You.
Have you ever found yourself reaching for.
That extra piece of cake, knowing full well you have weight loss goals? Or you're procrastinating on a project that the deadline is looming? It's probably due tomorrow.
How about that expensive luxury item that.
You just bought with a credit card?
Even though you know you're at your.
Max and you probably can't pay for it? It's a common experience, and yet it feels so paradoxical.
Today we're exploring the science and psychology behind why we act against our better judgment.
I'm Joe. My pal over there is Kurt. And we are dudes in progress.
Hello, Kurt. Good Friday morning to you, my friend.
It's Friday. Good morning, Joe. I'm taking the day off from work today. I just said the weather has been recovering from being horrible this first part of March, and now it's getting really nice. We were like, hit 60 yesterday, and I looked ahead, I talked about.
I bought a bike recently, and I'm going bike riding today.
Oh, good for you, man.
So I'm excited. Yeah, I like taking that kind of.
I don't know.
It feels too early to be spring. I don't even want to say it out loud, but I got a feeling of spring fever.
It feels good, doesn't it?
Oh, boy, I love spring.
I'm hearing some different bird songs out there. Yeah, the bears are waking up. I'm hearing in our neighborhood, we often have black bears come through.
Last fall, the last thing I saw was mom and her two cubs.
Now they're bigger cubs. They're big kids. They were up on my deck. I'm waiting for them to come. I hear through chatter that they are hungry right now. And they're wandering around.
And we had a bobcat. Every once in a while, we're on the edge of really forests where I live. And this bobcat, he just wanders. My wife. It's interesting, my house cat will sit.
On my wife's lap and see this.
Bobcat coming from the front of the yard.
And then she'll get her phone and she'll videotape. She got them going through the backyard.
And they are gorgeous. What a beautiful animal.
But it's fun to see the animals. Little bunny rabbits will be out soon, too.
And, yeah, the spring flowers. I got some tulips that will start popping up.
This is funny, Kurt, because hearing you.
Talk, it feels like you live in.
A remote mountain somewhere, right? The bears are waking up. The bobcats are coming out. The bunnies are hopping through.
I love the wildlife.
Glacial Kurt stone estate up in the.
Mountains, there's some farmland.
You live in a neighborhood, right?
Yeah, that's right. There's houses all around, for sure.
But bears like to eat people food, like deep people.
No, they don't. Not.
I know. I'm kidding.
But they run from revenant.
The movie the Revenant.
I know what you're saying. There's a horrible scene in that movie.
Just look up the bear attack scene in the revenant.
No. Yeah, you won't be.
So those are grizzlies. We don't have grizzlies.
Bear's a bear, dude.
I don't care.
I'm afraid of Winnie the Pooh, dad.
Mine run away when they smell me. I don't know if it's my scent.
Well, a lot of people might do that. Anyway.
We'Re going off.
We are talking today, Kurt, about why.
Do we do the things we don't want to do. I was reading a bible verse, and it's a pretty well known bible verse. If you have a faith bent, you'll understand this. But even if you don't, even if faith is not your thing, Christianity is not your thing, you'll understand what this verse is saying. You may not agree with everything in it, but you'll understand this verse. And I just want to read this verse to you, and we'll talk about this a little bit. Not necessarily the verse, but just about this idea, because I did a little bit of research into why we do.
The things we don't want to do.
This comes from the Christian bible, Romans 715 through 20. I'm reading from the new living translation.
I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong. It is sin living in me that does it, and I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can't. I want to do what is good, but I don't.
I don't want to do but what is wrong.
But I do it anyway.
But if I do what I don't want to do, I am not really.
The one doing wrong. It is sin living in me that does it. Now, I love that verse. There's a lot of things I love about that verse, because it really speaks.
To the human nature, right?
It really speaks to what's inside of.
Us and what's grinding inside of us.
And the hypocrisy that lives in us now.
I don't want to do a whole Bible study on this verse, because there's some things in this verse that at.
First blush, you're like.
It doesn't sound a lot like personal responsibility if you're saying that you're not the one that's doing it. It's the sin living in you that's doing it. There's some stuff there. But in short, this is written by the apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament.
And in short, what he's saying there is.
I don't do what I want to do. I don't do what is right, but I want to do what is right. What do I do? The things that are bad for me. Why do I do the things that are wrong even though I know they're wrong? Why is this whole battle within me? And my gosh, dude, do I relate to that?
It is one of my favorite parts.
