thought or a series of thoughts, soundtracks, if you will, that are driving those actions. Right. And then replace those. Yeah, exactly. Do the work of replacing those. We'll come back to this episode in just a minute. But first.

So the first R is to retire. The second R is to replace. Let's talk about that third R. Repeat. Yeah, repeat is how you lock it in place. You know, it's kind of like if you've had a soundtrack for five years about money and you write a new one, it needs to have a fighting chance. If you send a brand new dough-eyed baby thought that's good up against a five-year kind of entrenched broken soundtrack, it'll never win. So repeat is about being deliberate to creatively repeat the thought so that it becomes as automatic as the old ones.

And that's where it gets really fun. That's where it gets really creative. There's so many different ways that you can do that. Kind of have these repeat techniques, if you will. I'm sitting in my office outside of Nashville, Tennessee, and I'm looking at a wall in front of me, and there's all these post-it notes with all these new soundtracks that I've been writing as I need them.

One says right now, fear gets a voice not a vote, because I don't like when people say, you can be fearless. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's helpful. I think that sets so many people up for failure on Instagram when motivational gurus say nonsense like that. Because the reality is every time you do something new, every time you do something bigger, every time you stretch yourself, there's going to be some fear there.

For instance, I'm a public speaker. I go around the world talking to companies like Comedy Central and the NFL and World Pool and Nissan and whoever. And so when I first started, though, speaking to 10 people was terrifying. It was very scary. I had 10 person fear. But then I worked on it. I did it a number of times. I practiced. I turned a lot of thoughts into a lot of actions. and I got over it. But then I spoke to 100 people and 100 people felt like a million and I had a hundred person fear.

But then I worked on it. I got over it. Then I had a thousand person fear. And then I spoke to 10,000 people at every new level of my growth fear was there. And it wasn't a bad thing that was there. It has a voice, but it doesn't get a vote. It doesn't get to sit at the head of the table

and decide what I do or what I don't do. It's a voice, not a vote. So that's a soundtrack that I have on a note card right in front of me because I'm going to forget it. In the stress of the day, in the business of the day as I hustle on my goals. I'm going to forget that. So one simple way is to write that down, a money one.

Here's a specific money one that I have that I wrote down. I've got the note card in my hand on August 27th, 2020. I wrote, ask for more. Ask for more. Why? Because I found myself in negotiations where I was undervaluing the work I was creating. I was undervaluing the benefit I was adding to situations. So I wrote down three words.

They're not sexy. I don't want anybody listening to this to feel this pressure of like, I've got to come up with a new, Just Do It. No, gosh, no, don't feel that. Like a new soundtrack can be a question somebody asked you. It can be a song lyric. It can be a phrase. It could be a bumper sticker you saw that you love.

The other day, I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I saw a bumper sticker on a red Toyota pickup truck. And all it said was safety third. I love that. You know, I took a photo of that. That's one of my soundtracks. I encourage people, if you're going to replace the easiest, way to start is start with some of the best that other people have created. Like, who says you have to create your own? The world is crawling with really encouraging soundtracks. So I wrote down,

ask for more. And that's just one example of, okay, I put it on a post-it note. I wrote it in my journal. I took a picture of it on my phone. It gives me a chance to repeat it and go, okay, I see that. I see ask for more 50 times a day because it's right at my computer. And so that one's a lot easier to remember versus going, Paula, I thought the phrase asked for more. And I hope. that in the busyness of everything I do, it'll occasionally bubble up on its own. I'm not taking that chance. I'm going to make it really easy to see. So in terms of those repeat techniques, you've mentioned write it down on a post-it note that's in your office or in your home office or stuck on your computer. You've mentioned, take a screenshot, write it down, take a screenshot

of it, make it your background on your phone so that you're seeing it off and write it in your journal. What are some of the other repeat techniques? Well, one of the chapters in the book is about how to make a soundtrack stick with a symbol. Symbols are powerful reminders of things we want to believe. And the best companies in the world have known that forever. I mean, think about Yeti. People put a Yeti sticker on their car to let you know how they keep things cold. Like in the 1990s, nobody put an Igloo sticker on their car and was like,

I like Igloo Coolers, just wanted you guys to know. But a Yeti symbol is a symbol of more than just their company. It means, I love to be outside. I'm part of the wild. And so a symbol can be anything from a coin you keep in your pocket. It can be, I've got a pine cone on my desk. We took thousands of people through this research before we published the book. And people would say, okay, oh yeah, I have, you know, a tattoo that says choose joy.

And every time I look at it, I remember, oh, that's right, I get a choice. And today I choose joy. It could be something like one of the participants said, I have a bag of painted lima beans on my desk. And I said, well, what's the story there? And she said, well, when I was in school, there was a teacher who's husband. husband individually painted lima beans one by one for her. And I remembered when I get married, I want to marry a man who loves me enough to individually paint lima beans. And so that's something that she like for her dating life. That's a symbol that reminds her of a soundtrack.

