The One You Feed - Charlie Gilkey on How to Get Things Done

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

Charlie Gilkey is the author of Start Finishing: How To Go From Idea To Done. An Army veteran and near Ph.D. in philosophy, Charlie is the founder of Productive Flourishing, a company that helps professional creatives, leaders, and change-makers take meaningful action on work matters. He’s widely cited in outlets such as Inc. Magazine, Time, Forbes, The Guardian, Life Hacker, and more and his work will help you discover the path from the ideas in your head to the actions you take in your daily life and how to go about getting things done.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!Charlie Gilkey and I Discuss How to Get Things Done and…His book, Start Finishing: How To Go From Idea To DoneHow kindness towards others often brings out the best in everyoneThe Tao Te ChingFocusing on your input and letting go of the resultsWe don’t just improve by thinking about things, we improve by doing themCreative constipation breeds toxicity We’re either creating something or destroying somethingWe don’t do ideas, we do projectsHow doing our best work is often really hardThe myth: if it’s meant to be for us, it’s supposed to be easyThe myth that if it doesn’t come easy for you, you shouldn’t do itDoing something until you’re good enough at it to decide whether or not you want to continue doing itThe 5 things that get in the way of doing our best workHead Trash: Doesn’t matter if a thought is true or not – it matters if we believe it or notThe problem with automatically believing our thoughtsHow discipline limits decision fatigueHow action expresses priorityCharlie Gilkey Links:Charlie’s WebsiteInstagramTwitterFacebookUpstart: The fast and easy way to get a personal loan to consolidate, lower your interest rate, and pay off your debt. Go to www.upstart.com/wolfIf you enjoyed this conversation with Charlie Gilkey, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Chris Bailey on Focus, Productivity, and MeditationDavid Kadavy on Getting StartedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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book a free discovery session, and I think almost eight at this point, of incredible episodes in the archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to handpick one of our favorites for today that may be new to you, but if it's not, it is definitely worth another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Charlie Gilkey. If we're not finishing the work that matters to us, we can get what I call creative constipation. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our

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Our guest on this episode is Charlie Gilkey, the founder of Productive Flourishing, a company that helps professional creatives, leaders, and changemakers take meaningful action on work that matters. He's the author of Start Finishing, How to Go from Idea to Done. He's the author of Start Finishing, How to Go from Idea to Done. He's widely cited in outlets such as Inc. Magazine, Time, Forbes, The Guardian, Lifehacker, and more. He's also an Army veteran and near PhD in philosophy. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Charlie. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me here today, Eric. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

Well, I'm excited to have you on. Your book is called Start Finishing, How to Go from Idea to Done. And we'll talk more about that in a moment, but let's start like we always do with the parable. There is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

I love this parable for many different reasons. And actually, I wrote about this a few years ago, and I think it's about the time you started this podcast. I was in that phase. And so I find it interesting and useful on that first level about what are we feeding in ourselves and what are we seeing in the world. But there's a deeper level, I think, to the parable is what are we feeding in other people? And so, I like to think about it in both ways because if we feed the dark wolf in other people by how we show up and how we project who we think they are to them, then that's the wolf that gets fed in others. And those are the wolves that end up biting us, you know. And so, there's both this altruistic

way of thinking about it and there's a self-interested way and think about it. Altruistic way is how do we leave each person better off after interacting with us than before we found them or before they found us. So, that's one. But the second sort of self-centered way is how do we orient ourselves and navigate in this world such that we are feeding the good wolf that ends up not biting us nearly as much as the bad wolf? Hmm. That's a great way to look at it and think about it. I really like that sense of what are we feeding in others. And we do tend to sort of feed certain things in it. I really like that sense of what are we feeding in others. And we do tend to sort of feed certain things in others. I'm thinking of a quote, and I feel like it's attributed to Nelson Mandela, but I might be completely wrong about that. But

something along the lines of, it never hurts to look for the good in someone else. They tend to act the better because of it. Yeah, I find that to be absolutely true. And especially in times like these, you know, there's been over the last few years, just this sense of darkness out there in the world. And I think that has been accelerated for a lot of different reasons. We don't necessarily need to go into the political landscape side of things. And it's also been my experience that there are plenty of actively good people out there doing great work. And it's also been my experience that there are plenty of actively good people out there doing great work. And there are plenty of people who are just confused and with just a little bit of guidance or with just a little bit of inspiration or a little bit of kindness,

become those active good doers. And if we approach people with a sense of hostility, a sense of us and them, we're more likely to take those people that are, you know, doing the best they can and maybe, you know, have their heads down and just wanting to get through the day. We can either alienate them, again, get the bad wolf, or maybe we can pull them in and say, you know, we're in this together. And it's a quote often attributed to Plato, but it's actually Ian McLaren, which is, be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. And I think if we sort of look at it, that people have their own things going on and they're fighting their own battles.

