Help Yourself

There’s a really interesting thought exercise says that if you are out walking, and you’re walking past a pond, some kind of body of water, and you’re looking out and you see that there’s a child who is struggling to swim, there’s a kid who’s drowning, that you will probably jump in to save that kid. Do you think that you would do that? Yeah, for sure you would? Maybe, maybe you think, you know, I’m not that strong of a swimmer, kid looks like he or she is going to make it. You know, and I’m running a little bit behind, I’m late for my meeting, or whatever it is that I’m doing. Do you think you’d jump in and save? Um, of course, you would. Of course, you would do that you are a good person. You are a good person. So you would absolutely do that. But we would you extend. Here’s, here’s kind of the point would you extend that courtesy, that helping hand to yourself, so many of us are drowning, I was drowning, kind of struggling, treading water, drowning, for a good chunk of my 20s. And into my early 30s. Life is hard. We have a lot to deal with, as human beings on planet earth here. It’s hard. And figuratively, of course, many of us are, are drowning, we are overweight, over medicated, we are broke, we are just giving our attention to a lot of BS, we are wasting time. We’re just not doing awesome. I do not think that all of us are thriving. Right now, I do not think that many of us are flourishing. And I think that we all can thrive and we all can flourish. And that’s what I want for you. What I want from me, that’s what I want for that kid in the pond. That’s what I want for my children, for my wife, for the people I care about for my community. I want that do a podcast but human flourishing for goodness sakes. So how can we get ourselves to the point where we are extending that same courtesy to ourselves, that we would and we do extend people that we have an obligation to care for or we want to care about? Think about it like this, who is your favorite athlete? Who’s your favorite athlete? Maybe you love LeBron James, maybe you love Tom Brady, maybe you love a certain kind of maybe love a certain fighter, a boxer or, or an MMA fighter. And when you see them struggling, I bet it hurts you. And I comment if if Tom Brady could just do this if you know if he could get his act together. And that’s a bad example, because Tom Brady and LeBron have their acts together in ways that they are not drowning, they are checking every box, they’re doing everything they need to be doing to be successful. So there are examples of folks who are well positioned to be helping other people. But for those athletes that are just missing out, you see so much potential in them. Like, oh, you’re just Frank there, he can get over that hump. If you get out of your own head, if you could stay out of the nightclubs. Or if you could just put the fork down, push the plate away, push yourself away from the table get in shape. If you could train a little bit harder. What you could be. So you feel that way about somebody or maybe somebody in your life? Do you feel that way about yourself? Can you take that perspective, and just turn the camera around and look at yourself and your life? And figure out, okay, I want to help this individual, this example you I want to help this person you I want to help myself to become the best possible version of me and to thrive and to be super happy and to get the things that I want and to just have the life that I want. What would it take to do that? That’s what I’m interested in sort of thinking about. There’s been a lot of talk about self care, you know, in recent memory, and probably will be moving forward. Just kind of an interesting thing. And a lot of it’s kind of squishy. I’m not into all of it. I’m into all thinking about it. And that’s why I’m grateful for the conversation that we’re talking about mental health and we’re talking about weight loss and we’re talking about all these things. So how it’s actually delivered and See what the context is. And all that other stuff I think is really, really important. But it’s just valuable to me that the conversation has started. And I’m grateful and glad that it has. So what I want to go through or talk with you about are getting our mind or body and our money, right? What we need to what you need to do, if anything at all in those areas. And let’s just let’s just go through this example that you pick yourself up. And that you are the Lebron James of you are you are the Tom Brady of you, meaning you’re checking all the boxes, you’ve got your a goal and mission and purpose driven human being that is executing, and doing all the right things on a daily basis, which is amazing. Nice work. What would it take to get you to that point? And if you’re there, or when you’re there? How can you look to help other people who are drowning, and who are struggling, I’m not trying to get you to go out and start willy nilly helping people. Because there’s a lot of people out there that aren’t interested in any help or being helped. But think that you get