You know, find a person that loves you like that. And that's personal to her. And that's how you make a symbol. The three ways you make a symbol, it has to be personal. It has to be deeply connected to you. Second is it has to be visible. If it's in a drawer and you never see it, it's a souvenir, not a symbol. And third, it has to be simple. And a great example of that is the Nike Livestrong bracelets that they did with Lance Armstrong. The reason those are so popular was that they are personal, they are visible, and they are simple. They are personal. You never met somebody wearing one. It would say, why do you wear that? I just don't like cancer. I hate the disease cancer. I wear a jewelry related to diseases. I have a psoriasis necklace. Like nobody ever said that.

They always said, my uncle passed away. My mom passed away. It was personal. The second thing, it was visible. Nike could have made that bracelet gray. They could have made it beige. They didn't. They made it bright yellow. Why? Because it has to be visible. And the third is it's simple. No one was confused about how to use a bracelet. Nobody was like, you're saying to put the arm part into this whole part. It's kind of complicated. So a symbol can be a really fun, really practical, really simple way for you to go, I'm tying this new soundtrack to something physical so that I've got another reminder. I want to, you to have as many reminders as you can because again, sometimes we're sending these new soundtracks up against a soundtrack, a broken soundtrack that's had a five-year head start. Let's equip our new soundtracks to the best ability. Is it most effective to focus on changing one soundtrack at a time? Again, it depends on the person. Usually what happens. We just did a challenge called the Overcoming Overtinking Challenge, and nearly 10,000 people signed up for it. It was really,

really fun. And what I saw through that interaction with all those different people is that the first one often led to the second one. What happens is when you discover the metaphor of soundtracks, when do you discover that your life is actually being governed largely by the thoughts you have, you start to see them everywhere. You start to notice, wow, individuals have soundtracks. You know, for instance, everybody's job changed this year. Everybody went through some degree of change. And you've worked with people that said, no, that'll never work here. Like, no, we can't do that. And you go, oh, that's a soundtrack. They've got a soundtrack that it won't work here, but they haven't even tried it. They haven't even tested it. That's a soundtrack for them. So you start to notice them

in individuals. You'll start to notice them in couples. Every relationship has soundtracks. You'll start to notice them in families. And they can be fun. They can be serious. One of ours is a family is early as on time. We show up early. Like, that's a family soundtrack. Another one is, We don't show up hungry. So when we go on a road trip to see friends, we don't roll into your house at 6.30 expecting you to have an amazing dinner. That's not how we are as guests. We'll stop and eat dinner before so that you don't have that pressure.

That's one of our soundtracks. Is that a life-defining one? Of course not. But it is a norm in our family. My 17-year-old daughter is in high school band. And the way high school band works is they're organized in chairs. It's a ranking system. So like chair nine is lower than chair eight,

it's lower than chair seven and so forth. So one year she decided, I want to get higher in the chairs. I'm going to practice. I'm going to work really hard. I'm going to work my way up to a better chair. And you have to challenge the chair that's ahead of you. So she challenged a kid ahead of her.

And he said, oh, why are you doing the challenge? Because it is work. He said to her, what are you, one of those tryhards. And he meant it as an insult, but we took it as a badge of honor. Like, yeah, that's right. We're trihards. So one of our family soundtracks is, yeah, we're tryhards. So you'll start to know some families and companies.

Like, company culture is just a group of soundtracks people at the same company or listening to at the same time. So I think you can start with one if you want to, certainly. But I think what happens is you start to notice them in other places. It's kind of like what I learned a long time ago and helping people with goals is that I write a book about losing weight or I write a chapter about something like that and they go, hey, that thing you did talking about getting in shape helped me with my finances. And I go, what? It wasn't even about finances. But discipline, but gets discipline. I mean, it's the same with you. Like I guarantee, I 100% guarantee, listen as you've helped, have said to you, your podcast improved my marriage. And you would say,

I didn't do a marriage podcast, but you know that when you work on your money and when you change the way you can talk about your money with a spouse, it tends to spread into other parts of your marriage. 2020 was a time of great change. And 2021 will also be a time of great change. This is a year that is not done changing. What are some soundtracks that can help people navigate these changes? Okay, I'm going to give you two. Two soundtracks that I think will be really helpful to your listeners, and they're very short and they're very easy. So the first one is, this is my first global pandemic. I think you should write that down on a piece of paper.