And if we approach with kindness, we're much more likely to get the good wolf, the kindness to see the goodness in others, as opposed to just have the defensive shield and the biting coming back at us. I couldn't agree more. I'm going to take a brief diversion for us before we go into the book, because you mention in the book a quote, and you say it's from one of your favorite books, which also happens to be one of my favorite books, which is the Tao Te Ching. And so I wondered what it is about that book that you love or any particular sections from that book, but I thought we'd talk about that for a second as a place to go first.

Wow, Eric, I think we could spend the whole podcast talking about the Dao De Ching, and I love that. We're not going to do that. I don't think we're going to do that, but yeah, I've read the Dao De Ching so many times I can't count. There are a few things that I really love about it. One is there's the approach that I love. And my favorite translation is by Derek Lin from, I think it's Skylight Press. Because unlike Stephen Mitchell's version, he tries his best he can to translate the Chinese the way that it was literally written. And then have interpretations on the right side. So, the left side of the page is as close to as possible Chinese translation,

and on the right side is commentary on that. And so, you get to see the beauty of the language in that way. So, very, very good translation. It's one of the, I think, eight copies I have of it. I'll have to look at that because I am a fan of the Stephen Mitchell version, but I should check that out for sure. Yeah. What I love about it is, one, it says a lot in a little amount of time. And as someone who's not always well-practiced at being succinct, I appreciate that. And the other thing about it is, you know, writing of that time, I'm a trained philosopher by nature. So I have an MA in philosophy and I'm completing, I'm a PhD candidate in philosophy.

And so what I love about works of that era is that they saw the connections between individuals and societies and communities. And so they can, like, if you read Plato's Republic, he's talking on the one hand about a good city or a good polis. But what he's doing is showing that what's true of cities is true of individuals, and what's true of individuals is true of cities. And so, there's this way where in the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu will talk about a city or talk about something that seems to be completely remote from a person, but you understand it more because he didn't focus on the person. I mean, you can see that, you know, so I think three quotes that I love. One is, because a sage knows her faults, she is faultless. Understanding that if you understand those faults and challenges that

you have and you actually acknowledge them and build around them, they don't trip you up nearly as much. There's the other one about the cup overflowing. What's that one? I don't know that one nearly as well, but it's like too much water in the cup and it overflows and spills. And so, it's about boundaries and it's about completeness in a way. And then this was actually from Mitchell's version is the master does his work and then steps away. And for so many of us that get so wrapped up into our work and into the meaning making that we're doing and not being able to step away, it's just one of those good things of being able to remind myself in that moment, like, A, have I done my work? And B, is it time to step away and let it unfold? Because me trying

to stranglehold it into a certain way is going to keep it from being what it might become. Yeah, that's a great, great point. And I love that sort of overall idea of do your work and step away, which is reflected in a lot of spiritual traditions, but not reflected as often, perhaps, in the work world, which is really where it is really, you know, particularly sage for our time, which is we can't control results would be the way we'd say it in the business world. We can't control results. We can only control, you know, the actions we take, which is such a profound truth. And when we understand and live according to that, boy, does our stress level change. Absolutely.

And I think the more something matters to you, the more you have to focus on doing your best, but letting go of the rest. Right? Like, did you do what you could do in accordance with your values, in accordance with your constraints, in accordance with your challenges to make a certain outcome happen? But above and beyond that, it's out of your control. And you're absolutely right. Especially when you look at the spiritual traditions that were formed around 0 BCE, there's a 500-year plus or minus crucible period where they're saying many of the same things, independently co-created a lot of times. And at that time, they knew way better than we did that nothing is boundaryless. Everything is contained, except for gods and things like that. But in the human realm, everything has a limit.