the idea. Think about person that if they were struggling, if this person were struggling, what lengths you would go to help them if you were in a position to do that. And then how can we do that for ourselves? How can we extend ourselves that same courtesy or that same help out of the water, so you don’t frickin drown? Thinking about it in the context, again, of what’s between our ears, our bodies, and then our financial situation, or work. So when it comes to our minds, there’s a lot going on here. The first thing that I want to sort of touch on is our is our self talk, the way that we the conversation that is internally going on with ourselves and the way that we are talking to ourselves. And this is something I’m so guilty of because I am vicious with myself in my self talk. I am vicious. And I’ve been working to get better at it. It’s not an easy thing, because, you know, I’m 44. So I’ve been having these kinds of conversations for about 44 years, give or take. How about you? How was your self talk? How do you talk with yourself? Do you talk to yourself in a way that you would talk to the people that you really truly care about and you want to help? Do we need to give ourselves some more grace, I know that I need to give myself a little bit more room to mess up because I do that all the time. All the time. We all do. But I do not need to kick my own ass with words, or thoughts when I make the smallest little mistakes. So for me, myself talk, I need to really improve upon that. The next thing is our attention. What are you giving your attention to? It’s a very finite resource. It’s a very valuable resource, which we’ve discovered that our data, our data is worth a lot of money. And because it is worth a lot of money, it’s valuable. Companies want it. And companies want it all the time. So these devices that we have are weapons of mass destruction in the form of our cell phones. Follow us around everywhere. We’ve got wearables, and goggles and screens. We’re spending eight plus hours a day looking at screens. So are you being a good steward of your attention and who you are giving it to? If your kid or your favorite person? We’re looking at the things and paying attention to the things that you are? What would you say to them? Think about it from that perspective. Is what you’re giving your attention to? Is that really serving you? Or is it just burning time? Misses 100% Something I’m guilty of. So I know. Since I do it, other people are probably doing it too. And there’s so many great ways to be burning and wasting time these days. These companies have created the perfect mousetraps for catching us the perfect pawns to draw us in. There we are sinking to the bottom scrolling through eight second videos with everything you can possibly imagine things you didn’t even realize were in existence things you could never have imagined.

Wow, compelling stuff. But is that really serving you? If you cared for somebody, would you want them doing what you are doing and how you are behaving? I don’t know, I just don’t know. So in terms of what you are learning what you are trying to be learning, I think that when we can become lifelong learners and really commit to just trying to learn something new consistently, or reading or listening, whatever, it’s kind of along the lines of attention. But if you can commit to that, and if you can help others to commit to that, I think that we’d be in much better shape, and then stress and anxiety and overall mental health. How are you addressing those things in your life? Are you addressing those things in your life? Or are they? Are you suffering, and you’re not getting the help that you need? These are questions that only you can answer and questions I want you to answer. In terms of our body. This is an area that we can all get better in, and something I’ve been working super hard, really, really, really hard at, over the past couple of years, it seems like I’ve been doing it now for many, many years, it’s probably been two years. COVID taught us a lot taught me a lot. But certainly one of the key things that it taught me was that I just need to be stronger, I need to be actually physically stronger, need to be mentally stronger, to be financially stronger. All these things I need to become more resilient. And I just mentioned a minute ago, that I’m 44. I’ve got three young kids. And I’ve recognized well, I need to strengthen my body, I need to increase my amount of energy that I have, I need to be more flexible. So what what do I need to be doing? So I needed to change my diet, I needed to stop eating bullshit. And there is so much bullshit, most of the food out there is bullshit. These days, I needed to cut out processed foods, I need to pay closer attention to the amount of sugar that I’m consuming. And when you start cutting out processed foods, you can cut out an enormous amount of sugar. Are you aware of that? Do you know how much added sugar is in the food that you’re eating? Look on the label. If you’ve not done this before, turn the package around or the bottle of