S2-E32: What's Holding You Back? (It's Not What You Think)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Deep End with Eric Triplett

Episode: S2-E32 – "What's Holding You Back? (It's Not What You Think)"
Release Date: April 1, 2026
Host: Eric Triplett (“The Pond Digger”), with guest contributions from Terry and Phillip

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Eric Triplett dives deep into the critical question: "What's holding you back?"—a theme that’s explored through the lens of contracting, entrepreneurship, personal development, and mindset mastery. Challenging the common assumption that people are stuck due to lack of effort or weak strategy, Eric argues the real obstacle is almost always lack of clarity. He provides actionable frameworks to better identify goals, expose limiting beliefs, and systematically overcome obstacles—whether in business, health, or life.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. The Real Reason You’re Stuck: Clarity Over Hustle

• Most tradespeople and entrepreneurs don’t lack work ethic or hustle—they lack precision about their goals.
• Eric: “Most people... don’t have a work ethic problem. They just have a clarity problem. They don’t know exactly what they want out of life... If you cannot define a goal specifically, you’ll never be able to identify the obstacle.” (01:00)

Action Step:

• Define what you want with specificity. Only then can you recognize, target, and overcome the true obstacles.

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2. The “What’s Holding You Back?” Question as a Tool

• Inspired by Matt Eastman, Eric emphasizes the power of this question in sales, customer service, leadership—and self-reflection.

• Customers, employees, and even ourselves need to be asked what’s truly standing in the way, with empathy and specificity.

• Quote:
  “People want to buy, they don’t want to be sold. They want to be heard, they don’t want to be told." — Eric (05:12)

• Example Applications:

  • In fitness: “What’s holding you back from losing 30 pounds by your wedding?” (08:00)
  • In contracting: “What’s holding you back from fixing your pond?” or “From building your dream backyard?” (09:30)

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3. Defining Goals with Precision

• Vague goals (e.g. “I want more money,” “I want more clients”) are non-starters.
• Utilize frameworks like the RAS (Reticulator Activated System) from Ed Mylett or the “Ideal Week” from Dan Martell to lock in specificity and let your brain solve for those targets.

Eric:
“The more specific we can get behind these problems, these dreams, then we can actually find out a way to do it.” (14:23)

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4. Overcoming Resistance: The Four Gaps

Eric identifies four main types of “gaps” that may truly be holding someone back:

• Skill Gap: Need for new skills or knowledge (often “you don’t know what you don’t know”).
• Belief Gap: Struggling to believe that your goals are possible.
• Execution Gap: Failing to consistently execute or act on your goals.
• Environment Gap: Who (and what) you surround yourself with, including your physical and social environments.

Eric:
“You could have all four of these problems... but there’s one that’s holding you back the most.” (30:10)

Recommended Steps:

• Analyze which gap is primary for you (or your team) right now.
• Attack one at a time for more focus and progress.

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5. Tracking, Time Management & Execution

• Eric describes tracking every 15 minutes of his day (inspired by Dan Martell & Alex Hormozi) to uncover inefficiencies and clarify roles—especially those he needs to “replicate” and delegate.

  • Eric: “The gaps in your time and the things that you’re wasting time on are glaring.” (26:35)

• Time-blocking & Self-Audit

  • Use tools like the Eisenhower Matrix and digital to-do lists (within Google Calendar) to separate “urgent/important” from mere busywork.
  • Dump tasks, ideas, and long-term goals in categorized digital lists—then regularly sync and delegate.

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6. Role Play and Sales Objection Handling

• The team discusses using the “What’s holding you back?” question not just for self-improvement but as a sales technique.
  • Example: When a customer stalls with “I need to think about it,” use empathy and curiosity to uncover real objections (money, uncertainty, etc.).
• Entertaining anecdote: Joe, a group member, closes a garage sale by using pro-level sales prompts from Grant Cardone’s “Closer Survival Guide.” (~24:00)

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7. Coaching Conversation: Challenges vs. Holdbacks

At [31:03], Terry sparks a discussion on distinguishing challenges vs. genuine “holdbacks,” particularly involving health and marketing.

Eric’s response (Dark Mode Motivation):
“When I got cancer, there’s no choice. You have to eat right, you can’t drink, you have to eliminate stress from your life—or just die, right?... That’s when the lever flips.” (32:03)

• Sometimes deep pain or risk is needed to move through a holdback.
• Mindset, support groups, and exposure to new information (books, peers, coaching) are critical.