The favorite quote, but the whole theme that he's talking about and that it.
Comes from Paul, the person you would never expect it to come from. That's what's so inspiring about it.
Right?
Because everyone struggles with this, and to.
Hear him supposed to be the model Christian, and he's so in your face.
Going out and talking to people, bring.
Them into this faith, and he's admitting to this struggle that we have, it's very inspiring, I find.
Yeah, it's a great. I knew this is what inspired this. Know, it's getting close to Easter.
Maybe that's why it's so funny, Kurt, that you bring. It's getting close to Easter because this inspired the episode. And the three handfuls of jelly beans that I ate last night inspired this episode. My wife. This is a true story. It's 830 at night, and we've bought all the candy and stuff for the grandkids baskets, and we go crazy on that. Of course we do, right? Yeah, we bought all the candy, and.
I looked down into the container that we have, the kids, the grandkids Easter candy, and I looked down into that bin, and I said, honey, we're going.
To need to buy more jelly beans.
Because we've gone through them.
What do you mean we?
Well, come to find out, she had her fair share as well.
Truth be told.
I'm certain I had more. Certain I had more. But this really gets me thinking, why don't we do what we know is right to do? Why is that just not automatic and why do we do the things that we don't want to do?
Why do we grab that?
I mean, I know when I have that handful of jelly beans in my hand in that moment, I'm not unconscious.
Right.
I know that this is probably not a good thing. This is going to give me heartburn to. It's going to explode my calorie count for the day. It's going to triple it. Just one single handful. Right?
What is that?
Do you have a thing that you.
Do or some things that you do that you know you shouldn't do?
Kurt, you gave me this question last.
Night, and I was going to say.
Okay, I'm going to get up in the morning and think about this. And I was struggling to think about it at first. Luckily, we keep our notes out there.
In our Google Drive, and I saw your intro, and it helped me because.
I'm a binge eater.
That jelly bean story is me.
I am a binge eater. And even candy like that. And I don't eat it, like, all.
The time, but I can't just have a handful either. It's horrible. That binge eating problem that I have. Chips are another. Like a bag of chips.
Nobody can go through a bag of chips like me.
It's okay to laugh about it and giggle about it. We're not making fun necessarily, but it is something that we all have, right?
Yeah, for sure.
Now, maybe it's not all of maybe. We certainly know those people that have a high amount of discipline and a high amount of ability to push temptation aside. And I really have a lot of.
Respect for people like that, but it's.
A struggle for me. But when you talk to people like that, it's a struggle for them as well.
I'm very excited to hear you teach.
Me how I can not do those things.
Well, I'm not sure we're going to.
Go down that road quite yet how not to do them, but we're just going to talk about them, right?
You're not going to solve this for me.
I'm not sure we're going to solve it.
But this might be a multi show subject, right.
Okay.
Where we take it down a path and we realize that, man, this is bigger than what we have right now in 45 minutes to an hour.
But I did look into this subject.
A lot over the past few days when I realized that, yeah, this is the subject that I want to discuss in this show.
And I found five things, and there's.
One particular thing that I really want to dig into.
If we can, we can dig deep.
Into each of these five things, and there's probably more than these five, but these five really capture, I think, the essence of what happens here. The first one is instant gratification.
We all know what this is.
We have a tendency over immediate rewards versus future benefits. We just can't see beyond ourselves for some reason. We can't see beyond those jelly beans.
Right?
Yeah.
We like to do things that make us happy.
Right.
This is the biggest one, and this.
Is the one that I'd really like to flesh out and talk about if we can. But there's also something called dual process theory, and this is just where we have those two brains. We've talked about mindfulness meditation, Kurt, and we have the monkey brain, right? The monkey brain that just can't control itself. And then that's the older brain.
That's the older brain that just wants survival. It's a psychological concept that tells us.
That our brain operates in two systems, the impulsive, emotional and a rational, logical system that leads to these conflicts. So there's that dual process theory, and that's ancient. That's our ancient brain that's ingrained in us. And I'm not sure we can do.
A lot about that.
It's there. What we can do about it is know it's there and know that we.
Have to battle against it.
But I'm not certain we're going to.
Change the physiological nature of our brains. Maybe.
I'm picturing the devil and the angel on my shoulder right now, Joe.
That's right. A great. That's a great analogy. That's perfect.
Remember from Animal House?
Oh, yeah, from animal House. Remember the cartoons with devil and the angel in the cartoons as well? I think Tom and Jerry was famous for that.
This is not a new concept.