whatever you’re drinking around and look at the sugar and look at added sugar. They throw sugar in everything. They Big Food, food companies put sugar in everything, the craziest stuff, they throw sugar and ketchup and bread and oh my goodness. So pay close attention. And then from an exercise standpoint need to keep we all need to be moving our bodies more need to be lifting weights, doing push ups need to be walking or running. They need to be able to run a mile, you need to be able to touch your toes, you need to be able to do push ups, sit ups, these are all available to you. You don’t need to join a gym to do any of this stuff to get healthier and to be stronger. So you were looking at yourself, and you cared about yourself like you care for that other person we were talking about earlier. What would you be telling yourself what do you need to be doing? I don’t know. I just knew that I needed to make changes in my life for my body. So I asked myself Is this the body that I want to take with me into the next stage of my life? Because I’m not getting any younger? Getting older every day. It’s happening to everybody. So what changes need to be made? And then some bigger questions to be asked are that I asked myself too much drinking, man. Love beer, of wine, whiskey, vodka, poof, let’s go. Not helpful. Not helpful. Oh, we never helpful, fun. But definitely not helpful at my age and three little kids. So these are questions I want you to ask yourself questions about lifestyle and what you’re doing to your body. Get moving. And from a financial standpoint. I mean, I don’t need to belabor this point, can all probably do a little bit better with our money. If you are the Lebron James of personal finance. That’s awesome. I’m proud of you. I’m happy to hear that. If you’re like a lot of the rest of us, I know that I am very, very open about how I’ve struggled how I struggled with money and taking care of my finances even though I was working in personal finance all throughout my 20s But what about you, too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. We are in fact spending more money than we make and we’re going into credit card debt which is the fucking worst credit card debt is the worst it crushes us. It is the source of stress and anxiety. It is the source of trouble with in relationships. It makes us less available to do the things that we want and to be present And, and spend time with the loved ones or do whatever it is that we’re interested in doing. And then your work. Also, so many of us are disengaged, or we’re actively, you know, we hate our jobs, we hate the companies that we work with. So if you were, if you were outside of yourself, if you were floating above yourself looking down, said, okay, hey, here’s what we need to do, we need to make some changes, we need to think about or get clear in what it is that we want, and then make a plan for getting there. So many of us are drowning, I was drowning. And we need to get ourselves to shore, we need to throw some floaties on, get some pool noodles, whatever it’s going to take to sort of buoy ourselves so that we’re not at risk of slipping below the water and dime. So that’s what it’s all about, is giving ourselves extending ourselves the same courtesy that we would extend some of that we really cared about. And that’s what I want you to do for yourself. Treat yourself like you are somebody who is worth caring for worth taking care of worth saving from drowning. And I’m interested in helping you to do that. However, I can. Excited to have written my newest book called The purpose book. And a lot of it’s really designed to help guide this conversation talking about purpose, which is a little bit squishy. But a big conversation to have talking about goals, talking about beliefs. And then talking about creating habits around doing all the things that matter in order to get the life that you want, what it’s all about, knowing what matters, doing what matters, creating habits and routine around the completion of those things. And if you feel like you just need a jumpstart, check out the strive online boot camp, the whole idea is get your mind body and money, right. It’s a two week, virtual bootcamp where you go through and you sort of detox and take a hard look at those three areas. I found that to be helpful as well. Something that we all need, every once in a while. It’s a little bit of help from our friends, a little bit of a hand up, a little bit of kick in the butt, whatever it takes all the things all at once. stop us from joining. You’re somebody who’s worthy of the life that you want. You are deserving of a great life and a healthy long happy life, but you’re not entitled to it. work must be done. Thoughts must be thought thunk. Thoughts must be thought actions must be taken. All these things, things must be changed. But you’re perfectly capable of doing everything that just talked about of going through the exploration of these things and making any changes that are necessary. You can do it. So always do your part and doing your best