Focused - 199: Repotting & Retirement, with Jim Eager

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks and joined by my co-host, the esteemed Mr. Michael Schmitz. How are you doing, Mike? Doing great. Back from vacation. Excited to talk to you today. Yeah, I know. We got on Zoom this morning.

You have a rosy cheeks. I can tell you had a vacation. I love that. We talk about doing these sabbaticals and this week, I'm tomorrow, as we record this tomorrow, I'm heading to Florida for a few days. My daughter's out there doing an internship. I'm gonna hang with her.

I was thinking this morning, does that count as a sabbatical if I'm taking like four days to go out and hang with my daughter? Can I make that sabbatical? Does that count, Mike? That's a vacation, but it's not technically a sabbatical. Okay. Well, we'll go have fun either way.

Yeah, I'm doing that because I was really going to try and do a sabbatical over two months for an early March, but I'm going to do this little vacation. But in two months, I will do a sabbatical. But either way, I'm very happy today to have on the show a good friend of mine. Welcome to the show, Jim Eager. Thank you, David. It's really good to see you. Yeah. Jim and I got to know each other through the Max Barkley Labs, but he's a fellow traveler on the productivity journey and has a lot of interesting thoughts being retired. I've witnessed Jim coaching people about retirement, and I thought this is something that we should share

with the audience. You know, if you're not retired, you will be hopefully someday, or you know somebody who's retired. And there are real challenges with that in the area of focus and kind of life fulfillment. And Jim has got some great ideas on it. We're going to talk about that, but there's a lot more to Jim. Jim, let you tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I retired about nine years ago from my full-time law practice. I practiced in the area of state planning. I was a sole practitioner and before that, I was, for about 33 years, I was in the United States Air Force, either active duty or in the reserves. I had a varied career. I was medical admin when I first went in.

Then I came back in again, active duty as a chaplain. Then I was a judge advocate for the last, probably 10 or 11 years and did a bunch of active duty tours to help support law offices who had people deployed and that sort of thing. So I've been with Macs since the first Mac, as a matter of fact. I was stationed in North Dakota, my not, and walked into a computer store, and they had a Mac sitting on the table.

This was probably the fall of 1984. And I sat down at it and in about five minutes I could be productive on it. And that was totally completely different from my experience with MS-DOS computers at that time. I had been in a doctorate ministry program and I needed to do a thesis prospectus and a doctor friend had an IBM PC. So I went in and used his IBM PC and wrote my thesis and then about 90% of my time was taken trying to figure out how

to get the darn thing to format the way I needed it to. It was horrible. Everything was codes and everything else. Then I sat down with a Mac and it was like, wow, this is so intuitive and easy. And I use that Mac for 10 years in the Air Force mostly and also in my civilian life, doing brochures and advertising and classes and just all kinds of stuff. It was great.

Yeah, you know, I had the same revelation except I did not have the money at the time because I was just a kid but it's It was like a light switch going off the first time you saw a graphical user interface but I mean your career is so interesting to me because You you know, you weren't just a lawyer. You were you had very different roles. I mean how many people were Medical administrators chawinds and lawyers over the course of a career? I like that you've been constantly curious.

I think I haven't decided still yet what I want to do when I grow up. I love that. You know, you've talked in the labs recently about your theory that people need to repot about every 30 years in careers. I think mine's more like about 15 to 20 year time frame. I get bored, you know. I get to a certain level of competence and if it's not something that keeps keeps me intellectually challenged, it's not a lot of different kind of work. I get bored with it and I'm ready to move on to something else. So that's probably part of it also. And of course, part of it

as far as the roles that I've done was just pure luck and interest at the time and that sort of thing too. There really is something to that. I discovered it after I announced I was retiring as a lawyer. I heard from all these people that were out in the world in very successful positions, you know, heads of surgery, tenured professors, and they're all about the 30 year mark and they were all like, I'm so jealous of you, I want out.

And from the external world, they look like they're completely successful and they have it made. But I do think as humans, we do need occasionally to repot for lack of a better word. Let's unpack that repotting because I missed the lab's video or a session, I guess. What do you mean by that?

I mean, I think I kind of get the idea from the brief description here, but let's dig into that a little bit deeper maybe. What do you consider repotting? That doesn't have to be like, Chris Uptchurch was on the podcast and he completely changed his career, went from urban planning to whitewater rafting guide, right? What constitutes a repotting? I think more often than not, it does involve the kind of Chris Uris up church life of evil. I mean, not that everybody does it, you know, but like the, I'm gonna do a YouTube video on it

at some point I have a script written about this, but I feel like there is like, like Jim said, you know, human curiosity is what drives a lot of us. I know for myself it does. And you get good at a thing and you do it for decades. And there comes a point where you lose interest and you lose the energy for it. And I do think repotting yourself could mean like as a lawyer, you could say, well, I'm going to go from being a trial lawyer to a transactional lawyer. In fact, I tried to do that, but it wasn't

enough of a repotting for me. And I think that for a lot of people, they're just looking for something else to do at that point. A lot of people I heard from because of their success, they were looking at going into a teaching career, just to say, well, that would be different and I have this expertise I can share,

so maybe I'll start teaching about it or, you know, but, but, and it seemed to me like a very common denominator around it was about 30 years. And when I mentioned it in the labs, again, I got an influx of email from people around that 30 year mark saying the same thing. And, um, I think it's something to be aware of as you go through your career, that there's a good chance at some point as much as you love it right now. It is no longer going to be the thing.

Do you think it has to be a major break from what you did though? Like, I know we mentioned Chris Upchurch and that one was pretty, pretty radical. I just left a day job about a year ago. So that feels pretty radical, but looking through kind of what you've done, Jim, it kind of sounds like there's another path here where you can just be curious and interested in something and start doing it. And then that becomes a bigger deal. And then eventually you're just like, Oh, well, I'm going to go do this now. And it's sort of a side step instead of a leap. Is that a fair description?

Yeah, I think so. When I look back at the careers that I've had, I mean, the medical admin one was I initially joined the Air Force because I was working with a church in Bozer City, Louisiana, where almost everybody were members of the Air Force. And I knew I needed more education. I only had a couple of years of junior college at that point and a year of more biblical training. But I felt like I needed more education, but by that point, you know, I had a wife and a child and I needed the GI Bill to help me. I found out about that and I thought, well, that would be great. You know, that way I have a way to go back to school. So when I went into the Air Force, it was really kind of luck as to what

they put me in. You know, I just happened to get lucky and wind up in a nice indoor job like medical admin as opposed to something like security police. But I think the transition from ministry to legal was more of a lot of transfer of skills. It was the same skills. I'd always been very much a teacher in my ministry career. Did a lot of research and teaching, and even in my sermons and whatever.