I think you should say that out loud because it is. I keep running into people who feel ashamed, frustrated, you know, bothered that they're not handling it better. But guess what? This is your first global pandemic. You should be having a challenge. You know, whenever a parent says, oh, I'm having a hard time with virtual school with my kids, I was like, yeah, you should. You've never done it before. You're probably terrible at hang gliding too. So I think your ability to tell yourself, oh, wait, this is my first global pandemic. None of your listeners right now would go, actually, this is my 50th. No, this is my first global pandemic. Why is today challenging? Because this is my first global pandemic. Why is my job changing? Well, this is my first global pandemic. So that's the first one. The second one, it's only three words. It's so simple. Be a two. tourist. Be a tourist. We're all in a new place right now. We are all tourists in a new land. And so think about what tourists have in common. What if tourists have in common? Well, one, they ask lots of

questions. Tourists aren't afraid to ask questions. You know, Nashville hosted the NFL draft a few years ago and the streets were full of people asking questions. Hey, where's that hotel? Where's that bar? Where's the stadium? Why? Because they'd never been there before. So don't be afraid to ask a lot of questions. Be a tourist. What else the tourists do? They don't pretend to be experts. You don't get to learn if you pretend you already know everything. Tourists don't pretend to be experts. This is my first time here. Number three, what does the tourists do? They ask experts for help. They're not afraid to say, hey, this person knows something that I need to know. I'm going to raise my hand and ask that question. And number four, tourists make mistakes.

They get on the wrong subway. They go the wrong direction. You're going to make some mistakes. And the last thing a tourist does is they have fun. They enjoy that this is a new time. We're all an amateur hour right now. None of us know exactly what's going to happen in 2021. So be a tourist. It'll change your ability to enjoy the changes that are coming. Well, thank you so much. Where can people find you if they would like to know more about your work? Sure. Well, I have a podcast called All It Takes is a Goal. I'm a Goal nerd, obviously. That probably came through a billion times in this podcast. And I believe it's starting is fun, but the future belongs to finishers. So I have a podcast It's called All It Takes is a Goal where I help people finish their goals.

And then if they're curious about the book and think, you know what, I'll check out the first chapter. Awesome. You can read the first chapter for free at soundtracksbook.com. So Soundtracks with an S, book.com. And then Acup.combe. I'm Aikup.combe on Twitter and Instagram, J-O-N, A-C-U-F-F. So I'm all over the place on the social meeting. Thank you, John.

What are the key takeaways from this conversation? Here are four. Number one, identify whether you're overthinking or preparing. There is a distinction between the two. But if you're not sure where you fall, if you're simply being prudent versus if you're overthinking, you can check in with yourself to see if you exhibit the 10 signs of overthinking. One of those signs is noticing your first reaction, write down something that you want to do, and then notice what your first reaction to that desire is.

is your immediate reaction and something negative? Is it an excuse? Is it an objection? If so, then you might be overthinking. There might be feelings that come up that are causing you to talk yourself out of something that you actually want to do. Another way to check in with yourself is to observe whether you work on projects longer than needed.

So for example, if it takes you five years to start a podcast, or if you've been thinking about investing in rental properties for years, but you've never actually. taken a step towards doing it. Or you've been thinking about starting that side hustle for years, but it's always been a thought. If those projects take longer than needed, then you might be overthinking it. Similarly, if you get too far ahead of yourself, if as you think about a given project, you're imagining step 12 and wondering all of these what if scenarios, what if X happens, what if Y happens, what if Z happens? What if I buy a rental and the roof leaks and then the tenants dump a bag of cement down the toilet. Like, whoa, okay, well, hold on. Step one, like, choose a city and state

where you want to invest first. You are many, many, many steps away from that roof leak. So if you find yourself getting too far ahead of yourself, you might be overthinking. Another thing to ask yourself is, do your friends and family tell you that you seem to be overthinking? Another question? How big is your someday bucket? Is everything in your someday bucket? Because it's great. It's great. It's great to have a someday bucket. Like I've got a lot, a lot of stuff in my someday maybe bucket. But if everything lives there, if you're not creating anything, if that someday bucket isn't counterbalanced with something that's in the, all right, this is what I'm doing right now bucket, then you might be overthinking. Some other ways that you can check in with yourself,

imposter syndrome, perfectionism, expert status, thinking that you need to know everything about something before you begin, having too many unfinished goals. If isolated negative events, change your entire day because you get stuck on them. If you find yourself talking to yourself in a way that you would never talk to your friends, if your inner monologue is too negative, or if you are unaware of some of the stories that you're telling yourself, these are ways that you can identify whether or not you're overthinking. But the biggest way to tell the difference between overthinking versus preparing is intentionality. If you choose to defer something because it's not a priority, you're being deliberate. But if you're, if you're you're, you're

If you genuinely want to do something and you feel stuck or you feel held back, then you're probably overthinking it. John Acuff refers to this as the distinction between a keg party versus wine ideas. I'm a big fan of having wine ideas, but that's an act of being deliberate to say, here's my someday kind of file or here's that I'm going to work on. But that's different than overthinking, where an overthinker doesn't have ideas they're currently executing, it's every idea feels some degree of stuck. And so that is key takeaway number one.