Right.
Also, stress and decision making. High stress levels can impair our ability to make rational decisions, pushing us towards choices that provide immediate relief or distraction. I know this when I'm in a highly stressful situation, I want to just get it over with.
I want to be done with it. Right.
Whatever I'm doing, I want to be finished with it. When I'm in a high stress situation, I just want to be done with it.
And often that leads to poor decisions.
Because I want to be done with it. I want immediate relief and distraction from the situation.
Does that lead to binge eating? Some people often talk about stress eating causing. I don't know that I have that problem.
I think you've talked about this stress eating.
Yeah, I certainly do.
I always say that the worst decisions.
Are made out of desperation. If you're in a desperate situation, that's.
The worst time to make a decision.
Yeah.
The longer time you can put into making this decision, I mean, there's a diminishing return at some point, but if.
You have more time to make a decision, you're better off and you're probably going to make a better decision.
Now, there is a book by Malcolm Gladwell.
Are you familiar with Malcolm Gladwell, Kurt?
Yes, he's quite profound.
I love his stuff. I mean, he's written the bomber mafia recently, David and Goliath. But his big start came with a book called Outliers. That's where that 10,000 hours theory comes from, where the real experts. If you're an expert in anything, you've probably put about 10,000 hours into it. But he also wrote a book called.
Blank about decision making and how high.
Performing leaders make decisions. And many of those high performing leaders make fast decisions. They trust their intuition and they make quick decisions. But the decisions are rarely made under stressful situations. They remove themselves from the stressful situation and then they make the quick decision.
Given certain circumstances.
Sometimes that fastest decision is the best decision, as long as it's not in a stressful situation. That's my whole point. So there's also the fear of missing out.
We all have this.
We all make decisions because we think that we're going to miss out on a good opportunity.
Yeah.
You mean I take that extra bowl of chili because I don't want to miss out on any.
It was so good the first time, I don't want to miss it the second time. Is that why I do it? I think so.
Exactly right. There is some truth to that, though, if we can relate it to eating, because that seems to be the subject of the day. Right. We started with jelly beans, and we're into chili and chips and everything else, but.
When we eat in a social.
Situation, I'll just speak for myself.
You go out to dinner and you feel like if you don't have the.
Great thing on the menu, the one that everybody's recommending instead of the salad or instead of the lean meat, instead of the chicken and broccoli. Right.
Yeah.
You feel like you're going to. I'm in this situation. When's the next time I'm going to be in this restaurant? I'm just going to try this.
Absolutely. I don't go out to eat that.
Much, so when I do, I really want to get what I want to get.
And it's not a salad, I can tell you, most of the time, or something necessarily healthy, if that's the comparison we're making.
Yeah. If an opportunity comes your way and.
You feel like you're going to miss out on the opportunity, so you don't take a step back. And we're talking a lot about decision making and proper decision making here, and that's appropriate. But when we talk about the fear.
Of missing out, it's also an investment.
Might come your way.
That your gut tells you, I don't know, but you're.
Afraid of missing out on this big.
Opportunity, and so you do it anyway. And you kind of feel like as.
You'Re doing it, it's against your better judgment, but you have this fear of.
Missing out on it.
I've been looking at educational seminars or.
Yeah, going to a conference, and I.
Get that feeling there's one that you.
And I have talked about. I feel like I'm missing out on.
That one, but I don't know it's the right one either. So that's why I'm not making a.
Decision to go to that one in particular. So I'm looking for the one that's going to be the right one that's.
Going to move me in the direction I want to go.
And then we have the power of habits.
We've talked a lot about habits, but.
Sometimes our habits can go against us.
Sometimes. Most of the time we're in. I would venture to say that most of the time we're in some pretty bad habits and we don't know it.
Sure.
That this is a habitual behavior that we have to grab the jelly beans or habitual behavior that we have to grab those chips or to make that decision. I have a terrible habit of when I'm in a stressful situation at work, when my brain is really being text.
I want to grab my phone and.
Look at a YouTube video.
Now, how weird is that, right?
And I know in the moment that.
I shouldn't be doing it, but the.
Habit drove me to that. It's funny, we can talk about habits a lot, right? The habit drove me to grabbing.
The stressful situation leads me to my phone, I get that dopamine hit, and now I'm hooked, right?
Yeah.
I'm thinking of pain and pleasure.
Right.
There's a Tony Robbins saying going through my head.
Because we tend to look towards pleasure to satisfy that.
Right? Right.