And those are ingrained in me. Those are, that's part of my personality profile. It'd be very analytical and to enjoy teaching. And I think it was a service kind of an approach also. You know, I was serving people in ministry and then I felt like I was serving people in the law as well, especially when I got away from family law, which I was doing early on and got into estate planning. I was doing almost all teaching and, you know, in helping people to come up with with plans that would actually work for them after after they were gone so I think there was a lot of of the same kinds of

Skills that I developed in ministry which transferred very well to what I did in The legal career as a matter of fact the way I got into the legal career was not, you know, gee, I've always wanted to be a lawyer, but it was from doing personality profiles where it kept, you know, how they always, a lot of times these profiles at the end, they analyze who you are and then they say, well, here are typical jobs that you would be good at. And lawyer was always close to the top of the list. So that's what got me thinking about it and when I made the move to that field. Have you always just kind of seen what was interesting and, you know, taken that step and tried something new and then realize all these skills transfer over or do you have some sort of. Like north star that you use to determine what are the right things that are worth chasing like David talks about the roles and goals of the life theme do you have something like that.

I'd like to be able to say that I had a detailed plan and I follow this plan to find to make each career change in my life. But that would be baloney. It's really, it's really just what felt right at the time and felt good and the opportunity I had at the time and that kind of thing. So, you know, now it wasn't, it wasn't totally analytical and preplanned. I don't think. That's OK, Jim. I think I have you filled yet to meet the person who lived a life that was preplanned, I don't think That's okay, Jim. I think I have you filled yet to meet the person who lived a life that was preplanned

At least at least was preplanned and is happy Mm-hmm. I think that's an essential part of it is the experimentation. I kind of think if you have a plan you're not able to uh, think a plan, you're not able to think big enough about what are the possibilities, some of the most fulfilling experiences I've had, were not things I ever wanted to do. They were things I actively resisted and kind of walking into the things that have provided me the most meaning as required embracing the discomfort, not naturally things that I would engage with or lean towards.

So forcing myself to try some of those new things and then after the experience realize that that was actually very life-giving. Sure. And the same thing happened to me when I left the working world and went into retirement as well. You know, when I retired, I really had no clue what to expect and what it was going to be like. I had some presuppositions about it and I had some ideas about, oh well, these are some things. I remember making a list. You know, I'm a planner, so I made some lists of things. Oh, here are

some things I'm interested in that maybe I could do while, you know, when I retire. But I really had absolutely no clue as to the idea that there were, for instance, phases of retirement and what I would expect to go through in each one of those phases. I just kind of stumbled into retirement with almost no psychological preparation. And then I had to figure it out as I went along.

It wasn't until after I'd kind of gone through the catharsis of going through the four phases that I found out there were four phases. So part of what I'd like to do is try and talk to people, either people who are approaching retirement or people who have been retired but still really don't know what's going on or maybe are depressed or whatever, and share this information. That's not from me. It's from a YouTube video that I stumbled across that really helped me to understand what I had gone

through, and I'm hoping that by knowing about that, other people will have a clue when they start as to what to expect, so they won't be fumbling around trying to figure out what in the world is going on with me. This episode of Focus is brought to you by Vitaly. Customer success teams today face a problem. How do they connect customer data back to their work? And Vitaly makes that easy by giving you a new kind of customer success platform.

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Our thanks to Vitally for their support of the Focus podcast and all of Relay FM. All right, Jim, so you teased us a little bit before the ad. Just fill out a little bit more for me what happened for you after you retired. Okay. You know, we retired. I I was in Southern Oregon and we retired to a retirement community in the Northwest Phoenix area one of the Sun City Sun City West so it was a age restricted Community where everybody was 55 and and above so we retired and

everybody was 55 and above. So we retired and we went through the experience that most people have that's called the first phase of retirement, which is vacation time. And this comes from this TED Talk by Dr. Riley Moynes, which is just excellent. It's only a 13 minute video, but it really helps a lot. But when you retire, you know, everybody pretty much experiences this vacation period where it's great. I mean, it's like full-time vacation. Instead of going away to Florida for five days,

you're going away to Florida for the rest of your life or whatever, you know, and you can get up when you want, you can do what you want all day, there's no routine, there's no schedule, so it's totally different from a work kind of environment. And you can really enjoy that for the first year or two, because you just do whatever you want. But eventually, that feeling of fun, fun, fun kind of wears thin. And then I went into what's called the feeling lost and feeling lost period. You realize that you've lost your purpose, your identity, relationships that you've lost your purpose, your identity, relationships that you had in

your working life are gone, you've lost your routine, and in some cases people lose their power, and you start questioning, you know, who am I? What's my identity? What's my purpose? I want to unpack that for a minute because I do think that is something that a lot of people make a mistake with their careers is the combination of identity with what you do, right? Sure. And I'm aware of that. There are people in my life that I see doing that and some of them I've been actively counseling

them that you have to separate that. life that I see doing that and some of them I've been actively counseling them That you know you have to separate that you are not Your work title you are not the person that does the work that makes it you know There's more to you than that because I feel like the more you Throughout your career and if you're listening to this if you're 70 or if you're 20 Doesn't matter The more you identify yourself with what you do, you know, there'd be dragons there. I agree.

On the other hand, I don't think it's an either or. I think it's a both and from the way I look at it. I think that what I do is very much a part of my identity. It's how I define myself and how other people define me. And I think that's okay to a certain extent, but I think there's also and I struggle for words to describe it, but I think there's also this independent identity that resides within each of us that's always there, which is how we view ourselves and how we view ourselves as a person and those kinds of things. So I tend to look at it more as kind of a both and, but I think you're absolutely right that many people, maybe most people in our culture, identify totally with what they do.

And it's not just people who are working outside the home. I mean, that I think that's part of the whole emptiness syndrome that was talked about in prior years that, you know, women tend to identify as a homemaker, tend to identify totally with that role of being mother. And when the kids grew up and left, they have no identity anymore. And I think the same thing happens with people whose total identity is their work as well. Yeah. Do you think it's... I was thinking about it because I'm trying to counsel a friend on this and one of the things I know is that she spends all her time on work. She talks to work people, she goes to work, she doesn't have interest outside of work. And the thing that worries me is like she's one layoff away from a complete crash. You know, what do you,

you know, and, and it's like, I do think it's very easy for people to fall into that trap. Yeah. And I think you've touched on the visible manifestation of total identity with a job. I mean, as I think back about, even when I was in the Air Force, sometimes I had jobs that I really enjoyed. Sometimes I had jobs that I really enjoyed. Sometimes I had jobs that I really didn't enjoy, even in medical admin that far back, back in the 70s. And, but I always had lots of other interests, you know?

I played, I did a lot of history reading. I played war games, World War II. I've always been interested in World War II. I played World War II war games've always been interested in World War II. I played World War II Wargames that I bought at like pennies. I played soccer for an adult league. I had lots of other things that I lived for besides just my job. So when I left that job, that wasn't the only thing that was me. So I think I've always kind of been that way. I've always had lots of other interests that I think you're right. Sometimes people don't have anything

except what they do. And when you lay that over retirement, boy, that is really troubled waters, right? Because yeah, suddenly, you know, that ends. And that's what I always try to counsel people on that. I noticed this tendency in this, you know, at some point that will no longer be your job. I don't know when, you know, but at some point it won't be. So what's left of you at that point and make sure that there is something, right? Right.