And we humans have limits. And where we find our suffering is when we pretend as if those limits don't exist, or when we try to push past those limits and need to be reminded that we are in fact humans. I couldn't agree more. It makes me think of, to quote the Tao Te Ching, things like, true mastery can be gained by letting things go their own way. It can't be gained by interfering. And again, I think on one level, you hear that and you go, oh, well, I shouldn't do anything. And I don't think that's what's being said. I think the way you just said it is really good. It's sort of the serenity prayer,

which I bring up on the show all the time, because I just think it's so wise, right? Know what you can control, know what you can't, and stay on the control side, spend your time over there and don't spend your time on the other side. And boy, a lot of things seem to sort of solve themselves when you do that. Yeah. Well, I mean, one last thing, my other quote, I think is relevant right now is, he who masters the world, I count as strong. He who masters himself, I count as truly powerful. And there's that sense where I think we lose our balance, we lose our serenity, we lose our power when we're so focused on changing external circumstances and changing

those types of things. And that's just a weird tension that we have to live in as these creative human beings as we walk on this planet is there's just a series of tensions. And like, you're absolutely right. We can't just be that bump on a log, just letting life go by us. That's not at all what's being recommended, right? But what is being recommended is, you know, no matter what sense of agency we take in this world, it's always going to be limited. And our vision, our grasp, our hopes, our dreams are always going to be on the other side of those limits. And so, it's finding that balance of like, where have I pushed in the right ways in the world? Again, in accordance

with values and my Tao or my nature. And where do I need to let things unfold? I guess the fifth quote there is like, it always sees the best leaders, this is from the Taoist tradition, the best leaders are those ones where you don't really know they're there. And everyone's saying, we did this, right? We did this. And there's not that sense of domination by a leader and they don't have that super charismatic, you know, onstage presence that we in America really love to see in leaders. That's not from the Taoist tradition, the pinnacle leader. The pinnacle leader is the one whose nature and whose guidance and whose behind the scenes things empowers other people to take action, to develop, to get things done and realize

that they don't need someone cracking the whip behind them. They don't need to be led. They need to be let go. That's wonderful. Well, let's move on from that to your book, even though, like I said, we could probably trade quotes from the Tao Te Ching with each other all day long. I had like five more and I was like, all right, hold on. Let's move on. So you mentioned getting things done. There was some phrase like that in your last couple sentences, and that's kind of your book, Start Finishing, How to Go from Idea to Done. And you say very early in the book, the reason I'm guiding you to finish rather than start is because I'm near certain that you've already started quite a few things. And so let's talk a little bit about that. Hi, I'm certain that people have started

things or why I'm focusing on finishing. Just your idea of why finishing is so important. So, finishing is incredibly important because one, well, there are a lot of reasons, but one is because when we look at the impact we're trying to make in the world, that only comes from finished projects, from the things we have done, not from the things we are thinking about doing or that we've half done. So if you're starting a nonprofit, if you're starting a business, writing a book, whatever thing that is, the impact comes once you finish it. And so we, you know, in many different ways, we want to go out and we want to either make a dent in the universe or leave our fingerprints on it, depending upon your feelings about, you know, our agency in the world.

But we forget, like, just mildly doing a bunch of stuff is not nearly as important as finishing it, seeing it, and getting it to the people and the people who need to see it, including ourselves. I think a second piece about it is mastery. We only get mastery from finishing things, not from half doing a lot of things. And and so if you were to look at mastery as one of the basic human drives as dan pink does in his book drive um it's super important for us just to be on that curve of you know continual improvement but again we don't just improve in our brains no matter what well there are some things we can improve just by thinking but most things we actually have to make something we have to do something we have to present something. We have to show our work. I think another piece that is important to

talk about, and this is especially for those creative souls out there, is if we're not finishing the work that matters to us, we can get what I call creative constipation. And it's what it sounds like, right? You take in a bunch of ideas and inspirations and hunches and all the TED Talks and all the podcasts and all the books and all the things, right? And you don't actually push those ideas out into some form in the world. And just like physical constipation, you get toxic and you start not wanting to take on new ideas. And we as the spiritual creative human beings that we are, we're either creating something or we're destroying something. There's a reason why our spiritual traditions tie creativity and destruction together, because they're like one in the same force, just depend on how do you use it.

