Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Cleared Hot Episode 16 - Do The Hard Things

Episode Date: September 28, 2017

I am consistently asked by people from all walks of life how they can more effectively "Be The Example." I don't have any tricks or hacks, only a simple (not easy) thought process to guide my personal decision making. To be clear, I could not be further from perfect, and I definitely don't have it all figured out. I fall flat on my face and fail, often. When I pick myself back up, this is the principle that I use. Hopefully someone out there finds it useful.

All right, here we go. This is going to be a quick one. I'm going to tell you that one right up front. I got to catch a flight here in about an hour. Got to pay the bills. But I love this podcast medium because it's the easiest way to respond to a large group of people. And a ton of people have been reaching out since the last two podcasts, which is awesome. But before I get into it, though, the coffee mugs.

I pulled the coffee mugs down off of the store. I found a potential quality control issue with the cleared hot label that was on the front of the coffee mug. It has to do with whether or not you hand washer or you put it into the washing machine, which to me it shouldn't matter and in my mind it's defective. If you hand wash the thing under hot water, it starts coming off a little bit. So if you bought a coffee mug, everybody who bought one got a full refund. I don't know how to do the shipping. I'm still looking into that.

And if I can refund the shipping, I'll refund the shipping to you as well. well because I'm not going to take your money unless it is 100% correct. I'm going to find a solution, maybe make a different type of cup, whatever it is. I'll do a little bit of testing on before I launch them again and we'll get them back into your hands. So if you ordered one though, it did ship, enjoy it. Try to keep it in the dishwasher instead of the washing it with like a sponge under the sink under hot water and hopefully it'll last. But we'll get something back up there. A ton of people reached out to me. They love the idea of being the example, which I'll be the the first to admit is a concept instead of a step-by-step practical guide, which I actually don't

have a step-by-step practical guide. But that's what a lot of the questions came from. I got questions from leaders. I got questions from students, from athletes, from people and relationships. And first and foremost, I'm going to say this. I don't know if I'm qualified to answer any of these questions. When I get into the episode today, it's just my opinion. And the whole goal of today to give something very short and concise, maybe something that will help you with a practical step towards being the example. And I am so happy to hear from people who are reaching out and trying to figure out ways to do more of that

because that's how this country and this world is going to take a step towards being a better place. So keep it coming. Here we go. Before I get into this today, I just want to make a couple of things crystal clear. So I do my best to live by life by the principle I'm going to try to explain. But for one, it's not my original idea. I know that I've heard this from somewhere else. I just don't remember where it is from.

Certainly not my creation. And two, I have my good days and I have my bad. Like I said, I try to do my best. I have days where I do great and I have days where I absolutely fall flat on my face. I by no means have my life completely squared away. That's why I always hesitate to give any type of advice because I truly think that I am underqualified to give it. Having said that, here's what I do that helps me

the vast majority of the time get through my day. I have to start with my belief that it always takes more time to do something wrong. And by wrong, I don't mean good or evil. I mean correctly or incorrectly. It always takes less time to do it right the first time. This is something that I try to reinforce with my kids every single day. I have three young kids and they provide me some really good practical examples of what I'm talking about.

These things come up almost on a day-to-day basis. My children love video games. Or I should say my two boys love playing video games and my daughter loves watching YouTube videos. They don't love doing their homework. So what do they want to do when they get home? They want to kind of decompress from school and go get in front of the video game console, which sometimes I'm fine with, but I prefer that they get all the work they need to do for that day done so they can then go just completely relax and they don't have to spool back up again later in the night.

time and time again, and I remember this too when I was their age. I would rush through the homework as fast as possible with a single goal of completing it. And what would end up happening is I would save time by taking a shortcut, or not necessarily taking a shortcut, but by not doing it correctly and taking the time that I needed to, I would save time in the moment. And what would end up happening is I would fail a test, or I would do the homework improperly, and I would end up having to relearn the lesson, do the homework again,

take the test again, which took probably three to five times in total as much as it would have to sit down and do it properly just once. Another good example that my kids provide me, and this is, it's almost comical because it happens every single day nearly, and it's just an ongoing struggle slash perfect opportunity to make an example of this concept. when I pick my kids up from school, it's almost like pulling the pin on a grenade. When they get into the car, within 15 seconds of being in the car, clothing is like coming off. Shoes are coming off, socks are coming off, backpacks are getting opened.

I'm trying to watch the road and drive, and it just sounds like a tornado in the back seat. By the time we get home, you know, they're running through the door, and it just, it's, It looks like a child grenade went off. There's things everywhere. And I constantly try to reinforce to them that if they just take the time to put their stuff away where they know they're going to be able to find it, they can avoid the situation that occurs almost every morning in our house. And that's 10 minutes before you need to get into a car. Somebody realizes they can't find their homework.