And the really bad thing is, is what it often leads to with retirees is depression. A lot of times I saw drinking, sometimes other drug misuse, but just no sense of purpose or point of living. And it's kind of like, well, I'm just gonna buy time until I die now. And it was awful. I thought a lot about a lot of the couples,

friends that we have that are still at Sun City West. And a lot of them, I think, felt this lost and feeling lost, but they never really broke through to the third level, which would be trial and error, and the fourth phase, which is reinvent and repurpose, and they kind of get stuck at level two. And the way they deal with that, I think, a lot of times is through busyness. You know, I don't want to think about how I feel like I have no purpose or anything, so I'm just going to fill out my time by doing lots and lots of stuff. I'm going to do lots of socializing and all the social clubs that existed in the

community. I'm going to go on a cruise every other month or a trip overseas or something. And they were extremely busy people, but pretty shallow people too, too, you know, when you started talking with them about deeper things. This is not just a retiree problem, by the way, that you just described there, but hiding behind the busyness. Right. One of the things that I do on the internet is my wife and I lead this life theme cohort, we call it which a life theme is a term that, as far as I know, I came up with, but it's basically a theme for your life.

And it's kind of like an individual personal mission statement based on your core values. And we walk people through this process that I kind of stumbled on for identifying my life theme. And every single time we go through it with people, I can see this struggle playing out in front of me via the Zoom camera that you're describing where it's like we are so attached to what we're doing.

We don't wanna stop doing that because we're kind of scared to see what is really there beneath the surface. As long as we are just focused on running the kids to soccer practice and doing all the things that we committed to 10 years ago that we never stopped to ask, is this still the right thing for me to be doing? We don't have to answer those tough questions. So the whole purpose of the cohort is kind of to force people to think about those things.

And then I see this progression where people initially are like, I don't want to do that. I'm really scared about it. Then they get depressed because they realize that they don't really have that, but then they build it and then they get all excited. Right. And I think that that's important. Like you have to wrestle with that stuff and don't be scared of it because yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable when you go through it, but ultimately the payoff is on the other side.

Yeah. I think, I think what you're talking about also or what I'm perceiving you talking about and what I experienced was I had never really gotten a sense and a clear and clarity about what's my purpose in life, what's my mission in life, those kind of questions. You know, I've done the usual, I've done retreats where you're supposed to look at, make a list of values and then pick the top five and then pick the overarching value and all of that and none of that worked for me. You know, it just, I was just left in the same frustration that when I started that process, that did not compute for me. And I still wound up, you know, people talk about their mission in life and I was like, I don't think I have a mission in life. So, you know, it wasn't until my finding mission in life and purpose and all of that, overall stuff, came as a part of this retirement crisis

that I went through, of the feeling lost and feeling lost, and then kind of seeing what was out there and trying some things, so trial and error, and then eventually got to the reinvent and repurpose and fortunately that's That's I have been following David for a number of years. I mean I I got his Mac at workbook his eye didn't you have an iPad at workbook? Oh, Jimmy never told me that boy. That's that's some old-school catalog there

Yeah, yeah, well, I school catalog there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I, I did that. I followed you because I was interested in Max and you were also a lawyer who is interested in Max. So then after I retired and I, I got into this feeling loss and feeling loss thing, one of the things I, I, I, I tried, I guess as and error, was I had encountered some productivity materials before, like getting things done and some other concepts while I was practicing, but hadn't ever really gone deep into that. So one of the things I did during this period of when I was starting to look around and say, well, what is there is get really much more into productivity.

So I, you know, I read a bunch of books like Chris Bailey's Productivity Project, Deep Work, my, is that Cal Newport? Yep. Yeah. And, you know, a bunch of other, a bunch of other of the key books. And I really got into listening to Mac Power users, Focus Podcast. I used a lot of materials from Sweet Setup when you were working with them, Mike, and did a lot of their courses.

You know, I bought the whole course package and worked through and figured out how to use apps and all of that. But what a lot of all of that productivity material did for me is, especially David's material and Chris Bailey's stuff as well, was say you got to have a reason why you're doing what you do. And of course that connected with my my old well I don't really have a life purpose and I don't really have a life mission and and right now I'm not sure what my purpose in life is. So you know that kind of sparked that interest again and because I was following David very closely

and his blogs and stuff at that time, I think that was pre-Max Barkey Labs. This was back in like, what, 2020 and 2021. I ran across David's, he put out a little video and a PDF on doing personal retreats. And that spoke to me like nothing else had. It was like, wow, that makes perfect sense. I got to try this. So I think you put that out in October of 2020. And then in January of 21 the two of you did a focused podcast on roles and goals and I remember listening to that again as I was

driving to my first retreat in the end of January of 21. So that's the productivity journey. And then that's when I got into the process that got me to stage four, which was the reinvent and repurpose. Well, in fairness, Jim, I happen to know loves all those old Greeks. And so my little system, my Hellenistic-based productivity system, you were the perfect audience for it, Jim. So I'm glad that it did help you. Jim Il'Alienski Well, I really hadn't done that much with, you know, my knowledge of Greek and everything comes from being, well, I had been, you know, in theological school, of course, I did New Testament Greek, point A Greek.

I learned that and I actually wound up tutoring some classes in that because the guy that became my mentor was the Greek teacher. But I also was stationed in Greece for three years as part of the Air Force. So that was the background, but I wasn't really all that familiar. I didn't really know Epict familiar. I didn't really know Epictetus I didn't know Marcus Aurelius. I kind of knew the names, but I really didn't know much about it. It was really more so just the approach that you have of using of using life roles as

a basis for figuring out what your purpose is and you know writing the Aratay statements and all of that sort of thing. It just clicked with me and it made sense to me like nothing else had before that I'd encountered. So you know I went and did my retreat. I took I think about three days actually a couple of overnights and Worked through and tried to figure out what my roles were and write RIT statements and that sort of thing and then through the years the next couple of years just kind of followed you Because what you would do is every once in a while you'd produce a little snippet of what you were doing in that area. So you'd talk about doing quarterly

reviews or monthly reviews and then you'd talk about daily planning and as you would talk about it I would think oh that makes sense I need to add that to my system. So that's kind of kind of my take on how I followed you. This episode of the Focus Podcast is brought to you by Nom Nom. Go to Trinom.com slash Focus, healthy fresh food for dogs formulated by top board certified veterinary nutritionists, prepared in their kitchens with free delivery to your door. And with that link, you get 50% off. Your dog is a member of the family.