And if you're not finishing that work, if you're not creating your best work, you're going to be destroying other things. You're going to be destroying your relationships, the resentments and frustrations and all the things that happen when you get bitter and toxic. And if it's your own resources, it's your time, you know, you'll find it, you'll figure out like, wow, I've done yet another Netflix binge, or I've done yet another Facebook crawl, and I don't feel good. Or you do retail therapy because you're trying to buy something to fill that hole that's in yourself, which is really ironic because most of us tell ourselves that we had more time and more money, we would do the thing, right? Whatever that thing is,

we would do it. But then when we don't do it, we destroy the resources and time that we already have. But lastly, and most importantly, I think, the object of destruction that we'll lash on to the most is ourselves, through the stories that we tell ourselves, the limiting beliefs, through our sense of own capabilities and the labels that we'll give to ourselves. Being in the process of finishing the work that really matters to you and getting out some of this work that your soul calls to do is not just about economic livelihood and things like that. It's actually, I think, a much

deeper human need, much, for lack of a better word, spiritual human need that if it's undone, will leave you unsatisfied and frustrated and really resentful that you spent yet another week really rocking that to-do list. But at the end of the week, looking up and saying like, but did it matter? Those things that matter most to me, I didn't spend a minute on them, but I've been quote unquote productive all week. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer.

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a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about getting things done, going from idea to done. You say we don't do ideas, but we do projects. Yeah, and I think that's the thing. We take on all those ideas, we take on all those things,

and unfortunately, some of us too quickly attach some commitment juice to those ideas, right? Like, just because it's a great idea, that means we should do it, or we don't even separate that moment of time from getting the idea to starting to research what to do with the idea, starting to make a to-do list, right? We just jump right into that. And the beauty of it is, as the types of beings that we are, we can hold on to a practical infinity of ideas. The downside is projects have to be done through time and space. And there's only so many that we are going to be able to do. And so, part of the issue here is that we are these unlimited sentience in this very limited body. And so, yeah, we don't do ideas,

we do projects. And the second you start talking about projects, you start talking about time, you start talking about scheduling, you start talking about space, you start talking about resources and things like that. And the grace is that we can hold on to the beauty of those ideas and hold on to all of that joy around them, but not fall into the trap of thinking that we can do all of the ideas and end up frustrated because we're caring too much. Right. And I think the other way that gets in our way is that thinking about an idea is generally fun and pleasurable. You know, thinking about, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, it'll be like this. It's generally fun and pleasurable. And as you say in the book, as we get into doing, you know, you call it our best work, doesn't mean that it's easy. A lot of times it's really hard. And so, you know, doing and finishing is a lot harder than thinking about and dreaming about. thinking about and dreaming about.

Absolutely. And there's this really counterintuitive thing that like the more it matters to you, the more you're going to thrash. And by thrash, I mean that meta work, that flailing, that quote unquote research, you know, all the stalling you might do with an idea or project that doesn't actually push the project forward. We don't thrash about taking out the garbage or doing the dishes or the laundry. Like we either do it or don't do it. We might be frustrated about it, but it doesn't cause a mini existential crisis. But when we start thinking about, you know, starting a business or

starting a podcast or writing the book or getting married or, you know, moving across the country or finally getting our kids off the couch, you know, and off to college, that actually does invoke that, who am I? Who am I to do this? Is it the right time? Do I have what it takes? Maybe someone else can do it. You know, we start going into all of those sorts of maneuvers about it. And that's not a sign that it's not the right project, which unfortunately, I think is the code that many people receive from that. And I don't know where we get it because I haven't been able to find it literally said this way, Eric, but somewhere along the way, I think many of us have gotten into this trap that like, if it's meant to be for us, that it's supposed to be easy,

right? That it's just supposed to be super clear and you know what you're doing and it's easy and it just sort of unfolds in this beautiful way. I hate it because a lot of times the things that you're most here to do are going to be the ones you thrash about. And they're going to be the hardest thing that you do. Now, I don't think we should be going out there and using difficulty and challenge as one of those tags to find out if a project is worth doing. as one of those tags to find out like if a project is worth doing, because you may end up in that place to where your best work flows with ease and grace and things like that. So I'm not going to deny that possibility. But for many of us, actually, it's hard. And why it's so hard is like, well, unless you live in the Midwest, and that's a whole nother conversation. But most of us don't

attach much status or image to like how nicely laid out our trash cans are out front, right? We just put it out there, the trash man's going to come. Like it doesn't say anything about who we are. But when it comes to our best work, when it comes to especially our creative work as well, it says something about us, how well it's done, how artistic it is, how aesthetically pleasing it is, how whether it does like, we attach our identity and our moral worth to the work itself. And that's a huge pit to fall into because if it's not quite right, and if it doesn't live up to the ideal of perfection, and so on and so forth, what does it say about you? By the very nature of a lot of these creative projects, you start out necessarily in a lot of cases, not as good.