Notable Quote – On Self-Sabotage: “If you keep avoiding the question of what’s holding you back, you are the one that’s holding you back.” (61:36)

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8. Collaborative Brainstorm: Positioning and Marketing

• Terry and Phillip discuss content strategy:
  • If you want to attract bigger, higher-paying jobs, shift your marketing content from repairs to highlighting big builds—even if that means revisiting old projects and filming new walk-throughs with fresh commentary.
  • Use voiceover, client highlights, and “imagine if…” future pacing even where landscaping isn’t finished.
• Phillip:
  “What do you feel you are presenting to the world?... From websites to your Google page to your social media—what are you giving them?” (41:53)
  “Every day you’re going to eat food. Every day you’re going to do something for your business… so every day, how your routine is set to run your business and speak about your business will give you those clients you’re asking for.”

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9. Managing Overwhelm: Task Management Systems

• Eric details his real-world approach:

  • Google Calendar “task lists” for everything: Vision, Get Shit Done, Sales Leads, Delegation
  • Daily sync meetings with key team members, limiting interruptions so team can focus.
  • Regular audit: Move, drop, or delete tasks as their urgency/importance shifts.

• Eric:
  “If we’re just doing busywork and we’re not hitting the big things that tick the needle forward in our business, then we’re not growing.” (54:30)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “Without a target, there’s no path. Without clarity, we just have frustration.” — Eric (09:55)
• On tracking time: “15 minute increments is really, really heavy... The gaps in your time are glaringly obvious.” (26:25)
• On skill vs. belief: “Everything it took me to get to the $1 million mark... it’s not going to get me through $3 million.” (20:30)
• On problem-solving: “Once you become clear on what you actually want, everything changes. Excuses get exposed, gaps become obvious, and the path becomes clear. Not necessarily simple.” (61:38)

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Key Takeaways

• Clarity is the cornerstone. Work like crazy, but start by defining exactly where you want to go.
• Constantly ask: “What’s holding you back?”—of your clients, your team, and yourself.
• Be specific. Vague goals and unspoken obstacles only breed frustration.
• Break big challenges down. Attack one skill gap, belief gap, or habit at a time.
• Audit and track your days. Use tools and systems to offload mental clutter, identify wasted time, and delegate.
• Sales and self-improvement are deeply linked. Role play, objection handling, and clear communication drive both.

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Further Resources Mentioned

• Books:
  • Teamwork by Natalie Dawson
  • Nine Figure Mindset
  • The One Thing by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan
• Frameworks & Tools:
  • RAS (Ed Mylett), Eisenhower Matrix, Google Calendar, Task Lists

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Final Challenge from Eric:
“Don’t just nod your head at this episode—run it back, let it sink in, and start every day by asking yourself: What’s holding you back, and what’s the one thing you will do today to move past it?” (61:36)

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Transcript

[Eric Triplett]

Welcome to the Deep End with Eric

[Terry]

Triplett, the pond digger.

[Eric Triplett]

This is the show for contractors, tradesmen and entrepreneurs who want more from their

[Terry]

business and from themselves. Eric brings decades of experience as a

[Phillip]

seven figure contractor with expertise in leadership,

[Terry]

sales systems, and the discipline it takes to build something real.

[Eric Triplett]

Shaped by years in the aquatics world, his insights are rooted in precision, craftsmanship, and performance.

[Terry]

If you're done skimming the surface and ready to go deeper, it's time to dive in.

[Eric Triplett]