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That's spelled T-R-Y-N-O-M dot com slash focused for that 50% off trinom.com slash focused. Go today, your dog will thank you tomorrow. And thank you Nom Nom for all of your support of the Focus Podcast. Well, I wanna go back though, to talk about that first retreat though, because I think for a lot night? Get that feeling like what on earth am I doing? I left my wife at home You know, I've gone off on this thing like some spiritual guru and I'm trying to figure things out I mean, what was your feelings as you went through it and and how did it work for you that first time?

No, I didn't feel those kind of feelings at all. I felt excited I mean just by reading it and, you know, I'd spent a lot of time watching your video. I spent a lot of time working, you know, looking through and rereading the personal retreat guide that you had, the little PDF. And it just all made sense to me. And I was looking forward and excited to start doing this and dig into it and see what happened. So it wasn't the, it wasn't the, oh, well, I'm not sure what I'm doing and this seems really weird and that sort of thing. It was more like grabbing onto a, grabbing onto a, what's the word I'm looking for? It's like, you know, when you're on a ship or something and someone's out in the water and you throw them up. grabbing onto what's the word I'm looking for.

It's like, you know, when you're on a ship or something and someone's out in the water and you throw them out. A life is, yeah, life preserver. Yeah, yeah, life preserver. That's what I'm looking for. It was like grabbing a hold of a life preserver and saying, wow, this is the first thing that I've seen that really makes sense.

I wanna do this. So I didn't have those negative feelings about it. I was just happy to do it. Yeah, because I do hear from people who try it, and they're like, you know, the first night I felt like silly, but then by the third day I got it. And I'm glad you didn't go through that. But you were also at that time, you were coming out of phase two. And, you know, so you weren't, you were probably looking for something to hold on to. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it really is helpful and giving yourself some time to work through these issues. Mike was talking earlier about people in his course who come through it and they discover they're using busyness to mask emptiness.

I think the modern world really makes that easy. In the olden days, we didn't have as many distractions, so you were forced to be alone with your thoughts. I think that would encourage people to think more about these questions. But today you can't get in line at the grocery store without having a ready form of distraction in your pocket. And I think it keeps people from thinking about those big things. Because Mike, like you, I've seen that in the Productivity Field Guide webinar series where people go through and they do the RTA and the roles. And they're like, they look at me and they're like, but these don't match what I want for my life. It's like they look almost panicked when they go through the process and realize the stuff they're doing isn't the stuff that

they want to do. And it's like they were waking up from a dream. That's a good thing though, right? Yeah, I agree. It is a good thing. And the other thing that I see with the life theme cohort is there are a handful of people who are in that later stage of their life, they're retired, and they don't wanna think about it because they don't want to feel regret like they were chasing the wrong thing.

But also, I would argue that no matter what point of life you're at, you will get value in asking those tough questions. It's kind of tied to the whole idea of Memento Mori in that none of us have unlimited time here, but whatever time we have left, let's make the best use of it. And the way that we do that is to make sure that we're moving in the right direction of the true north. That's what I feel like all this stuff does is it provides you a compass. And it's not a matter of what's right, what's wrong. It's really just identifying like, what is the thing for me? Let's actually maybe talk about some of the, I'll use the term life theme, but Jim, you mentioned like you have your purpose figured out.

And I'm guessing that yours is not super specific. Like I do this exact thing with these exact people. Mine is I help people find their why multiply their time in talent, leave a bigger dent in the universe. And that's kind of purposely ambiguous because when I consider the opportunities before me, I'm always looking for a way that I think what I'm about to do can plug into this. And if it doesn't, then it's an automatic no, but that doesn't prevent me from trying some things and seeing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, you know. But as long as I think there's a possibility

that this could connect, then that's the requirement for me saying yes to something. Does your experience kind of align with that? Or what does your purpose look like for the stage of life that you happen to be in? And how do you use that to identify, this is the stuff that's worthwhile for me? OK, right now, I would say my primary purpose is to become a better person by

fulfilling the best as I can, the roles that I have. And I like that because it gives me concrete things to work on, especially when you drill down to the RTA statements. You know, this is my best possible behavior in this particular role. Fulfilling those things gives me very specific things to work on, but on the other side of that, I really like the fact that it's very open-ended also. It, because my roles are subject to changing, which they have, even in the last few years,

you know, it always allows for new things to be there and to find new areas for that purpose to apply to. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. Well, it sure makes sense to me because that's my system. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Sounds familiar, huh? Yeah, exactly, exactly. It is, I think, important though that you've thought through the question. And that's the problem what I was alluding to earlier, I think, important though that you've thought through the question. That's the problem when I was alluding to earlier is I think it is very easily in the modern world to go through an autopilot and kind of getting back to the momentum-morry thing. Like, I've heard from octogenarians going through my productivity field-going course

who are very excited about pursuing their roles in R&T. That's very encouraging to me. But one of the things that stood out to me is in the last few years, I've had a few people around me pass away and a couple of them did live a life of purpose and watching them finish life versus some other friends

that did not really have a purpose ever and how miserable they were. I think this is a realization that will occur to you regardless of what you do about it at the end. And I think that, you know, the time is now to figure these things out. And as a retiree, people who are further along in life, I think that realization is closer to the surface. I had an 86 year old right, and he said, man, I wish I knew about this stuff when I was 20. And I told him, me too, I wish I knew about this. I was 22, but I do think that the fact that we,

none of us are getting out of this alive, and this thought of, of making it matter becomes easier to, to understand and, and absorb as you get older. But, but hopefully the things we're all doing here can encourage people a little younger to also start to think about this stuff because Because that's what you want. You want to get to the end and say, man, I gave it everything I had and I did what I could. And then you're, you know, I think that is the way to live your life.

Yeah, I agree. I think I would guess that the people that you're talking about that just kind of died relatively quickly that never found any purpose or identity in life, are people who got stuck probably in phase two. And they just gave up, you know, and they got depressed and they're just treading water, and there's no meaning or purpose in life, you're just waiting to die.

And that's a really sad place, I think, to be. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people, a lot of retirees who never get out of phase two. Oh, yeah. I've told you offline about that. When I was a lawyer, I had a lot of clients that retired over my 30-year career. And most of them retired. They owned their own business, and they retired on their terms, and most of them retired, you know, they owned their own business and they retired on their terms

and most of them had enough money to live comfortably the rest of their lives. And it was shocking to me how like, there'd be two partners in a business and, you know, two years later, I'd check in on them and one of them would be going to the top of Machu Picchu and the other one was already in the ground. And it really was just that one found a sense of purpose

after retirement and the other didn't and he died. And that wasn't, that was common. Like a lot of them would die. And then so much of that sometimes I would see clients that would work into their eighties because I think they were afraid. Like at some level, they knew they didn't really have anything else going on. And if they retired, that they would die. And it's just a, it's something I saw repeatedly.

