The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Solo: 5 Priorities People Get Backwards & How To Re-Prioritize For A Better Life

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

#649: Today Michael is solo on the mic to discuss what he believes people get backwards when it comes to life priorities. Michael breaks down how many people get confused on what their main priorities in life should be and how by confusing those priorities it can make life harder. Michael then discusses the order he belives individuals should consider to live a better life.    To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential.  

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Hey guys, thank you for listening. Before we get into the episode, I want to share with you the new newsletter that Lauren and I just released. If you go to tscpodcast.com, you can sign up for the him and her weekly tips. We provide tips every single week with all sorts of things, whether it's new tech, we're using new wellness practices, books, we're reading things that we've learned along the way that are making our life better, all digestible in a short email delivered to you every single week. I'll give you an example of some of the tips I shared this week. You'll have to subscribe to the newsletter to get the full detail, but one of them I talk about is the 3-2-1 method you can do

before bed, how to find out what you're bad at and improve, and how to form new habits by taking them slow. These are just some of the things in my tips of the week. Lauren has hers. So check it out. Go to tscpodcast.com and just subscribe to the newsletter by entering your email. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Him and Her Show. New Friday episode. I don't know if we're calling these mini episodes or just Friday episodes. We're experimenting. Anyways, as many of you may know, new release cadence is Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We're getting so many requests to do episodes that we want to touch on, but we feel may not be full hour long episodes. So we thought doing some of these mini episodes or at least reserving a Friday spot for things

like this or episodes like this would be interesting to many of you. Also, Lauren and I just want to continue to pump out quality content. And like I said, we get so many requests to touch on topics that we're just not able to do so with on maybe some of the normal inventory or some of the normal episodes that we release because we have so many guests coming on the show. mini episodes or Friday bonus episodes or just Friday episodes on this new Monday, Wednesday, Friday episode would be interesting and would potentially provide a new perspective and a new kind of format for the audience that's been along with us for this entire time. So recently, Lauren and I spoke at Columbia, the school, the college, I know very prestigious, that college. I joked at the time, we probably have just put my application in the shredder if I applied back in the day. But lo and behold, as we say to our daughter at the time, we probably have just put my application in the shredder if I applied back in the day. But lo and behold, as we say to our daughter at story time, we were asked to speak there to a business class, a group of really great young people that are in the entrepreneurial

department of that school, or I don't know if that's what you call it. But anyways, the business school. At the end of the talk, a student asked a question on what I value or what we value in the, in most in life in terms of what we put first in terms of importance. And I think they were maybe somewhat surprised to hear my answer. Lauren was sitting right next to me with daggers in her eyes, thinking I was going to say her and some of the other people were thinking the business or the children. And what I realized in answering this is it was a little bit of a shock to some of the students and also maybe rubbed some of the students in the wrong way. Not that they were upset, but I just think some of what I'm about to say was maybe counter

to what they're used to hearing in terms of what you should value most in life and what you should put first as level of importance. And I think this is for a number of reasons. So let me list the five things that I believe people put in the wrong order in levels of importance first. And then I will tell you what I believe should be the most important thing or most important priorities in your life. So to start first, let me just recap that I think the majority of people that I encounter, and this is my own bias, but many of

you may be listening and nodding your head as I say this, get these priorities in the exact wrong order, thinking that they have them in the right order. So here are the five things. The thing that I think people first put is the most important thing is they're either their business or their career or their finance, which includes their money. I think many people, many men, especially maybe some women, I don't want to generalize, put their career first above everything. Next, I think people start to have children. This is for the parents out there. And they put their children as the next most important thing. Then they put their children as the next most important thing.

Then they put their marriage or their spouse or their partnership as the third thing. And then their mental health. And then lastly, their physical health. They mostly neglect that. And I think that this order should be completely flipped and done in the reverse order. So when I was asked the question, what are the most important priorities? The first thing I said is my health is number one. And I believe that this should be number one for everyone. Here's why. If you're a healthy person, one, your body's going to be able

to function. You're going to be able to live longer. You're going to be able to take care of yourself. You're going to be able to take care of those around you. You're just going to be here for a longer period of time. You're going to have more energy. You're going to have more focus. Being physically in shape, physically healthy also leads to mental clarity. If you're somebody who's stressed and you have anxiety or you have depression, being physically active is going to help you combat those things that pop up in your mind. So if you're somebody that's constantly stressed, getting a good workout in is going to help eliminate that stress. If you're somebody that suffers from depression, going and getting a really tough workout and

staying in shape is going to help eliminate depression from your life. When you're in shape, you can be there for your kids. Your libido is going to be stronger. You can have better sex with your partner. You're going to have a stronger sex drive. You're probably going to want to eat better. Just being in shape and developing that habit, it takes care of so many things that we suffer from later if you neglect these things. So the first thing for me is I put my physical health first. I make sure that I'm always doing something to be active. And because of that, I put myself in a position to have really what I think strong mental health. Anytime in my life when I've neglected my physical health, my mental health has suffered. I get more stressed. I get more anxious. I get in worse moods. I'm shorter with my wife. I'm less patient with my children. I get more stressed about the business. I'm not as good