And the only way, as you said earlier, the only way to get there is to do it. You know, this video is probably watched by countless people, but it's the Ira Glass video where he talks about the creative gap. And he basically says, creative people have good taste. They know what's good. So they start doing something creative and what they're doing doesn't sound like that. And they go, I'm not any good at this. Right? When the reality is it's, it just takes time. You have to go through that period. We had a David Kadavy on the show who wrote a book about the heart to start and talks about, you know, you got to give yourself sometimes permission to suck. Yeah. Well, anything worth doing is worth doing badly at the beginning. Right. And so absolutely. I don't know where we get this from, Eric. Well, I do know it's, it's the stupid talent

myth that I can go on a whole rant about. Right. But the talent myth is basically, there are some people who got the goods, they got the mojo, they got the talent. And this type of stuff we're talking about just comes easy to them. And if it's not coming easy to you, maybe it's not your thing, right? Maybe there's some other thing out there that you should do because clearly this prodigy over here, it comes easy for them. And turns out almost all the prodigies are actually just well-practiced people that started earlier, right? They're a chess master at three because both of their parents are chess master and they've had this kid playing it since they were two months old, right? Whatever, right? Most of the truly prodigiously talented people that are in our ranks actually were grown up in a culture of talent or nurtured to be talented, but many of

us were not. And so, again, we latch onto that myth and we go out there and we do something and it's hard at first. And so what do we tell ourselves? Well, maybe that's not for us. Maybe that's not our talent. When, you know, I think the super talent is just learning to sit down when something's hard and when you suck at it and saying, you know what, I'm going to do this until I get good enough to determine whether I want to keep doing this or not.

You might get good enough at something and determine like, you know what? I started playing tennis. I was terrible. I'm good enough at tennis. I'm adequate. But this is not my thing that I want to invest my life and soul energy towards for the next three to five years. I don't want to do that.

Great. Go do something else. But that process of just sitting down and saying, you know what, I'm going to do this until I'm competent enough to know whether or not I want to do it anymore. It's a really great skill to learn. You sort of talk about five things that get in the way of doing our best work. And I thought maybe we could run through those five as a place to sort of dig a little bit deeper into your work here. Great. So we're talking about the air sandwich here, right?

And the basic idea is that I think we all have this vision of ourselves for this best version of ourselves, our best life or our best work. And you can kind of see that as the top layer of a sandwich. And then we look at our day-to-day reality as the bottom. And we notice that there's a lot of gap in between those two. Like we're way off from this best life or this best, you know, work that we want to be at. And what do we do about that? And it seems to be a gap. But underneath, when you look deeper, those are the five challenges that you just talked about, where we're talking about competing priorities, head trash, no realistic plan, too few resources, and poor team alignment.

Most of those are pretty straightforward, but I'll talk about poor team alignment specifically because a lot of times when people hear team, they think professional team or economic team, like your co-workers. But I want people to think about the broader group of people in their life. It could be that neighbor kid that watches your children and pets on a Saturday afternoon so you can go do your thing, right? It could be grandma or grandpa that watches your children and pets on a Saturday afternoon so you can go do your thing, right? It could be grandma or grandpa that does the same thing. It could be a coworker that does some heavy lifting for you.

So it could be a lot of different things like that. But, you know, I'm going to hang out on poor team alignment a little bit because many of us have not set a really clear vision for what we want to become and what we want to work on. And then we get frustrated when the people around us are not supporting it. But how can they? Are they telepaths? Like, are they just supposed to figure out, oh, this is what Eric wants to do today. So I'm going to align myself to make sure that happens. There's no way. And a lot of times the reason we haven't been clear about it, it goes back to that second thing that I laid out, is head trash.

The limiting beliefs, the stories, you know, just the bullshit that we get from our society that we latch on to. And the thing about head trash is that it doesn't matter whether or not it's true. You're believing it gives it all of its force. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I can't tell you how many times I've told myself I'm a terrible writer. It's not true. I know it's not true. I would not have my life and job if I were a terrible writer. But if I were to believe that idea in the moment in that throw, then I would not be a good writer. Like I would be a terrible writer. So it's that belief in that head trash.