And I never really thought about it until I talked to you because there is a process for this. Another reference I would give people is that book, Eakey Guy. I've talked about it on the show before, but it's they went to an island in Japan where they had the most centenarians, the most people a hundred or older in the world, the highest percentage of them. And they ultimately decided that the reason they were all living so long as they all had purpose, you know, whether it was their bonsai or their whatever they they got they jumped out of bed every day And they had something to do and I think that's a huge part of this

Yeah, I think so too I've got that book you had mentioned it a couple years ago And I've got a couple of highlights in my read wise that deal exactly with that where they say one of the things that surprised them When they went there was how active older people were. And I think there's different definitions of active retirement. You know, they talked about the community we were in as being, quote, active retire, a place for active retirement. But they didn't mean purpose and having an identity and that sort of thing. What they meant there was busy.

You know, they're staying maybe a little more physically active than some retirees do. You know, they're playing pickleball or whatever, but going on lots of cruises and being in social clubs and all that kind of stuff, but it wasn't the same kind of active as what the authors of that book described on that island in Japan.

That was a more of a continuation of a sense of purpose and a sense of contributing and identity and all of that, which is exactly what a lot of retirees, I think probably almost all retirees lose when they get into phase two. It's just a question of whether they're going to move on from phase two into three, and then sometimes people get stuck at phase three. You know, they're trying different things, And then sometimes people get stuck at phase three. They're trying different things, but nothing seems to stick. They can't seem to find anything. And they never make it to four, which is that repurpose and having re-identity and all

of that as well. One of the things that stands out to me with the Ikigai diagram, because it's this Venn diagram of what you love, what the world needs, what you can be paid for, and what you're good at. And there's a bunch of different overlaps there where like what you're good at and what you can be paid for, that's your profession, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs, that's your vocation. I'm assuming that when you go through retirement, that kind of disrupts your Iki guy even if you have one because now that large circle at the bottom of that diagram, what you can

be paid for is no longer a significant part of your life. So how do you reconcile that in terms of finding a purpose or a mission. Is it as simple as you just kind of lean into some of the other, and this is phase two, you've been hit by a bus. You know, you've lost your identity, you've lost your purpose, you've lost the friends that you had at work, you've lost power, you've lost all different kinds of things. And part of that is like you said, getting paid for your work. I don't know, for me, it was more a sense of freedom than anything else, because it gave me the opportunity to create what I wanted to do without worrying about it,

as David would say, paying for my shoes. I could, I have a blog that I write. You know, I started one in, in 2021 and wrote that for about a year and a half, stopped that, started another one that ran concurrently and that's the one I have now. Well, I don't have to worry about that making money for me. I can, I can write it. It costs me money. Instead of making money, I can find a lot of fulfillment and purpose in writing that blog every week without having to tie it to economics. Yeah, that's basically it. You know, kind of what I'm looking at with that,

the Ikigai. And I'll grab a visual and I'll put it in the show notes for people. So they have a reference point, but you've got these overlapping circles and then it's basically what occurs to me is when you retire, one of those circles disappears. So you may have your Iki guy perfectly balanced and then all of a sudden, your whole world

is turned upside down and you have to reconfigure things. And I think if you have a flexible mindset and you're willing to figure things out, you can adapt to that a lot easier than if you've been very rigid and attached to this specific identity and this is who I am. And you kind of mentioned it tied to what you do. You have to be flexible. You have to constantly be willing to adapt. And maybe the right word is evolve

for a different stage of your life. But it's not just related to retirement. I think that you can apply the concept just about anywhere. But retirement specifically, it occurs to me in the discussion of IkiGuy. That can feel like having one of the legs of your stool just ripped out from underneath you. Yeah, it can feel like having all the legs of your stool being ripped out from under you.

And I think that's why it's so important for people to have this concept of these phases of retirement, it would be a whole lot better to have that before you retired than after you've gone through the process like I did and then say, oh, that's what I did. And it's like to my point earlier about your identity with work, the bigger that identity of your job is, the bigger crater it leaves when you retire. And I do think, but that's not just something like we've been saying repeatedly that you should think about at the time of retirement. I think throughout your life, that should be a balance that you seek.

Jim, what if people listening to this are not at retirement age, but there are people around them at retirement age. How can we help our senior friends and families navigate these waters? I think one of the best ways just to start is to direct them to that, that Ted talk by Dr. Moines. Again, it's only 13 minutes, but it's just packed with information. And I try and think about, you know, imagine how different things may have been if I at least had a clue before I retired, as opposed to after I went through the process. And then it was like the light went off and it was like, oh, okay, that's what I went through the process and then it was like the light went off and it was like, oh, okay That's what I went through for several years. I wish I'd known this before, you know that kind of a thing

So I think I think that would be one thing and talk to them about the need to prepare psychologically for retirement because our culture Our culture does nothing, I think, to prepare people psychologically for retirement. It's all about financial.

Anytime you see stuff about retirement, what is it? You need to be prepared financially for retirement. I mean, we did the same thing and you do. You do need to be prepared financially, but I think there's really that need for psychological preparation to at least have a clue about what to expect in retirement and not just go into it kind of blindly like I felt like I did. Yeah, I mean, you are the first person to ever talk to me about this and I'd never thought about it, you know like I guess

Shallowly I always did think well you retired then you have you have controlled your time It is like vacation forever, but I guess you're right it if you if you want to live a life of purpose That's not enough. Yeah, and we're really our culture. I think really really sets up retirees new retirees for a fall because you're right. The cultural idea of retirement is that it equals being non-productive. It means you get to be on vacation forever. And it's just fun. The problem is, now with life expectancy so far extended, I mean, you're not going to be retired probably

for five years or ten years. It's more like 35 years. And it's a long, long time to be treading water. And I think that's why, for instance, you talk about knowing people who died after a couple of years They had no sense of purpose or whatever. I think it's a whole I mean It's like one third of your life just about for a lot of retirees and You need to be prepared for that just like you'd need to be prepared as Best you can when you go from being in college to going out into the job market as a young adult or

Whatever any phases of life like that One of the points you've made throughout this interview, which I want to make sure we send home is the idea that you shouldn't start this process after you retire No, don't do it like I did So what would you recommend to folks that are like maybe you know five years from retirement? No, no, don't do it like I did. So what would you recommend to folks that are like maybe, you know, five years from retirement? What are the steps they could take to start giving themselves a better shot at this?

Well, you know, in addition to getting familiar with what happens, you know, the phases of retirement, I think that's key. But it's like the 80, what 86 year old told you, he wish he knew this when he was 20. I mean, the more of this stuff you can have figured out about an overarching life purpose, the better you're gonna be off in retirement. I think it would make the transitions much easier.

If I had gone into this already with the concept of a roles-based system, and the idea that my real purpose in life is to be the best I can in all of my different roles, and to have the goal of becoming a better person all of the time and had a system for doing that. Well, I don't see why that system works for people while you're working full-time. And I think it would work just as well, and it has in my life anyway, after you're retired and you leave that. So I would think it would make those transitions much easier and flow much better if you already had that figured out instead of waiting until you were in the middle of crisis to figure it out.