with the people that I work with. So I take care of that stuff first. During the pandemic, you started to see so many people neglect their health. And Lauren and I, as we went into the pandemic, we're neglecting our health. And so during that time, we said, you know what, we're going to turn this around and we're going to get super healthy. And because of that, we were able to deal with a lot of the stresses that came with that period of time, especially for us having two children during that period. And so I could not say more importantly that I believe people need to put their physical health first. And unfortunately, so many people put this last. Second thing is your mental health. You need to take time for yourself, whether that's meditating or reading

or speaking to a psychiatrist or a therapist. We talk about that a lot on this show, but getting your mental health in order because life's going to throw so many curve balls and so many disappointments your way. You have to have mental fortitude and the mental clarity to be able to deal with those things as they come across your desk or in your life. There's nothing worse than, especially as a new parent, when maybe you're just not feeling the best and your kid comes to you and maybe you're being a little impatient because you've

neglected your mental health, or maybe you're getting in an argument with your spouse because you're not in the bright head space. Or if you're like me and you're running a company and somebody comes to you with a problem and you snap at them, you don't want to be in that space. So again, by putting your physical health first and getting your mental health in a position where you've got those endorphins rushing, putting your mental health next is so important. So some of the things that I do to protect my mental health is, like I said, I get in a workout, I read, I walk a lot, I'm in the cold plunge, I'm in the sauna. I'm sure not everybody has access to all these things, but you can definitely walk.

You can take time for yourself. Jesse Itzler recently came on the show and he said one of the most successful people he's ever met takes three hours cumulatively for himself throughout the day. So that could be 30 minutes in the morning. It could be 30 minute lunch break. It could be two hours at night. However you want to break it up, reading, writing, journaling, talking to someone, therapy, online therapy, whatever it may be, getting yourself in a mental state so that when life throws you curveballs or hardships, you're able to deal

with it. Again, if you're putting your business and your kids and your wife and all these things first, and you're not taking care of your physical and mental wellbeing, it's going to make everything else you deal with in your life so much harder. The next thing that I think people get backwards, and this is mostly for the parents out there, new parents, or maybe, you know, parents that have older ones and I'm new to this. So, you know, maybe I don't know everything, but here's what I, here's how I feel. I see so many people have children and all of a sudden their children become their number

one priority in their life, which I understand why, you know, I love my children more than anything. But what I firmly believe and what I realize is if I put my children first and don't put myself up there, don't take care of my physical health, don't take care of my mental health, don't take care of my relationship with my wife. First, you're teaching the kids that one, it's a little bit of entitlement. They come first and everything else is less important to you're teaching them in the future to model your behavior. So if they see me neglecting my physical health and my mental health, and they see me neglecting my wife, that's how they're going to behave later

in life. Also, there's the old saying, and again, I'm in a relationship with a woman, but happy wife, happy life. There's truth to that. So what I do is make sure that the relationship that I have with Lauren comes first. I believe that the kids, if they see a loving, intimate relationship, that's healthy, we'll model that in the future. And they also get stability from it. There is nothing worse. And it's such a disaster when, you know, maybe a beautiful couple gets in a relationship, has kids and then starts neglecting each other. And then the marriage breaks up, the kids see all that it's a disaster. So it sounds like a strange thing and maybe it's counterintuitive to not put your kids before your relationship.

But I believe if you put your relationship first, you're creating more stability for your kids. You're letting them know that in the future, this is how they should model their relationships. You're also showing them what intimacy looks like. And if you have a happy household and a happy marriage or happy partnership, everything else, again, is going to be easier. There's nothing worse than coming home to a house when there's either no intimacy or no love and where the kids just completely take over.

So again, I think people get this backwards. They put their kids before their relationship, and I think everything else suffers. Then, obviously, after that, you want to take care of your children before your business. The whole reason you have a business or a career is to provide for your family. At least that's why I do it. And I think people get this confused. You only have so many years with your children before eventually they leave the nest and they leave your house.

You can always work. You can always make money. But you have this limited period of time where at one point, you're going to look back and say, man, I made a bunch of money or I really focused on my career. I did this, but I fully neglected time with my kids. So for me, like, again, the business comes last on all these things, which I think is surprising to people that talk to me because I'm obviously entrepreneurial and I'm driven, but it really is the last thing on my priorities.

And so for me, if I've taken care of my mental health and my physical health and my marriage, the kids see all that. They see I'm in a good headspace. They see that I'm healthy. They see that I have a successful marriage. I think then I can really show up as a parent where if I let all those other things go, my marriage is in shambles. I'm not in the best mental health space.