Hey, it's triple here. Let me ask you something straight off. You ever feel stuck? Like you're grinding, working your ass off, showing up every day, but somehow you're not actually moving forward? Here's the real question, though. Stuck. Stuck from what? Because most people, especially contractors, they don't have a work ethic problem. They don't even have a strategy problem, right? They just have a clarity problem. They don't know exactly what they want out of life. They don't know exactly where they're going. So they have no idea what's actually holding them back because they don't know exactly what they want with specificity. And today we're going straight into that. Because if you cannot define a goal specifically, you'll never be able to identify the obstacle. So whether you're trying to grow your business, fix your life, close more deals, or finally build the thing that you've been talking about for years, the question is very simple. What's holding you back? Welcome, everyone. We are at weekly Compass 203 and I'm feeling like this profound moment about what's holding you back? What is holding you back? And there's a really interesting twist between how we serve our customers and how we serve our employees and how we serve ourselves in this question. What's holding you back? Now, what sparked this whole thought process about. What I want to talk about today is I saw Matt Eastman and, you know, I think he's great. I. I've never spent much time with him, don't get me wrong. I mean, mostly see him online and everything, but Matt Eastman, who said there's, there's a spot in any industry, whether you're a pond guy, a pool guy, a siding guy, a plumber, electrician, anything that effect is to ask a customer, you know, what's holding them back from their goal. Now, as you know, I want to talk about this, like right now. Our podcast is very contractor centric. I'm pushing back into some deep end podcast interviews that are going to lead into ponds and aquariums and all that aquatic stuff that you know, I'm so passionate about. But for the time being, even as an aquatic specialist, what are our goals? Right? As a customer, what are our goals as a contractor, as a business person, as a employee, what are our goals and what's holding us back from them? But what spun this is. Matt Eastman said during a discovery call, if you're doing your job right as a contractor, you should be figuring out what the goal of the customer is, right? And this isn't about being persuasive or sneaky and tricking anyone into things, because the fact of the matter is, if someone calls you, you know, they have a problem or a dream that they want to execute on, they have. They want to solve, and the goal is fix this problem, or the goal is to deliver the dream. Right? And so for us to be very specific about helping customers achieve that goal and for us to ask the right questions, it's really a blessing. It's not a persuasive, you know, sneaky, used car salesman thing, right? Because the fact of the matter is, people want to buy, they don't want to be sold, right? They want to be heard, they don't want to be told. Think about that for a second. Right? If I want something solved, I'm really looking for that solution, and it's up to me to identify how to get that done. And sometimes it's by gathering information from someone I'm talking to. And so that's part of it as well. So when you're on a discovery call with someone and if you ask them, you know, what's holding you back from achieving this goal? What's holding you back from X, Y, Z? You know, let's say, you know, I have some people in our lives. Hold on, mj, Just text me. Is everything okay? Yes. Okay, I understand you. Okay. So where I left off, right there was. Pull me back, too. Pull me back. People want to want to buy.

[Terry]

They don't want to be.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Terry]

Old.

[Eric Triplett]