Five minutes before you're ready to go, somebody can't find their shoes. because one of them is in my truck and the other one, for whatever reason, is in the backyard. And I have no idea how it got there. But in their rush to get into the house and be done with their day, they end up spending 15 more minutes than it would take to just hang their backpack up, put their shoes away, and put their homework on the desk. You always have time to do the right thing. And if you do the right thing, it's going to save you time.

So I'll open with that. That's not the principle that I'm going to try to explain, but it kind of ties into my thought process going into that principle. So again, it's incredibly humbling the outreach that I have received since starting the podcast, but truly in the last 72 hours. There has been an outpouring of questions and an outpouring of just communication. and a lot of it, if not the majority of it, like I mentioned in the intro, was questions from people in different story arcs of their life, from young people to, I don't know, probably middle age and old, in a variety of different positions in life,

from athlete to business leader, to people who are in the military, wanting to get my advice on what they should do to embody that be the example that I have on the back of the shirt, one of my favorite sayings. The beauty of this podcast medium is that it gives me the opportunity to respond to the vast majority of those people because there were so many different questions

that I don't think I could get back to all of them and I also think that I'm underqualified to answer quite a few of them. So at the simplest level, when it comes to being the example, the short answer of how you do that is with your actions. And that is incredibly broad. So when it comes to driving my actions, and when it comes to driving anybody's actions, right?

Because I don't care who you are or what you do. Your entire day, every day, is going to be faced with choices. And I also understand that not all choices are good. Oftentimes in the military, especially in an overseas environment, your choices are between poor and bad. You know, I wish the world fit into a nice linear cage where there's good and evil and right and wrong, and the choice was between the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do, and it's not always like that. I understand that there are difficulties, and I understand that there's a lot of nuance involved in that. Regardless, when I look back in my life, you know, the decisions that I can remember making,

the ones that were important where you're standing at that metaphorical, actually, you know what, I'm going to take that back, even the ones that aren't necessarily important, that could be considered trivial. When you're standing at the intersection in the road and you're presented with two, choices or multiple choices, you can always weigh and balance the choices from a scale of easy to hard. I have found nearly every single time that the easy choice is not the choice you should make. If you want to make a difference and you want to be an example, you got to do the hard thing. I personally try to apply that to every single aspect of my life. And it doesn't need to be or It doesn't have to be some monumental task, right?

The pyramids were built a brick at a time, I think, unless they were built by aliens. But this morning, for me, is a perfect example of how at least I try to use that thought process of do the hard thing, on something that's super minor, but for me personally has a great impact on the rest of my day. So I woke up this morning, we have a bathroom downstairs, and I went into the bathroom, and there's no toilet paper. the bathroom. And I have two choices. I could go and get some toilet paper. It's in the garage and it's probably going to take me all of 30 seconds max to go get that. Or I could turn around and go use a different bathroom in the house. What I wanted to do was turn around and go use a different bathroom inside of the house. But instead, I went and got the toilet paper, like four rolls

of toilet paper from the garage, brought them into the bathroom, filled up the toilet paper holder, unwrapped a fresh roll of toilet paper and then set it on top of the toilet paper roll and was getting ready to leave the bathroom and I stopped myself and just I laughed at myself in that moment because it's so seductive to just do the easy thing. It seems so microscopic and it is super microscopic. I mean personally I think the design works better if you put the paper roll on top. My wife wholeheartedly does not agree with me on that and I don't like arguing. about that stuff, so I'm going to do it properly. But in that moment, I almost walked away and I was laughing at myself. And why it's so important for me is that I feel like the decisions I make,

especially early on in my day, they set the tone for my day. And it's almost like I feel like they have this palpable gravity. Knowing I try to be honest with myself. And I know that that action of just setting the toilet paper on the roll in the morning is just, it's, it's, It's putting me down the wrong path mentally for the day because then I'm going to go and I made some breakfast and, you know, I cooked up some eggs and instead of doing the dishes and putting the pan away, it's like, you know what, I'm going to do that later. And then my kids come down and they eat their breakfast and, you know, what was one pan and one plate is now a stack of pans and a stack of plates because my kids need to go to the optometrist.

They wouldn't know a goddamn dishwasher would hit him in the face, but that's this different story for a different day. But now I have a pile instead of one dish. And I know how this works for me when I get started off on the wrong foot. I would get back from dropping the kids off and I would have every intention of working out, but probably would talk myself into doing it in the later time of the day. And the next thing you know, instead of doing the work I needed to do in front of the computer, I'm sitting on the couch with my daughter's unicorn backpack full of Fritos watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta for four hours.

And my day just comes unraveled. Now that's slightly extreme example of what could happen, but yeah, that's happened to me. I don't think I was watching the real housewives of Atlanta, but whatever I was watching was equally senseless. But it starts with that, for me, that gravity of not allowing myself to do the easy, enticing, seductive thing, to do the hard thing because of the impact, not only that it will have on others, but the impact that it has on me and my day. And if you can apply that to the decisions you make throughout your day and the decisions you make throughout your life, that to me is the practical mechanism for being the example.