And so if you say, you know, I'm not the type of person that excels at this level, or I'm not the type of person to do that type of work, or I don't have what it takes, then yeah, it turns out that head trash is going to make it really hard for you to point your ship in the direction you want to go, you know, good winds or poor winds, versus just sitting in the harbor, you know, wondering when weather's going to be nice for you to take that voyage. Right. It's such a big one. I've been contemplating this idea recently. I've been

talking with some coaching clients around it and really kind of, you know, trying to dig into it more deeply because at first glance we all go, yeah, yeah, that's true. But just because, you know, it's in the ideas just because I think something doesn't mean it's true. And I think we have this tendency if the thought keeps coming back that we then go, well, it must be true if it keeps coming back. And that's not the case. It's just a habitual conditioning of the brain. But that ability to start to go, just because I think it's not true, is so important dealing with things like you're talking about here, like head trash. Yeah. And it's just purely neurological. What fires together, wires together. And you think a thought long enough enough and that's, you know, our brains are lazy

and that's where our brain's going to go. It's like, I'm not, or I am, it's going to fill in the blank with whatever you've sent down that thread long enough. Right. And it's really one of those things where when you sit and you meditate or you have sort of metacognitive processes where you look at this, like whenever you start playing with what you can follow I am with, it really throws your brain for a loop because it's like, well, you could be a lot of different things. And that's exactly what, that's the growth mindset you want to have. But if you tell yourself, I'm not a good planner, or I'm not the type of person, or, you know, I'm not good at math because in third grade, Mr. Wilson hit me on the hand, you know, those types of things, none of them are true. But that loop, that firing together

and wiring together process happens so frequently that a lot of times we don't even see it. And something that can be really helpful here is I think we try to pay too much attention to what's going on in our heads. And we pay too little attention about what our bodies are actually doing. And a lot of times, if you're paying attention to what your body's doing, it's acting as if it's afraid. It's acting as if it's, you know, it's acting a certain way or you're doing certain behaviors. And if you work backwards, I sometimes have to do this because my mind, like, you know, we can do the whole guerrilla warfare thing where it's hiding from me and I'm hiding from it. And we can do that whole thing for a long time, but I can't hide from my body and my body signals. And so just

paying attention to that and looking at those natural urgences or looking at your patterns, for instance, I know, and most days at 430, like that's the weakest willpower time of the day for me, right? That's when I'm going to do all the dumb things. So I have a program called Cold Turkey Blocker set up on my computer that goes off at 4.30 that blocks me out of all the dumb things. Why? Because I know that at 4.30, that's like when my willpower and strength and everything wanes, and I'm going to end up on Twitter or Facebook for two hours, right?

And then be super mad about it. So I don't have to get into my head about like, what is it about 4.30 in the day and go into a big major story about it. I could just have a blocker that keeps me from doing the dumb things that I know I'm going to do and just go on with my life. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost way to the floor? We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend.

Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really.

Yeah, Really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say that an upshot to discipline is it limits decision fatigue, and that's a perfect example of it. It's like I don't decide at 4.30 what I feel like doing because, like you said, I know at 4.30, I'm going to feel like doing things that aren't that good

for me. So I'm going to just pre-decide and set things in motion. But another of your five things I really want to get a couple minutes on is competing priorities. Because I think this is a big one, right? Because we have so many things in our lives these days. If you're the average adult, you've got a job, you've got kids, you might have your creative thing you want to do, your side hustle, you might have elderly parents us at once, we see everybody else's life and see what everybody else is doing. And for most of human history, we've been in these smaller circles of 15 to 20 people, where that's the limit of sort of the emotional and social exposure that we've had on a day-to-day basis. And so, I think we're at a point to where because of, you know, social media and some of these tools, like we're now got access to 1500 3000 people a day in their worlds and their lives and what they're getting into. And also how much better their life is than ours and all those different things that we get into. doing this over the last decade, is that many people's actual priorities are ones that they don't count. And we make aspirations into priorities. By that, I mean, I'll take parents,

for example. Whichever parent you are, if the school calls you up and says, hey, your kid's sick, you're going to, you know, go pick that kid up unless you have someone to help you out with that. Your day is fundamentally going to change, right? You're not going to go through this whole sort of like, I don't know, is this a priority? I don't know, kid, maybe I can do this. Maybe I could do that. Like, no, you drop everything. You go take care of your kid, right? Same with elders and things like that. And we know that at the same time when we're deciding what projects to do, and we're deciding how we're going to spend our time, we don't use that same sense of certainty about it. And we assume in the way that we make decisions that we won't have that

priority come up in the way that it is, right? And so, I think there's a lot of peace when you really lean into the consequence of, say, your children being your priority, which means that you don't have the amount of available time, energy, and attention available to you as other people who have not prioritized that way, right? Because they don't have the three to seven hours a day of childcare stuff that they need to do. And it's not that you're better or worse, it's just you've made different choices. But that also means when you look at all the other projects and priorities you might assume, you are now three to seven hours down from doing that, right? You don't have that same amount. Except what we do is we compare what we're doing to people who have prioritized in other ways. How are they getting that much down?