Yeah. I'll tell you like personally, one of my realizations over the last several years is how much I enjoy getting out of bed every day. Like, you know, not only do I love getting out of bed and doing things like talking to you on this podcast, but there like the stuff I do these days, I just love doing it.

In fact, it's not even the morning, it's the evening, when I lay in bed at night, I eagerly await the stuff I'm going to do the next day. But that wasn't always the case in my life. I feel like it was like a 30 year journey for me to get to a point where I could be like that. But now that I'm there, it's non-negotiable for me. I am not going to make changes in my life

that ever lead to me not going to bed eager to work the next day. And I think that is something you can start working on right now no matter where you are. And not just retirement, but just throughout your life. Maybe I'm just rambling here, but it's a realization that has been quite enlightening for me that that is the way that's like the barometer of life for me. Because I do remember days in the legal career where, you know, Sunday nights were dread filled and getting up and going to work in the morning was not, not, not like it is now. Yeah, I think and I think all that I hear you saying, I'm thinking of what you're saying and I'm thinking, well, that's because he knows who he is and he knows what's important in his life and he has a system for doing the things that he intends to do and is actually doing that in life. Yeah.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I'm living consistently with my art and my roles, but that's the thing that I do. But I didn't know that always, and I didn't always do that. And there are different systems. Like, Mike's got a very interesting way to talk about it too. And there's a lot of ways to figure this out. There's not just one, but what I'm hearing from you is that that ultimately is what got you out of phase two as well.

And I think this applies to everybody, no matter where they are in life. Yeah. And the more you can have that, before you hit retirement, I think the better off you're gonna be. And like you say, the system, the role system, that's not gonna work for everybody. You know, some people are going to be attuned

to other kinds of systems that help them to find their purpose, overall purpose and identity, and sense of purpose in life. But for you and for me, this has been the key to get there, I guess. It's always, I don't want to sound like, oh yeah, I've arrived. I am there. I'm know, I'm working on this stuff, but it gives me specific goals to shoot for and it gives me, it gives me an overall sense that this is my purpose in life and here's what I do, you know, so, you know, it's great that way, but it's not going to work for everybody. In fact, I'd almost counsel people that any system that people tell you, you there isn't a rival point as part of the system that you're going to get there and you like, quote unquote, win, you know, be careful around systems like that.

I'm not sure that's something you want to be involved with. If I could add one thing to that, I would say that the real value comes from the fight for intentionality. I think I have less experience than both of you guys, but I think the key is not to just follow a default path and assume that that will somehow magically end up being fulfilling and reveal to you your purpose. You have to figure that out and then you have to wrestle back control of your life, whatever that looks like for whatever stage you're in, and make sure that the things that you are choosing to do, the things that you are choosing to engage with are in alignment with who you want to become and what you want your

life to be about. The sooner that you start fighting that fight, the happier overall your life will be. And I think fight is the right verb there. You have to struggle for this. I think you're exactly right, Mike. I think intentionality. When I look at overall how things work for me, that intentionality is so key. from David and I'm determining what my intentions are at the stage of identifying my roles and writing my best possible behavior statements. And then I take those intentions and I intentionally do those things through the system that follows up with that of quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily planning. That's where I take those intentions that I created for myself back in the early parts

of the process and actually intentionally do those things. So it's all about attention to me. What are my intentions? Now how am I going to implement those intentions? And that's what a system does for me anyway, personally. Yeah, I mean, if we can just control ourselves in the moment and direct ourselves in the moment, then that's all we need.

But boy, is that difficult. Boy, is that difficult. Yeah, one thing I did wanna make a point of while we're talking about retirement in general is when I talk about productivity and this system and living up to all my RIT statements and all of that, retirement for me doesn't have to be all work and no play. It doesn't mean that in order to have a successful retirement, I have to be writing blog posts

all the time or working on other projects all the time. I mean, the way I look at it is, hey, I'm retired. I can spend more time because of the I'm lucky in the situation I'm in. I can spend doing more time doing the things that I like to do, which are more the hobby areas. You know, I like to hike. I like to backpack. I like to play war games on my computer. I like to spend time with my wife hiking and going on day trips and overnights and all of that sort of thing. So I have a lot of flexibility built into my schedule as well. And to me, that's fine, you know, but I, but even those really fit under my Aaritae statements as well, I guess, as I think through it. But sometimes I feel

a little guilty because, wow, I've got all this time, kind of like the Memento Mori thing, you know, I feel like I've got all this time available and I'm not filling every moment with quote unquote productive stuff. And I almost feel guilty about that. And then I try and talk myself out of that by saying, well, these fit under being productive in the sense of having a productive life.

And I've got more margin than you guys have. You know, I listened to you, David talking about email and Mike also, you know, talking about the struggle of email. I don't have a struggle with email. You know, I get an email and I'm like, oh boy, I have an email from somebody else. So that's just another point I kind of wanted to make during this time was, retirement doesn't have to be all work and no play. That's not what I'm talking about.

I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah, but I would follow up on that point that to the extent you've listened to our show and you think that you need to be productive all the time, I apologize, because that is not the goal. I mean, honestly, you're doing it right, Jim. I mean, the point is to use the productivity stuff to give yourself the margin to do the things. Like I, at the top of the show, I explained, I may go visit my daughter.

She's doing this internship. I just want to check in on her. She doesn't need me there. She's doing fine. I was talking to her yesterday. She's doing this internship. I just want to check in on her. She doesn't need me there. She's doing fine. I was talking to her yesterday. She's doing all these things. Maybe I'm actually an intrusion in her life for a few days. But you know what?

I work hard and I'm gonna take some time off and go hang out with her anyway and she's stuck with me. And that's the point of this stuff is to get yourself in a spot where you can go do things like that even before you retire and enjoy your life because the point here isn't to crank widgets till the end. It's in the title of the show. Right. And I know that intellectually, but sometimes I still feel a little guilty. Oh yeah, me too. Me too. We all do it. We all do it. Oh yeah, me too. Me too. We all do it. We all do it, you know.

It's like, um, or even like, um, because I recommend planning so much, um, and people often ask me about that. They're like, well, I tried it, but then I didn't stick to the plan. I'm like, you know, welcome to the club. I didn't stick to the plan yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, I ended up spending the somehow I ended up and I had all this stuff planned to do before this trip and instead I spent the afternoon in the wood shop goofing off. Just because I felt like that's what I needed. And sometimes, what's your quote with Eisenhower Mike? Plans, planning is it, well plans mean nothing, but planning means everything.

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There you go. Now I was thinking Mike probably never has any feelings of guilt for not doing enough or goofs off or anything like that. No, he's perfect. It's probably just our problem. He's perfect.