So instant gratification, dual process theory where our brains are conflicted against ourselves, stress and decision making fear of missing out and the power of habits. So I really want to talk about instant gratification, Kurt. Where does this thing come from? Is it all in our heads? I mean, is it part of that.
Old, ancient brain as well, like the dual mind theory?
Where does instant gratification comes from? I know that you shared with me that when you're doing something you don't want to do and you're not doing something you know you should be doing in that whole dichotomy, mine is eating as well, and it is about instant gratification. It is getting that feeling right now that I want to fill whatever need.
Is in me right now.
And where does this idea of instant gratification comes from? It is all in our heads, Kurt. I mean, our brains are literally wired for survival. We favor these immediate rewards at one time or another.
In our history, it was life or death, right?
Yeah.
We had to grab that fruit right now or catch that fish right now because there was no guarantee of future meals. There was no guarantee of having this in these.
When the stakes are different, I guess.
You would say choosing between going on YouTube on a YouTube short or a.
Facebook video versus finishing the presentation that's due tomorrow.
Our brains still love that immediate dopamine rush. It's that feel, you know, dopamine, that feel good chemical that rewards us for making bad decisions. Not necessarily. I mean, if we can use that dopamine rush for good decisions, we can. But so often we use it for bad decisions. So what is the deal? What is the deal with our brains and this preference? Of course, we have the whole prefrontal cortex issue that we talked about before that leads us to lack of impulse.
Control and gets overruled in the heat of the moment.
And like you said, it's that angel.
And devil on our shoulders. And sometimes the devil just has the megaphone.
So what do you think we can do about this?
I was going to say recognize that we've got this problem seems to be a common theme in psychology that we've read and talked about.
First thing you got to do is.
Recognize there is a problem, and you're bringing it out right now. And while you're talking, I'll just add.
Another one, which, I don't know if.
You'D be surprised that I have this.
One, but I get something in my head that I want to buy, and.
It'S not in the store, or I want it to be in the store.
Which is right down the street.
Walmart's right here.
Target. And yet I can find a better.
Price or maybe even a better item on Amazon.
And would you believe I'm not even patient enough to want to wait one day? I'd rather go up to Walmart and get it.
What is all that about?
But I don't know. That is funny. That's pretty funny.
That just shows you how bad I have this problem.
You'll spend $10 more to go up to Walmart and you'll spend $10 more, get in your car, drive to Walmart, and deal with all the dynamics of going to a Walmart. Right?
Go to Walmart, get the item, drive back, spend $10 more just because you didn't want to wait one day. Isn't that funny?
But.
Yeah, I know what you mean, man.
Yeah. Recognize. I have that problem.
We all have this problem. And that's the first thing for working on it.
Absolutely.
Also, if you can get yourself into the habit of. Before you make a decision, just pause.
For whatever period of time. Honestly, this works for me. When I go to grab those jelly beans, if I would just say, I'm going to wait 10 seconds, I'm just.
Going to wait 10 seconds.
Yeah.
And if after 10 seconds, I still want a handful of jelly beans, I'll.
Get a handful of jelly beans. But I'm just going to wait 10 seconds. And sometimes I'll count these little weird little tricks.
And believe me, Kurt, I use them.
I use these weird little tricks, and most of the time they work really well.
I just heard this on a podcast recently. I heard this on a podcast recently.
It's a five second rule, not 10 seconds. And there's some.
She goes into a bunch of the psychology around counting to five. And that seems to break this in your brain.
I think what happens is it gives that new brain a chance to kick.
In, say, hold on, logical.
Hold on. That may not be the best thing for you.
Right? That's a good little trick.
Yeah, just wait 5 seconds. And the trick to this is not to deny yourself whatever you want to do. Not to deny yourself going up to the store to buy that drill or to grab those jelly beans or to go to that YouTube video or whatever it might be, right? Not to deny yourself that. Because if you go into it knowing.
You'Re going to deny yourself, you probably won't do it.
But just say, I'm going to wait 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, if I decide I.
Still want to do that. Okay, we'll see what happens.
Now, whatever your time is, I've heard 10 seconds. I mean, depending on the purchase, you may want to wait ten days, right?
Yeah. Right.
I'm talking little things.
Really?
Yeah.
If you're going to buy a $50,000 truck, right? And you're caught up in the moment.
And the funny thing is, this is the whole idea behind this. When we're in the moment, we know we're in the moment, we know we're.