Identify whether or not you're overthinking. Key takeaway number two, retire the old soundtracks that aren't serving you. By now you're probably thinking of examples or areas of your life in which you're overthinking. If you're not, then try the three questions that John recommends. Is it true? Is it helpful? And is it kind? The way you figure out, is there a soundtrack I want to retire?

You ask it three questions. And the questions are really simple. You ask it, is it true? Is this thing that I'm listening to? True. Second question, is it helpful? Does it move me forward? Does it propel me forward or does it hold me back?

And three, is it kind? You may find that you have certain thoughts that could be true, but those thoughts are likely not helpful or kind. And if that's the case, you need to retire those soundtracks. Erase the word never and replace it with yet. So, for example, I'll never know enough about investing gets replaced with, I don't know enough about investing yet. And that retiring never and replacing it with yet leave space for possibilities. Don't embrace the idea of fake it till you make it because that creates cognitive dissonance.

instead make it honest, positive, and future-focused. I'm learning more about investing every day. I'm taking steps every day to become a more knowledgeable investor. I know more about investing or personal finance right now than I did one week ago. And I am committed to knowing more next week than I do this week. Those types of statements are honest, they're positive, and they are future-focused. And so that is key takeaway number two, to retire the old soundtracks that aren't serving you. Key takeaway number three, replace those old soundtracks with new soundtracks.

Most people don't pick out their thoughts ahead of time. Imagine if we came prepared to high-stakes situations with positive thoughts that help us towards our goals, rather than destructive worst-case what-if thought loops. So what if you aren't sure? what your soundtracks are. At some point, you'll likely see a pattern with your actions. And if you don't, keeping track of this in some way might help. John says to observe your actions and then pull the thread behind the action. And go, okay, what was the thought that might have contributed to that action? You know, I felt like I acted thoughtlessly. In a moment of clarity, I wouldn't have

done that. But I did do it. So is there a thought behind that that I maybe haven't seen clearly yet? that's actually contributing to that. And you pull that thread and go, okay, wait a second. Yeah, there's a series of thoughts or, you know, there's some fear. Get curious about your thoughts. Why did they come up when they came up? Recognize those patterns. Once you recognize those soundtracks, you need to replace them.

And that leads us to key takeaway number four. Repeat the new soundtrack that you've selected. It's easy to forget new phrases or new ideas that you'd like to incorporate in your life. John recommends a few ways to help cement your new soundtracks. You could create post-it notes and place them in areas where you're going to see those post-it notes repeatedly. Or you could go digital. Turn those soundtracks into the wallpaper on your phone or your desktop.

You could borrow from phrases that already resonate with you. There's no need to come up with something elegant or original. You could use a symbol. It could be something as permanent as a tattoo or something less permanent like a bracelet with a phrase on it. Whatever it is, it needs to be simple and visible. And forgive yourself if you don't remember right away. This is an ongoing practice. It's not something that you have to get right the first time or even the hundredth time.

Remember, these new soundtracks that you are trying to incorporate into your life and into your thinking, these are fighting against entrenched, unkind, unhelpful, untrue ideas that have repeated in your mind for years. So it's going to take some effort and some repetition to lock these new ideas into place. Repeat is how you lock it in place. You know, it's kind of like if you've had a soundtrack for five years about money and you write a new one, it needs to have a fighting chance. If you send a brand new doe-eyed baby thought that's good up against a five-year kind of entree. Frenched broken soundtrack, it'll never win.

One observation here, when John is talking about the new soundtracks that he's building in his life, he describes how his family prioritizes being early and being good guests. And the soundtracks that they repeat in order to do that relates to the type of person or the type of family that they want to be. And this is similar to advice that we heard from our previous podcast guest, James Clear, the author of the book Atomic Habits, where he also recommended thinking in terms of the type of person that you want to be. So James Clear recommended asking yourself, hey, would a healthy person eat this thing or would a healthy person do this thing? That association with identity guides your actions.

This conversation with John Acuff echoed a lot of those ideas where soundtracks reinforce certain thoughts, which then reinforce your identity. So if you want to create an identity as, hey, would an investor do something like this? Hey, would a financially independent person do something like this? Then those thoughts reinforce that identity, which then reinforces the behavior. Those are four key takeaways from this conversation with John Acuff. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend or a family member. That's the single most important thing that you can do to spread the message of personal finance, financial independence, and living a better, more deliberate life. Thanks again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I will catch you in the next episode. Thank you.