Yeah, it's probably just our problem. No, actually, I think it's exponentially worse, maybe, for me because I am in this season where I'm building my business and it can't happen fast enough. So, there's always more to do. I feel the pressure every single day, like I cannot stop working right now or when I get up in the morning, it's time to get to work. It's really hard to fight the urge to do things. I know intellectually, like you said, Jim, that that's ultimately not the best approach in that if I work 60, 70, even 80 hours a week, I'm losing real productivity there. I'm putting more hours in, but the output isn't necessarily any better, but it's still a struggle.

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Indeed.com slash focused. That's I-N-D-E-E-D dot com slash focused. Go there right now and you can support our show by saying that you heard about it here on the Focus podcast. Indeed.com slash focused. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Our thanks to Indeed for their support of the Focus Podcast and all of Relay FM. Jim, where does this get hard for you? You're mindful about focus and I know that this stuff is stuff you think about a lot, but where do you run into trouble on this stuff? Okay.

Number one, I think, is doing the work that I intend to work on. And that really comes down to making a daily plan. You know, it says from seven to eight, I'm going to do this. From eight to nine, I'm going to work on that. From nine to 11, I'm going to do this, from eight to nine I'm going to work on that, from nine to eleven I'm going to be doing that. If I do not make a daily plan, I wander, I goof off, I go down rabbit holes or whatever and I was doing a, what was it, a weekly review? And it was like, the question is, how did I do last week? And I looked over my weekly schedule and I thought, I didn't do a whole lot of anything last week,

except waste time. And why is that? And it was because there were a couple of days that I did not make a daily plan. I think that really does help people. You know, we were just talking about that in the last segment. The thing, the underlying problem I think we're trying to address with the show and everybody in this productivity space is the idea of intentionality as we were talking about.

You have all sorts of ways to spend your life. You can spend it watching TikTok. You can spend it watching TikTok. You can spend it watching TV. You can spend it, you know, pursuing your best self. But even the lofty goals of, well, who is my best self? And what does that mean? Doesn't matter if you don't take steps. And to me, it's those daily plans that gives you the fuel

to make a difference. And it really is a flywheel when you start doing it. Like once you get going, it carries its own momentum. And to me, the big turning point is those reviews. Like when you do a quarterly review and you see, oh yeah, I really made progress on this part of myself in the last 30 days or 60 days. And I really like what I've done.

Then suddenly that gives you the, the energy to carry with those daily plans. But it, it's also easy to get off. And I guess I would say that it's okay that you don't follow it every day. I mean, but if you keep trying, you're going to hit it most days. Right? Right. Right.

I just need, you know, I need to discipline myself To do that every morning since I had that that realization again I I pretty much made a daily plan every day. I have it built into my morning I have a morning routine that I do and part of that is a like a journal and a journal And part of that is a journal template. And it's, you know, what's my three main tasks today? What's my primary task? What's my plan for today? And so it's got a space. They were looking at me saying, you need to fill that in.

And I've been doing that. And it's worked. I mean, I've had a good, last week was a good week, this week's been a good week. So that's one of the things that I have problems with. The other is when I do a daily plan and start working on something, is sometimes I have a hard time keeping my mind focused

on what I'm doing. And I'm not talking about external distractions here. I mean, I can use a focus mode. That's no problem. I can cut out all the external distractions that come in. But it's my own mind that's doing this to me. You know, I feel betrayed sometimes. You know, it's like you have this intention to work on this and you're working on it. And my own mind thinks of things to think about besides what I'm working on. And then I have to get back to what I'm working on. And it causes disruption in the flow that I had and all of that. So, you know, that's another

thing I struggle with sometimes. Yeah, I heard Alan Watts once describe the human brain as the rebellious organ. And I love that description so much because I think it applies to all of us. It's like, you know, what's better for you. And yet that rebellious organ does things to you. The other thing it does is it tells you that you're no good all the time and stuff like that. Yeah, it's just like, it's like, what is going on between my ears that this thing is always trying to throw hand grenades in my way? Yeah, that's a good description of it.

It really is. I mean, you know, it's just, it's frustrating. It's kind of like when I do meditation, exactly the same thing happens. You know, I'm trying to focus on my breathing and then I realize I'm focusing on the hike I'm planning to do tomorrow or whatever and Okay, let's get back to the breathing and you know just keep doing that and you know the only way I found the best way I found to deal with that is to do kind of a modified

Pomodoro timer sort of an approach where I I use my Apple watch and just set 30 minutes or whatever and Then when I'm tempted to jump up and do something because I'm working from home You know, I've got my little studio here in a bedroom Yeah, and you know, it's like oh, I think I need to go to the bathroom now And no, I think I need to go get a little snack and oh, I need to go check on the cats or whatever. That timer says, well, no, you've only got about 20 minutes left or 15 or 10 or five minutes left. You can do that when you have your break. And that for me helps me to stay focused and stay in my chair and work

instead of jumping up and chasing something else. Yeah, I'm constantly using my watch timer the exact same way. It's just a great way to kind of keep yourself in the seat. Mike, can you do anything like that? Not really. It's been an on again off again battle with mindfulness meditation for me, but I have recently tried to just focus on my breathing, not within an app, not closing my eyes, but just taking a break several times throughout the day and forcing myself to breathe slowly and

deeply. I don't think that counts though. No, but what I mean is just use a timer just to finish a block of work or anything like that. I've got the time blocking, but I don't use the timers necessarily either. I used the Pomodoro timers when I was getting started and that was a really helpful support, but I guess I just don't really need it anymore. Yeah. And the other thing I was going to say on the earlier comment about, you know, how the brain is rebellious,

I think the way to really handle that, and Jim, when we were talking about it, you were laughing. And I think that is exactly the way you combat that rebellious organ is when you catch it giving you You know just getting in the way of you doing what's important or when you catch it giving you negative self-talk You just laugh at it. You're like, yeah, there there it goes again. You know that oh this organ It's it's it's trying to mess me up again I got you this time and then just get back to work. Don't punish yourself Don't get mad at yourself just turn the page and continue and and and over time I feel like like I've tamed mine somewhat, but I don't think you ever actually tamed

Probably not probably not the other thing that I have problems with as far as focus, you know, in a broader sense, not just when I'm working on some project that I've time blocked, but it's keeping my roles and my R&T top of mind. I have this awful ability to go about my life and just forget all of that. It just does not stay top of mind for me naturally. I have to have some sort of structure like the quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily things. And I look at my ROT statements more than you do. I look at them every week and sometimes every day because I just, that stuff just out of

sight, out of mind. So I have to come back and remind myself, oh yeah, this is why you're doing this. This is why this is important. And you know, I've got another little tool I use. I use things as a task manager. And I mean, compared to you guys, I don got another little tool I use. I use things as a task manager and I mean compared to you guys I don't have very many tasks really, but I have areas they call them for each of my my tasks and They correspond with my roles. So for instance when something comes up like, oh, I don't know

Do the laundry on Saturday, it's gonna come up under household manager. So it reminds me, oh yeah, you're doing this because it comes under this role. Or if we go on an overnight trip, I consider that relationship. As a matter of fact, the last time my wife loves to do overnights, you know, not long drives. The last one was an hour away from here in

Deadwood, South Dakota, but she loves doing those and I have that programmed in to periodically think about a new overnight to take her on. And I told her the last time I said, you can thank David for this trip. If you enjoyed it, you know, because it's from his system, that sort of thing. So, you know, I need regular consistent reminders of the system, the overall system that I'm working under. Does that make sense?