Caught up in this thing. And there is that voice inside us saying, you better take a step back. But we just don't want to. We want that truck. We want that thing. I listen to the minimalists a lot, Kurt, and they do talk about these levels of purchases. If it's a purchase of $100 or.
More, he waits ten days or something like that.
If it's a purchase or whatever it might be.
If it's a purchase of x amount, he waits for ten minutes, whatever it might be.
So if you can put these little roles, these little rules in place, that.
Will help you delay that reward, delay that decision, that can certainly help.
I like that idea.
Yeah.
I think it's funny how these little tricks really can make a big difference if you implement them.
Also, I like the idea of mindfulness decision making. This is part of the same thing. But you have to practice mindfulness in advance. When you pause to concentrate, take some time every day just to pause and.
Concentrate on something intentionally.
A lot of times, mindfulness, we talk about mindfulness being mindfulness meditation, but it's just taking a few minutes to pause on your breathing. You may find a spot on the wall, a neutral spot on the wall that, hey, I'm just going to take.
Five minutes right now and just stare.
At this spot on the wall. And I'm not going to let anything else distract me.
And it will distract you, but you're.
Going to bring yourself back. If you can practice that, this ability.
To delay the reward, to delay instant.
Gratification will certainly that muscle, you're building that muscle intentionally. So I like this idea of mindfulness.
Decision making and practicing that in a.
Safe environment in advance because that's what you're doing when you're practicing mindfulness meditation. And I don't want to get all weird and woo woo. We've talked a lot about mindfulness meditation here, and it's a practice that I do, but it's just the idea of intentionally building that muscle to focus on something that you know that is the right thing to focus on, that you're doing it intentionally and not just being pulled from left to right on the whim of the day or the whim of the moment. So practice mindfulness decision making, mindfulness meditation, mindfulness focus.
Yeah.
And as you're saying that related to.
That for me is taking pleasure in quiet moments, that gratitude feeling.
We were just talking about going outside.
Now that it's springtime and really enjoying nature and slowing down and listen for the birds.
I'm going to go take my bike.
Ride along the Farmington river and just.
Sit there and listen to the water and the river go through.
It's really a gorgeous place to go.
Some peacefulness.
And it's an inexpensive, enjoyable.
I got my heart rate going up too.
It's just a really enjoyable experience and it was good for me. And take pleasure in those things, too.
You don't have to take that extra.
Piece of pie to get pleasure.
Enjoy the simple things.
Absolutely. Enjoy the simple things. And the final thing that I'll say.
Is remember to celebrate when you win.
Remember to celebrate when you do make that good decision. When you do walk away from that bag of jelly beans. When you do walk away from. May not. I may order this from Amazon away.
Today or I may not order it at all.
Celebrate that moment knowing that you made a good decision. You delayed your gratification. Give yourself a little hand clap.
Give yourself a little high five. I know it sounds weird and I know it sounds awkward.
And guys, I don't think we like.
To do this a lot, but when we celebrate our wins, even internally, to.
Say, to give ourselves a little attaboy, just a little small one. It's okay, guys. We can do this. We can give ourselves a little pat on the back and not have to break our arm off, right?
Just a little attaboy and celebrate that win.
Because that reinforces this ability to delay gratification.
So remember to celebrate your wins.
Understanding instant gratification, that's what we talked about, primarily about this idea of not doing what we want to do and doing what we don't want to do and all of that doing what we.
Know is wrong and not doing what we know is right.
Understanding that whole thing. We talked a lot about instant gratification.
But it's not about demonizing our desires or immediate pleasure.
Sometimes pleasure can be immediate, right?
Sometimes pleasure can be.
We don't have to be completely stoic all the time and deny ourselves. But it's more about recognizing that these desires might be holding us back from really achieving our long term goals and our happiness, our true happiness, not just that dopamine hit right now, but our true happiness and the things that are going to make our life happier long term. By being mindful of our choices and implementing strategies to manage these innate tendencies, we can really find a balance, Kurt, that allows us for both immediate joys allows for both immediate joys and future successes.
So I guess the next time we're faced with that choice between now and later, remember that we really do have that power. We do have that power.
And we have that ability to delay gratification and to set it aside. And we can build that muscle and.
We can build those tools.
You gave some great strategies. I didn't think you said you weren't going to help me. I think you have helped me with this. And I really like the one to celebrate, too, because I think we're hard on ourselves. We talked about self care, and one of the things we do is beat.
Up ourselves too much and not look.
At the positive side of ourselves and.
The things that we do.