How are they blah, blah, blah? Well, maybe they don't have kids or maybe they prioritize that differently or maybe they prioritize that differently. Or maybe they have grandparents taking care of them. Or there are a lot of different things. And so the competing priorities comes up because we unfortunately like to choose projects in the abstract because they sound cool and fun. But we don't necessarily tie them to the priorities and values that are actually going to show up day to day. And I very much follow the quote from Gandhi that action expresses priority. And that can be really frustrating for a lot of us because if we look back over the last

two weeks and look at what's on our schedule and get real with it, whatever's on your schedule has been your priority because you have chosen not to do a lot of other things. So we have to get real that maybe, you know, this is for creatives and entrepreneurs and people like that, or who dream like, you know, I want to start my business, I want to do all that kind of whatnot, but they feel sort of bogged down by the day job. Well, that day job is actually tying into some sense of priorities and values for you, right? Maybe it's providing security for you. Maybe it's providing stability. for you, right? Maybe it's providing security for you. Maybe it's providing stability. Maybe it's

providing professional status. And actually, those things matter to you a lot. And saying, you know what, those things matter to me. Those are part of this broader matrix of priorities in my life, I think can give people a lot of peace. Because maybe you can be at peace with all things considered. Maybe starting a business right now is not right for you. And until you change some of those priorities and those values, it's never going to be a congruent choice for you. Yeah, I could not agree with that more. That's so important on so many levels. And one of the big ones is, like you said, we end up feeling bad about ourselves because

we're not doing all these other things because we have these priorities that we've not acknowledged our priorities. Like you said, like if we say, all right, our kids are our priority, then that dictates a certain degree of action. But when we're doing those actions, we tend to forget that we're doing something that's important to us. And that's the thing I think that we miss a lot with what you're talking about is that we think that in order for something to be important, it's got to be something in addition to, right? But the job of raising kids is a really important job. And the fact that a lot of people prioritize that I think is a wonderful thing. But a lot of people who prioritize that feel bad because

they're not getting all these other things done. You want to get me on a rant? Like, I will sometimes lose my mind, and I can't help it at this point in my career, when people are like, well, you know, I really, like, I need to take care of my kids, but I got to be more productive, or I'm not being productive. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, you're taking one of the most productive things that we humans can do, right? It's you're being productive in a different way, right? And so, and I think when we make it all, like we put it all on the table, and then, you know, in my language, if it takes time, energy, and attention, it's a project. And I have no real difference between economic projects and

life projects. And in fact, I want us to do more of the work of life than as much as we talk about life of our work, right? So we spend so much time talking about work, work, work, and all that that is, but this work of our lives, you know, gets kind of crammed into these empty spaces left over after work, and there's not nearly enough empty spaces. empty spaces. So yeah, like I agree, being mid-career and having a big project deck on you, and then you realize, you know, that your dad has dementia and you need to help figure out how to assist him in this next stage of his life and what that looks like. And that makes you drop other projects. It's not that you're being unproductive. It's not that you're not honoring commitments. It's not that you're a flake. You're focusing on what matters in that moment, right? And yes, that means that you have to renegotiate and you got to do all this other things. And that's, you know, I'm not trying to say people should do that, but if that is what really aligns with your values and really aligns with the relationships that you've been in with people, you're being incredibly productive. It's just taking a completely different direction than

you thought it might. Right. And I think it's so important to realize the choices that we're making. And the example you just gave is a great one for me because I spend half my time in Atlanta and my partner's mother has dementia and we do our live in caregivers every two weeks down here. And so that's a choice that we're making. And the more that I remember I'm making that choice, choice that we're making. And the more that I remember I'm making that choice, the better that whole experience is, right? When I realize like, I am choosing this because it aligns with my values and what I think is important. Then I go into this whole thing with a totally different attitude than I do if I'm like, oh, I have to go do this thing, right? Because we are always making a choice. We are always making a choice. And it's just whether or not that choice matters. And,