You know, should I sleep in or should I get up? Do the hard thing. Get out of bed. Should I work out or should I sit on the couch and eat a bag of fritos? Do the hard thing. Go out and get an awesome workout in. And then later in the day, if you want to, have a handful of fritos, not a backpack full. Should I spend some time with my family or look at my phone at the table with them? Yeah, who's guilty of that? I am. And what's the hard thing to do? Put the phone down and enjoy the time with your family. Should I get upset at a comment somebody makes, either to my face or on social media, or should I exercise patience? Exercise the patience. Maintain control of yourself.

Quite a few people reached out to me from leadership positions, and I'm going to probably reinforce this and be a broken record every time I talk about leadership stuff. Leadership should not be exhausting, but you should be very aware that everything that you do and everything that you say is observed. And you need to be very cognizant of that. If you're in a leadership position, people are constantly watching you. it's even more important for you to do the hard things. And what do I mean by that? Or some examples of that, you need to show up early. And if you need to, you need to stay late.

You need to control your emotions. You need to measure what comes out of your mouth. You need to address issues that need to be addressed, and you cannot show favoritism. You have to be balanced across the board. And one of the most important things, And probably one of the hardest things to do is never ask or expect others to do something that you're not willing to do yourself. I had quite a few people reach out to me on what I can only describe as relationship-based questions as well.

And I mean, as far as things that I don't feel qualified or competent to even speak on, this is at the absolute top of the list. but a lot of the people were expressing their questions referencing, I guess what would be the PTSD section that I did on the last podcast and talking about expressing regret for not being able to or not being willing to say something to somebody and then losing the opportunity to say it when either life or fate stepped in. And I have my own struggles with this. I actually on my blog wrote something called the things I wish I had said. And it was when my great uncle was passing away. It really kind of drudged up some things for me that I wish I had said to my own mother before she passed away. Because when I look back at that time in my life, it'd be very

easy for me to plaster the wall with things that would probably stick. And those things I would describe most accurately as excuses for why I couldn't bring myself to say what I wanted to to my mom. But at the end of the day, it was me taking the easy road instead of doing the hard thing. So I personally need a lot of work on the relationship side of the house. I'm by no means perfect when it comes to this. But weighing your choices, weighing your decisions, weighing your actions versus easiest to hardest in finding the value along that scale. Again, I think even when it comes to relationships, doing the hard thing has the most value and long-term impact. You know, is it easier

to ignore an issue in a relationship or to address it head on? Is it easier to apologize to somebody or point a finger at him and tell them that it's their fault? Is it easier? Is it easier to apologize to somebody? is it easier to be the tough person or is it easier to be vulnerable is it easier to open your mouth or to listen i mean i think all of those are very self-explanatory and if you can take a moment in your head and separate emotion and think to yourself which one's easy and which one is the most beneficial you'll realize what it is you need to do you need to do the hard things i'm close this out with the area of my life that is probably the hardest for me, and that is I struggle with comparing myself to other people when what I should be doing is comparing myself

to myself, specifically my previous self. And by that, I mean the guy that used to look to me in the mirror yesterday, because that's really all that matters and that's all that I can control anyway. I'm always trying to remind myself that I'm not in a competition with anybody else and again to go back to what I'm talking about, is it easier to reflect or objectify others? It's so much easier to look at other people, especially on social media, which I hate for the fact that it's incredibly selective

and the number of filters that you can apply, and I don't mean like to a picture, but I mean to the information that you allow the rest of the world to see, you could you and I suspect you could and I suspect that there are a lot of people out there who portray a shiny bubbly sunshine out everywhere image and in reality it's probably the exact opposite of how they feel you have no idea what the real story is with that person but it's so much easier to objectify those people or to compare yourself to them instead of going in and looking in the mirror and reflecting in on yourself and making an improvement or a change and the only place that you can yourself it's hard for

me because you know success is built on super small incremental steps and sometimes they're like microscopic but like i open with on the gravity of the decisions and why it's so important for me and even when i fall flat on my face i still go back to this concept those small incremental microscopic steps for me in my life, the ones that have gotten me towards where I want to be, they're all built on doing the hard things. Why? Because the easy things don't matter. If it's easy, it probably has no value. So if you want to be the example, spend your life doing the hard things. And that's all I got for the week. Got to go catch my flight. I just want to say a quick thank you to again, everybody who is supporting the podcast. Thank you to everybody who is reaching out. Thank you

for the comments. Thank you for the people who have informed me that I say the word especially incorrectly. That was the correct enunciation or pronunciation, I guess it would be. I was saying it ex-specialy. It's funny. Everybody that reached out was like, sir, I don't want to offend you,

but your grammar was incorrect. Hey, there's a reason why I call my blog Confessions of an Idiot. Pretty self-explanatory how I often think about myself in that title. I am totally open. any feedback that people have with the feedback. If you guys like the podcast, do me a favor and just tell somebody about it. And if you have the time and you haven't done it, write a review on iTunes and just help me spread the word. Thanks again to everybody who's listening. Really appreciate it.