Right.
And especially when we're caught in this situation you're talking about to celebrate that. I didn't think about doing that, but thank you. Joe, once again, could you just talk.
About those three strategies you just gave me? They were great ones.
I'd like to hear them over again.
Yeah.
The first thing that we did is.
We will delay the reward, right? Practice some kind of x minute rule or ten second rule or ten minute.
Rule or ten day rule, right? Delay that reward intentionally. Do it. Don't deny yourself. Just delay it for a very short period of time. A period of time that your mind.
Won'T resist, whatever that might be.
I think a ten second rule or a 1 minute rule is really good because that's short enough to kind of fool your mind, that old mind, into.
Thinking you're still going to get it.
But it also gives the new mind time to kick in and say, no.
You probably better not, Joe.
So I could buy that thing on.
Amazon that is two day delivery instead.
Of one day, right? I don't have to make that choice between the one day, two day thing.
I could wait two days, right?
Or not buy it at all, right?
Oh, okay. No, you said I could buy it.
You're kind of lying to your old mind about buying it until your new mind can kick in and stop the process. Right?
Because I do that, too.
Part of this is laziness for me. I can't tell you how many times I've bought something that I know that I have just because I'm too lazy to go to dig through the boxes.
To go look for it.
Somehow it seems easier to spend $30 on whatever it is that I'm going to buy digging through the closet knowing that it's in there somewhere.
It's so true.
What was number two before I forget?
Mindfulness. Be mindful about your practice. Mindfulness, not in a weird woo woo sense. I mean, if you want to go weird woo woo, God bless you for it. But just on a regular basis, build.
That ability to shift your mind to.
Think about something that you know is right to think about. And the best way to do that, I think, is through mindfulness meditation. But if you just want to pause for five minutes a day and look at a spot on the wall, a neutral spot on the wall, and say, for the next five minutes, all I'm going to do is purposefully, intentionally look at this spot on the wall and.
You'Ll be surprised how that muscle builds.
And then finally, just celebrate the win.
When you do win over this battle.
For instant gratification, give yourself a high five. Give yourself an atta boy. Tell somebody else about it.
Listen, I didn't grab those jelly beans today, right? Just celebrate that win. Give yourself an atta boy.
I think you should celebrate this episode.
Because before we started recording, you told.
Me you didn't feel like you were ready this morning.
We've had a rough week and you felt you weren't ready to present.
And isn't it amazing, the knowledge you.
Have that you didn't know you had? And it comes out when we record our podcast.
It is.
And it is years of studying this stuff. It's years of studying personal development, what.
Drives us, what moves us forward, how do we build a better life?
And all these strategies are kind of there, right? There is nothing new under the sun. Another Bible reference. But, yeah, sometimes it takes some prompting to dig it out and bring it forward. But thanks for that, Kurt.
I appreciate the compliment. What's your win for the week?
Yeah, remember I was talking about buying a bike?
I got over at Target, an impulse buy, because it was marked.
Well, I got it the next day. It was $104, marked off for $350. And it's a little cruiser bike with seven speeds.
But I was looking for a nice.
Day, and it was 50 degrees on Wednesday. I got out after work, went down to this nice.
You know how they have these bike.
Paths or walking paths? We have one across around the Farmington river, and I never have been on it.
And you always say, go as far.
As you can see. I was thinking about you, Joe, because I started going down the road, and.
I know the car or the road that drives along this path quite well. It's on my way to Hartford, and this bike path goes along the way. I said I want to keep going.
And sometimes you can't see around the bend, but I don't know how far this bike ride is, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to get back and how exhausted I'm going to be, but I'm going to go as far as I can see and then see what's behind that.
And I was really surprised. I was able to get that farthest part in the road and then make.
My way back, and I really rode for, like, an hour.
It was fantastic, and it was nice and flat.
I didn't even realize sometimes when I was going uphill or downhill, it was that nice.
So I'm going to do that again today.
I love road biking. I do. And there was a time that I did it every single day for a few miles a day.
Wow.
And then I would take a weekend and do a really long one. I think the longest bike ride I've.
Done is probably 26 miles.
But I love road biking, man.
Love it so much that I don't do it anymore.
What was your win for the week?
I had another big presentation in front of the executive team at work. This was. This was an interesting presentation, Kurt, because this was an overview, a complete overview of the last six months impact that my team has made on the organization. So I had to really kind of dig deep and say what we did, how we did, what was the financial impact, what was the organizational development impact, what was the revenue impact, the impact to our gross margins? And we really had to kind of dig deep into this, and I had to pull from several resources to put this together.