My physical health is a disaster. They're going to see all that and it's going to rub off and that's what they're going to model in the future. So again, I think number four on my list of importance is the children. If they ever listened to this in the future, know that in a weird way, they're also still the most important, but I have to do the other three things to make sure that I can show up in the best way. And then last, and again, I think so many people get this backwards is they put their career or their business or their money first. And you see what this does to people. They just get so singularly focused on making more, achieving more, getting that promotion,

and they neglect every other area of their business. We know these people, the ones, they seem to have everything in the world, all the money in the world, but they're out of shape. They're not in the best mental health space. Their marriage is a disaster. Their relationship with their kids is a mess. And it's most likely because in some weird way, they've told themselves that the business and the money is the most important thing to take care of their family or themselves or their future or whatever. And I just don't believe that. I think that in my case, at least, by taking care of the other stuff first, the businesses have actually got easier to operate, easier to scale, more efficient, and personally more enjoyable for me

because I'm happy in my life. And I think so many people that I've encountered that put the businesses or their finances or their career first, yes, they're high achievers on paper, but many of these people are miserable. And what I can tell you is, and as someone who's had success, there's a certain period or a certain point in your career or in your finances where you become more comfortable and there's more convenience. But after, maybe that includes your bills are paid and you can save a little and you maybe eat out a couple nights a week.

After that, you don't extrapolate a ton of happiness as you're piling more and more on. And people out there listening may be saying easy for you to say because you have it. But what I'm telling you as someone who's kind of gotten to that level of success, there hasn't been some exponential growth of happiness. There hasn't been like, oh, I've made X more and now I'm way happier. I mean, I'm just as happy now as I was three or four years ago. But I would say the biggest driver of happiness in my life is now not from the business or the finances, but from taking care of myself, taking care of my family, taking care of my wife, making sure that I have good friends and good family. The money is a

byproduct and it gives you some flexibility and convenience. But like I said, once you reach a certain level where at least you can just afford to live, you're not going to extrapolate much more happiness. So whenever I see these people that have really kind of achieved on paper what many people dream of, but they've neglected other areas of their life, whether that's their family or their wife or their mental health or their physical health, to me, it feels like a little bit of a sad life because you've got this big pile of money and all these career achievements, but every other area of your life is a disaster. You're out of shape. You're not in the best mental health state. Maybe you don't have a great relationship with your wife. You're not seeing your children as often. It's like, what's the point of that? You can't take

any of this stuff with you at the end. So again, I think to recap this, I believe that people get their priorities backwards. I think most people, and I'm generalizing, put their career or their finances and their money as their first priority every day. That's what they spend the majority of their time focusing on. And they may do this subconsciously. It might not be something that they actually tell themselves is the main priority. Their behaviors might map to them acting as if that's the main priority. And then after that, they put their children and they neglect their wife or their spouse or their partner or their husband. And then after

that, maybe they put their wife and their relationship in front of their mental health and they're not in the right health space mentally. And so then they can't really show up in the best way as a partner. And then maybe then they try to focus on their mental health, but it's an uphill battle because they haven't taken care of themselves physically. And you don't have the proper endorphins and serotonin. Your body's not in the best shape. You're kind of falling apart. And then lastly, they put their physical health and wellbeing on the back burner. And so, you know, from there, if you're not healthy physically, everything's going to fall apart. And even if you're super successful financially, you know, you're not going to be around long enough to really enjoy it. So

again, if I was, if it was me and I was coaching somebody or they came to me, and this is the way that I answered this question in order of importance, I believe your physical health comes first. You take care of all that stuff. You work out, you get up, you be physical every day, which is going to enable you to be better suited to have a strong mental fortitude and have great mental health. Then you take care of your mental health, whether that's meditation or reading or walking or talking to others or therapy or whatever it may be. You get yourself in the right headspace, which means then you're going to be able to show up as a better partner in your relationship. You're going to be more patient. You're going to be more understanding. You're going to be more compassionate. If you're those things,

your children are going to see that you have a great relationship. They're going to model that. They're going to feel stability. They're going to feel happy. Your wife's going to be happy. Your husband's going to be happy. You're going to have better intimacy, all these things. And then when you're in that great of a space and you know that your home life and your physical and mental health are in a good space, then you can go and crush and operate the businesses or your career or your finances. And the secret here, and this is just me being completely honest is since I've prioritized in this way, all of the business stuff and all the financial stuff has exponentially grown. And I believe that's because all the other stuff is in a much

better place than earlier in my career when I would put some of the business or finance stuff first or career stuff first. So that's what I would do. That's where I think people get things backwards. I hope this resonates with you guys. I hope it helps you get the new year in the right perspective and kick it off in the right way. Hope you like these episodes. If you do, shoot us a note. Let us know what else you want to hear about. Let us know what else we can touch on and we'll keep doing them. Hey guys, thank you for listening to this Friday episode. Another quick reminder. If you haven't checked out our new bite-sized show, Morning Quickie, it lives on a separate feed. You actually have to search Morning Quickie on wherever you listen to your podcasts. We are delivering bite-sized things, five minutes or less,

the most tangible takeaways from over 600 interviews in eight years of doing the show. There's a link to the full-length episode on our main channel. Maybe it's an episode you missed. Maybe it's an episode you just need to be reminded of. Think entrepreneurship, think wellness, think finance, think beauty, anything that makes you better in life, all delivered to you in less than five minutes every single weekday on the Morning Quickie Show. So check it out, follow and subscribe and review Morning Quickie.