I mean, is that just a unique weakness of mine or what? No, I think it's true for anybody. I can tell you for me, I've integrated the roles into all of my software stacks. So whether I'm in my task manager or my calendar, I constantly see reminders of it. And I'm very conscious of it, but I've been doing it for a decade.

So it gets easier over time. And it just, just keep going with it. And again, to me, the big thing is the feedback loop. Mike, how do you keep your, your purpose and, and these principles at the top of mind? Well, the, the life theme is tied to the personal core values. And I mentioned the process I have for identifying those, but I review it every 90 days with my personal retreat process. And that's tied to the wheel of life and the whole retrospective that I go through. I've got the whole formal process, which takes roughly eight hours.

And I just review it every three months. And if it doesn't cause me to be excited, then it's like, okay, I need to probably make some changes. And I did that not too long ago with the life theme, probably about, I don't know, six, eight months ago, I modified it a little bit so that it was more exciting to me and landed on the version that I have right now. But that's really the criteria there is if it's not exciting, then something's wrong. And I need to rethink these things.

You're doing kind of like what I'm doing from the standpoint of having scheduled reviews to kind of keep everything in mind. Is that right? Yeah, I'd like to take credit for getting David to do a personal retreat. I don't know if I can take full credit for it, but I know I was bugging him about it for a while before you got that first Airbnb in the mountains.

No, Mike, you totally, I was doing versions of these at home, but you're the first one that got me off site. And I think that that does help. And I don't do as enough of them as I can. I wish I could do more. It's actually quite, takes a lot of logistics for me to go away for a few days because my wife and I share a car and she has work and so, but it is definitely important

to get off site once in a while. I was just gonna say in regard to the personal retreats though, when you initially introduced this whole role system, it was all based on going on an overnight or if better, two-night retreat. And I think that that was great and I really benefited from that. But I talked to a lot of people afterwards

who were like, well, there's just no way I can do that. You know, I've got small kids at home. I've got this. I've got that whatever. And I'm really glad that when you put out the productivity field guide, which is fantastic because you put everything together in one package instead of having to kind of hunt and pack through all your material to find this. But you also didn't focus on it from the standpoint of you need to take an overnight or two to get started in this process. You were, you just said, well here's here's what you can do. You can identify your role. You can first of all do your carrying water exercise, identify everything you're doing,

and then you can identify your life roles out of that, and then you can write your art statements, and people weren't locked into that idea that, well, in order to do this system, I have to do a two or three day retreat. And I think that's opened it up to a lot of people. I was very cognizant of that. Like, like retreats are great, but that's not, you don't need that to figure

this stuff out. And same thing, like if you look at, you know, I, I'm the guy who always talks about software tools on the internet, but the, I used Apple notes for all of the demos because I don't want you to feel like you got to buy special software or you got to go to a fancy retreat. Like the stuff I'm trying to talk about, you can do with a pad of paper and some time. You don't need to go any special place, but the retreats do help, I think. And it is another, like for you, I think it was really instrumental

for you in getting started. Yeah, it was, and I think Mike is right in emphasizing retreats, as a matter of fact, I've already got a reservation at a local motel for my next quarterly planning session. So I'm in a position where I can easily take a retreat. I just have to work around medical appointments and all that kind of stuff, because we also have one car.

But you know, I see real value in that to the point where I periodically do that as well. If I could speak real briefly to the season of life and the ability to get away for overnight when it comes to a personal retreat, because I was in the thick of that when I started doing them. And I can tell you from my experience that once I did it and got the clarity, my wife was completely on board. And we do try to figure out a way for her to do something similar, but ultimately, you could make the argument that when you're

younger and you're in the middle of all of the craziness and you've got the small kids at home, that's when it matters the most because that's when it's the easiest to get sucked into the busyness. And the challenge is when you are, the whole purpose of the personal retreat and identifying your direction, your personal mission statement, your purpose, you wanna make sure that your life is in alignment. But then when you have a significant other and you have a family at home,

it's even more important that you are in alignment. You cannot get that alignment by accident. Just like finding your purpose isn't accidental. You don't stumble into it. It's a struggle. And so I went away and I got the clarity. And then when I came home, what that did is it actually made everything else easier.

So you can look at it as I don't have time to get away. But when you are really busy, I would argue that you don't have time to get away, but when you are really busy, I would argue that you don't have time not to. That's when it pays the biggest dividend. Yeah, I agree, Mike. I think you're exactly right. It's, I think the problem is, is a lot of times people just don't understand

the real value of it and how it's going to affect their life. I mean, what we're doing, whether it's a role system or the family circle or the life circle system or whatever, is going to have real positive effects on the people that we have relationships with. I mean, one time I asked my wife, could you, can you tell any difference since I started doing this? And she's like, yeah. You know, she loves it. You know, she thinks it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Because I'm taking more thought and time and effort to an effort to live out my orate in relationship to her.

You know, and the things that I see as my ideal life with her. So I think you're right, but it's a lot of times people use it. I think people use it sometimes as an excuse because they really just don't see the value. If they wanted to do it bad enough, they'd do it, but. It's an investment. It's not a cost.

You're not giving away those eight hours. You are investing those eight hours, and it's gonna provide an exponential return in the investment in the future, but it's not gonna be immediate, which is why it's hard to do. Right. And that's really true with all of this stuff

we talk about, you know, putting the time in to do the planning, to do the reviews, to go off site. It's very easy if you're coming at this from the outside to say, well, you guys are spending a lot of time not working. And I just can't tell you enough how wrong you are when you think that because it's a force multiplier when you get down to doing the work. Not only do you do the work better, but you actually do the right work.

You know, you know what's a waste of time? Spending all of your time doing something that doesn't matter. Yeah, agreed. Okay. Well, I think we've convinced ourselves. That's good, right? Jim, you talked about this blog. Where is it so people can go read what you're doing? Oh, it's at original Mac guy.com. All right. You are an original Mac guy. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of a weird name. Yeah, kind of a weird name. And I thought about changing it, but that would be more hassle than it's worth probably.

And you're right there about productivity and retirement and all sorts of subjects. So I'd encourage people to go check it out, originalMacGuy.com. And we are the Focus Podcast. You can find us over at relay.fm.focus. I want to thank our sponsors this week. That's our friends at Vitaly, Nom Nom and Indeed. And for those of you that are deep focus members, stick around. We're going to be talking about some books that Jim likes and reading. And that is the ad-free extended version of the show. If you're not aware, you can find out about that also over at relay.fm.focus. Otherwise, we'll see you next time.