And it's a funny thing. I had a month to do this.
Presentation, and I think I did it.
The presentation was yesterday, quite honestly. No, today.
Yeah. The presentation was Wednesday.
Excuse me, this is Friday. The presentation was Wednesday. And I did the whole presentation Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, with a little bit of work over the weekend, a few hours of work over the weekend, and it turned out pretty well.
Right.
But, gosh, why do we do that? I mean, I had a month. Why couldn't I just break it down.
To 15 minutes a day or a.
Half an hour a day? I don't know if there's really truth.
To the person that says, I do.
My best work under pressure, and I do my best work at last minute.
I hear people say that. I don't believe it.
No, they get focused.
I think this prison, you're focused because you have to be focused because you don't. Because if not, you're going to be fired, right?
Yes.
And that's a motivator, but that motivator doesn't kick in until the last minute.
I know this presentation would have been much better and it was pretty good. It would have been much better and much more effective had I just done.
A little bit, a half an hour a day.
I know.
Or isolated 2 hours a week to.
Work on the presentation.
You don't need the pressure of the deadline because once you get into that flow and it's part of the habits that you're doing, it isn't that hard and it's a little bit enjoyable. Did you find celebrating some of your successes to be rewarding and you were surprised some of the things you accomplished?
I did. It was very rewarding.
What was most rewarding are the processes that I've been able to change since.
I came back and some of the ideas that I've been able to implement and mindset and philosophies and outlook that I've been able to change. The results are coming. They're slower than I would like, but the results are coming. And you can see that wave starting to build, but more so, I'm pleased with the process and strategy changes that.
I've made since I came.
Awesome.
Good job, Joe.
Thanks, man.
I appreciate that. How about your resource?
It's funny, we were talking about impulse buying and what's on my list was my resource.
This wasn't really an impulse buy, I gotta say.
I've been looking in stores locally and.
On Amazon and other places ever since.
I got for Christmas the outdoor pizza grill that my wife bought for me for Christmas.
And it uses those wood pellets.
And there was a nice day since.
Christmas that I tried.
Matter of fact, as this weather gets.
Better, that's what's going to think on my mind.
The way that you light the wood pellets. I had a little fire starter that I tried. It was okay. But I've always liked zippo lighters. I use that for my grill. I just like the logo and I.
Don'T know, there's something about Zippo lighters I've always liked. I always have collected a couple of those. I still have a couple around. Always.
They're not all that practical when you're trying to light a grill.
For instance, I do charcoal grill and you take a, I have a smoke starter, the weber smoker like starter where you put all your charcoal in the top and you put some paper underneath.
Well, it's really difficult to do that with a zippo.
And even more so with this pizza.
Grill to get those little wood chips pellets started. So I found this torch lighters seemed.
To be a good thing. I didn't know much about them. And I found, speaking of finding something inexpensive, the brand name Luxgaze, I don't know that that makes any sense. You can look on Amazon and see what you like, but I got a.
Two pack of torch lighters, butane, and they're refillable.
So I got the refillable. I went over to Walmart to get that, but it's a jet flame lighter and you just click it on and you get this blue flame that juts out about four or five inches. And it's going to be really easy to light my grill, especially my smoker and my pizza grill. And it was for $7.99 for the two of them. So one for myself and one for my wife.
Holy smoke, man. $8 for two of them.
Butane lighters. Yeah, even if they're crappy. It was a nice.
So does it have the extendable flame on it?
I mean, like the extended arm that you kind of stick it in there?
Well, it's not that long. It's only about. I don't say it's like seven or eight inches long, but the flame, it looks like a little flashlight pen flashlight.
So the flame itself is seven or eight inches? No, no.
This flame will get it by three or four. Gotcha.
I may go on Amazon right now and pick these up, get it consistent.
I'll send you the link.
Yeah, awesome.
And I'm a fan of Zippo lighters too.
Is that, know, I struggle a bit.
With getting a good night's sleep.
And if I stay in a good.
Evening routine, I'll typically get a good night's sleep. But part of my evening routine is.
I'll listen to podcasts at night and.
Kind of fade, let kind of fade away while I'm listening to a podcast.
But my wife actually brought this up to me.
She found it somewhere. We all know about white noise generators and kind of that hiss in the background. Well, there are certain color indicators for noise. You have white noise, you have pink noise, you have green noise and you have brown noise. And I found some brown noise on Amazon music that loops throughout the night. And it sounds like I'm on an.