They want to be heard. They don't want to be told. Right? So. And I made that up. That wasn't a chat GPT signal. Just so you know, I was literally thinking that, what can I. How can I put this together? Right? I know what I was thinking is, you know, think about someone who wants to be a weight loss journey. Right? And I know this is not a weight loss channel or this is not a weight loss podcast, but a lot of us want to be healthier, right? And. And so I know some people that are in the fitness industry, and so it's Very easy question to ask someone. So you'll be like, how much weight do you want to lose when you want to get it done by. And feel like, I want to lose £30 by my wedding. You know, there's. There's a specific time and date and a goal, Right? And so for the fitness, you know, trainer to be like, well, what's holding you back from achieving that goal? It's a very profound question. Okay. When you think about it in the health and wellness kind of aspect, right? But, like, think about it in a. In a pond scenario, if someone has a pond problem and they can't overcome it, like, what's. What's holding you back from getting this pond fixed? Right. What's holding you back from getting this pool installed in your backyard and turning this backyard into your dream oasis? What's holding you back from that? Right. So I think it's a very profound question. It gets me thinking a lot about our personal goals. And I've talked about Natalie Dawson's personal, professional, and financial goals that we all should be looking at daily, twice a day. We should be writing them down and thinking about them. We should have a really good idea of our. Of our employees and what they want out of life so they can. We can align with our big vision and their vision together. Right? So it got me thinking a lot about this clarity, right? What is holding us back from these goals? What's help? What's holding back our customers, and what's holding us back? We all want to grow our businesses. We all want to serve our customers at the highest level. So what is holding us back on this stuff? Right? So, you know, I think about this. I think most people, whether you're a contractor or a regular person listening to the podcast, most people aren't necessarily stuck. They're just unclear. They're just unclear of what it is that they want. And because without clarity and specificity, we don't have direction, Right? So it's interesting because people feel stuck. Hey, I feel stuck in this weight journey. Hey, I feel stuck in growing my business. Hey, I feel stuck in not getting this problem fixed on my property. Whoever you are, whoever I'm talking to at this moment. So a lot of times people feel that they're stuck, but what exactly is it they are stuck on? So when we define what the goal is, specifically, it's very easy to. I shouldn't say it's very easy, but only until then can we define, like, what's holding us back from achieving that goal. Okay. Without a target, there's no path. And so without clarity, we just have frustration. And I think I get frustrated about a lot of things. Like, I'm trying to get through even after I know what my goal is and I'm hitting my head against the wall trying to figure out how to get through the weeds, you know, But. But at least I have some clarity. I know that these are the steps I need to take. And it becomes more palatable. It becomes more like I can bite off these little pieces, right? So I think a lot of people don't have a what's holding you back problem. A lot of people just have a I haven't even decided where I'm going problem. So think about that in your own personal life first, which is foremost importance. But then think about that not only for your employees or the employees you're going to hire one day. You should be thinking about it in that fashion. In fact, we're in a hiring spree right now. We have a big. We have another job fair coming up, and we've interviewed three people in the past two days. But, you know, like, I want to align with what their goals are, right? So I'm looking at what their targets are because much too often we just hire people where there's no targets. And so I can't help them. And if I don't show them what my targets are, how can they truly help me? Instead of just like, I'm going to move rock or I'm going to clean an aquarium or I'm going to, you know, clean upon. Like there's not really this bigger vision, right? So I think where most, most contractors and people altogether fail is, you know, their. Their goals or are like, I want more money, I want better jobs, I want better clients. But without that specificity, how can we really attain it? How can we go for it without that, you know, that perfect client identity? Like, how can we market to them? Do they golf? Do they bowl? Do they, you know, what is it they do? Funny story. I went bowling on my trip in Pittsburgh and we went on like this total. Like, we. We played like three or four games. And I was getting kind of frustrated because I had these brand new bowling shoes, right? And so they didn't slide. If any bowlers in the house, you know, you go up to throw the thing in, that last little. That last little push with your foot. You slide just a little bit as you let go of the ball. These were brand new. Like, they were still kind of leathery and sticky. I couldn't get them to slide. And so I was really frustrated, but after like three games, I'm like, okay, I kind of got it figured out without a good slide, right? And then so I started bowling better. And then my, my friends were always, they were doing better. Me, I was catching them. I'm like, oh, I can get them now. So then all of a sudden a hundred bucks comes out on the table and, and you know, a couple beers in, now we're like wrestling and fighting and having a good time and having it. Just not wrestling in real life, but like verbal, verbal judo, right? So it was kind of fun. So I, I still have a blister on my hand and my left butt cheek hurt for like three days because, you know, we went so long bowling, it's. I don't know, I, I digress. Back to the clarity. If we want just more money, it, like, what does that mean? 20 cents, $20, you know? Well, I need real money. Well, what's real money? Like, we have to be very specific about this, right? So we need a specific revenue target, a specific lifestyle target, specific client type. These, the more specific we can get behind these, these problems, these dreams. Then we can actually find out a way to do it. So we've talked about the RAS system I learned from Ed Mylett, which is reticulator activated system. The more you create specificity in what you want, your brain starts to try and figure that stuff out, right? So what does the ideal week look like? What does. You know, that's from Dan Martell. You know, I love my Dan Martell. The book's back over there somewhere behind sponsor magnets right there. What kind of jobs do you actually want? I talk to contractors all the time. They're like, they're taking on whatever job they