you know, this comes from sort of the existentialist philosophers, where like, not choosing is also a choice, right? Going and just showing up and doing the grind and not making some of these courageous choices, well, you've chosen other things. And absolutely. And I think that's where it can be really helpful. You know, however you do your planning, we have a certain type of methodology we talked about in the book, we don't need to get into it. But however you keep these broader projects front of mind is super helpful, because you're going to get a bright, shiny object pop up, right? You're going to be, I'll pick on Eric here, like you're going to be on a plane flight, and you're going to have

this idea. And you're like, Oh, wow, I can totally do that and so on and so forth. But it's like, how does that fit in with this project of being a half-time caregiver? And if I had to choose between those, which am I going to? And you might find that like, you know what, I'm going to continue to choose to do this thing that I've committed to do. I can't convert that idea into a project. And you know what? That's great. Like that's one less thing for me to think about. Right. And it's one less thing to feel bad about that I'm not doing. That's the offshoot. And I do think this topic is really, I think you and I both feel passionately about this because I see a

lot of people feeling bad about themselves when I look at their life and I go, I think you're living a great life. Like you're doing well, you're taking care of people around you. You're doing, you're not a failure, you know? And I just think that's so important. Yeah. Well, in the work that I do, so I work with people on strategy execution and on, you know, productivity as we need to. And there will often be times where they'll come to the meetings with Shane, right? Like I didn't do the things and I say, okay, it's like, so what did you do? And they sort of talk about what they did. And it's like, well, were those your priorities? Like, would you have made a different choice knowing

everything you know now? And they're like, no. And they're like, well, we don't have a problem here. Right? The only problem we have now is a logistical problem. What are we going to lift and shift and put where? But we don't have that sort of character problem that you came with. Like, oh, I'm not this person and I didn't commit. Like, you lived according to your value. Like, my work here is done. Like, if I can get people to do that, fantastic. Right? So, yeah, I think it's just, I may take this a different way, but if we treated ourselves half as kindly as we treat other people that we loved, man, would we be so much more at peace? And would we be, I dare say it, more productive? Because, you know, when we look at people going through things, and whether it's their

mother-in-law that's got dementia, or whether it's, you know, the brother that's going to depress about, or maybe they slipped down the stairs and busted their knee, right? And we look at someone in those situations, and they're like, I'm not getting it done. Of course, we look at them with compassion and say, you know, like like maybe you're kind of going through this thing and it takes time and you know maybe you should be with the process we say it when it's someone else we do we admire it in someone else yeah but when it's us it's a defect right right for us it's one of those things and so slight pause here but just in case someone needs to hear it, like being sick is not a character defect. Right?

It's not. It's just something that's happened to you. Having a chronic illness or whatever thing you're going through, it's not a character defect. It's not something that needs a, you know, story about. It's just something that happens as a part of being human. It's your response to it that matters. And it's how you make choices. The way I think about it, recovering or having a chronic illness, that's a project.

It takes time, energy, and attention. You've got to do all the things it takes to either heal or if it's something where it's like chronic fatigue, you just don't have the energy that other people have. And it doesn't make you less than, it doesn't make you a weaker from a moral perspective person. It's just a constraint that you're dealing with. So I just add that because I think we forget that these trials of life, that we forget that these transitions of pain or transitions of relationships and breaking up and getting married and all these types of things, they take life force that we can't put to work to other things. And yet, we think we should be able to. And think that if we're not, then somehow, like, we're not one of those golden people that can do all the things.

And, you know, we're not the whoever your icon is. We're not that person because they apparently got it figured out. But when you look two or three clicks under the image, you'll see people that maybe don't have the family relationships that you want. Maybe they don't have the health that you would want to have for yourself. Maybe they've done things that when you look at what matters to you, you wouldn't choose to have those outcomes. So, most importantly, live life on purpose and on priority and choose the projects that support those and as best you can, let go of the rest. Yeah, I think that's great. And I think that's a great place for us to wrap

up. You and I are going to continue talking in the post-show conversation about some of your techniques for going from idea to done, and they are really good. We barely even touched on them. We're going to do that in the post-show conversation. Listeners, you can get access to that by going to oneufeed.net slash join and becoming part of the community there. But Charlie, thank you so much. This is, I've really enjoyed this conversation and I think it's been a really important. Eric, thanks very much for having me. And anytime you want me back, I'm here. All right. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits.

It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor? What's in the museum of failure?

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Welcome to Decisions Decisions, the podcast where boundaries are pushed and conversations get candid. Join your favorite hosts, me, Weezy WTF, and me, Mandy B, as we dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday and Wednesday, we both invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. Tune in and join in the conversation. Listen to Decisions Decisions on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

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