Airplane when I play it in the background.
And, you know, I don't know if I've, I'm sure I've talked about this before. When I go on an airplane, when.
That airplane's gone, I fall asleep right away. I have no idea what it is.
But this brown noise sounds like I'm.
On an airplane and wow, it really helps my mind relax.
And what's the difference between brown noise and white noise?
I don't know the science behind it, but you can hear a difference. The brown noise is more of a rumbling.
The white noise is more of a hiss, more bass.
But you have green noise that has different characters to it. You have pink noise that has different characters to it.
So try different ones that work.
Yeah, I've done white noise and that didn't really help me. But this brown noise, this rumble.
Really?
I can see that.
Helps me sleep at night.
Yeah.
A little bass maybe to it. Yeah, I like that.
So good deal.
Some kind of brown noise generator. If you have some trouble sleeping at night or concentrating, find yourself a good brown noise generator going. And generator is not the best word.
Just a file, a sound file that.
You grab from Amazon music or whatever.
It might be and play it in the background just to see if it helps you.
I like it. I got Spotify.
Yeah, I use Amazon music.
I've been listening to my cable. I'm having horrible trouble with my cable television. Matter of fact, they're coming out today to finally I got up the courage to call a cable company and deal with them, but they're sending a technician out.
I've been using YouTube, listening to subliminal.
Talks.
No kidding.
Subliminal.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
And I seem to find I fall asleep.
So I don't know if it's reaching my brain.
But that's one of the things I do.
I put on the YouTube subliminal.
That would be a great show for us to dig into whether there's a real benefit and impact to subliminal messaging.
Yeah.
There are those old studies of advertising where somebody flashes a subliminal message in.
An advertisement where your brain doesn't know where your eyes don't see it, but your brain sees it and implants a subliminal message.
So we'll see.
That's kind of interesting, but I like that.
Yeah.
How about a quote?
Do you have a quote for the week?
I do. And usually our subjects are pretty easy.
To come up with a quote.
This one I just saw.
It's kind of related to what we were talking about.
I think I can make a comparison.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world.
Are the ones who do Steve Jobs.
Yeah, I love this quote.
You know this quote?
Yeah, I love this quote.
Yeah.
They do the things they're supposed to do even though.
Right.
Everyone thinks they're crazy, and they get beyond that.
Crazy.
Right. They get beyond that.
People thinking they're crazy because we all have. This fits really well, Kurt, actually.
Because this is something that holds us back from doing the things that we.
Know are right to do.
Is that what other people will think? And if somebody else thinks that what you're doing is crazy, you may hold.
Back from doing it.
And really, it's the people who are.
Crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who really do it.
I love this, man.
Yeah. If you think you can do it, you probably can't.
Mine comes from Mark Twain, and I.
Like this quote because it's funny, but it's also telling.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it a thousand times.
Yes.
He's got such a wit, Mark Twain. That's why he's quoted so much.
I say something very similar. I say, I can lose weight, man. I've lost 30 pounds 30 times in my life. I can lose the weight.
Yes.
You've stole this one from Mark Twain.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.
Well, there's a chemical thing in smoking that makes it even more difficult. Right, as I'm been told.
Yeah, the whole nicotine thing, I think it's dopamine.
Maybe it's dopamine.
That makes us.
Yeah.
Too much.
It's that.
It's the nicotine. It's the habit behind it. I smoked for years, and I quit back in my 20s, but I remember.
Doing some funny things to help me.
Quit smoking, and I did it cold turkey. I stopped, but I did some interesting things.
So, yeah, there's Mark Twain for you.
Very quotable. Mark Twain, Winston Churchill. I certainly have my favorites.
Right?
Ben Franklin.
Well, let's wrap it up right there, Kurt. Our website is dudesinprogress.com. Dudesinprogress.com. If you want to reach out to us, dudes@dudesinprogress.com. Is our email address. We would love to hear from you. Remember, as we wrap up the day, as we wrap up the week, as we wrap up this show and we go into the next part of our day or week or life, progress is better than perfection. Let's keep moving forward.
Joe, I had so much fun talking to you today. I needed it today. You always make me feel better. And I feel a little dopamine pumping through my veins right now as I head off to my bike path.
Well, let's delay that instant gratification, right? Let's try to do the things that we know are right to do and don't do the things that we know are going to screw us up.
Thanks for reminding me.
See you, pal.