can get because, you know, and then we start to go look into their production line. They have paving, they have asphalt, they have lawn, they have pond, they have snow. Like, they just have this whole list of stuff. I'm like, what do you make the most profit? They're like, well, I'm not really sure yet. Okay, well, let's, let's look into that. Let's get specific about this, not just take on those jobs. What's the best job for your company? Which one ticks the needle the most for your business? For me, I know it's service and repair. That's our most profitable line item. So that's where I'm, I'm trying to spend the most of our, our vision in growing that section of our business. And without having specificity, how do we know how to market to it. Right? So another important thing is what are you trying to eliminate from your life? Right? Because once we define a goal of what it is exactly that we want, then your mind starts to think about what's getting in the way. And sometimes it's things that we're doing in our life. I need to stop doing this so I can do that. Right. If I'm going to get healthy, I need to figure out a time where I can go for a walk every day or hit the gym or go shopping so I have better food to choose from or whatever. Like, you have to create what you need to eliminate from your life so you can achieve these things. And the problem is, if the vision isn't clear, you're going to have resistance and it's always going to feel random, like the world is against you. Right. The world's just against me. And I feel stuck, but I don't know what I'm stuck from. Got all this friction and, you know, it just feels like that's the way the world is. But you guys know people just like I know people that have the same amount of time in the day and then get. Get all these beautiful things out of life, and it's easy for us to just go, well, they got lucky. Okay, well, maybe they didn't. Maybe they just were very specific on what they want out of life. And I. I think I want to inspire you guys as contractors and people and employees and as fathers and mothers and daughters to help the people around you become more specific on what it is that they want, Especially that client, that, that contractor to prospect relationship. I think that's really important. And I started thinking about some of the things, and this is coming from some of my coaching that I'm doing and of course, all the reading and stuff that I'm doing. But I think the real question becomes, like, not like, what is holding you back? Right? What's holding you back? I've already told you about, hey, we need to try and help our customers figure out what's holding them back. But what is really holding you back? Is it a skill? Like, do we need a new skill? Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. You know, my break point, I'm trying to get through 3 million. It's very hard. And I. I'm paying for coaching because there's things I just don't know how to get through yet because everything it took me to get to up there. Oh, gosh, I hope that calls. Okay. Everything that it took me to get to the 1 million mark to break that mark. It's not going to get me through the 3 million. And one of the things that I'm learning through all this goal setting and working with my, my wife and working with my, my team is there's a belief gap problem, right? And so we, we have a problem believing that it, what we want is so is even achievable. And I've actually struggled with my wife on this and she's having a hard time even saying it or putting it into a vision board or things like that. And so my wife and I have had these long, deep conversations and then we have to go back and look at all the goals that we've achieved in our life together up to this point and be like, look what we've done. Like, that seems impossible to some people. So the big vision and dreams that you have now, they are very possible. Now. We're a lot older than we used to be, so we're going to have to get there faster, but we still have the possibility to do that. And it's all in that belief gap, right? And so then it's going to come down to execution. We have to make sure we're executing daily towards those goals. Contractors, if you're sick and tired of not making enough money, you might suck at sales and you don't even know it. Or worse, you suck at sales and you actually think you're good. Before you get upset with me, I sucked at sales too. And for a long time. Here's the difference. I pulled my head out of the sand and I forced the change. That's why I know what you're up against and how you too can turn things around for you and your family. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I got really uncomfortable. I trained hard. I studied books and podcasts, videos, courses, role playing, and I took guidance from mentors and coaches while spending thousands of of dollars. But trust me, it was all worth it. I mean, I turned my struggling company into a profitable seven figure construction business. I put together a list of the critical sales techniques that I use to flip my business from surviving to thriving. And I call it my contractor sales secrets. I want to share the list with you with no, no expense. Just to get you moving in the right direction. It's my way of contributing and giving back to my community. Community and the construction industry that I know and I love. The list is available to [e-mail] I promise you, with these sales secrets, some grit and discipline. I know you can dramatically change your life. So stop what you're doing right now and go to contractorsalesecrets.com that's contractorsalesecrets.com One thing that I'm doing currently right now for two reasons. Well, one, the main reason I'm doing this, I'm tracking every 15 minutes of my day. You know, when I take my dog out, when you know, there's a bathroom break, when I go to get coffee, when I'm eating, when I'm on a sales call, when I'm doing a sync meeting with my team, all that's every 15 minutes. I'm marking things down. Right? So, you know, I've heard, I've heard Dan Martell talk about this many times. I've heard and I, and I never executed on that. I never would, like, did that because I, I thought my day was pretty well done. But 15 minute increments is really, really heavy. Okay, so Alex Harmozi talks about that as well. And so one of the, one of the positions that I need to accommodate in my business is replicating myself. Now, it feels impossible. I mean, it literally feels impossible. It's so frustrating. It's my wall, but I know that's on the other side of that is the light. So I'm in the weeds of that right now. So in this one position that I'm specifically trying to get through, I am just documenting because I don't even know how to tell the person. I don't even have any clarity behind their job description. It's like, hey, you tell the guys where to go, when to get there and where we're going to be and what materials to order. Like, without some clarity, how can I fulfill that gap? So I am, I'm committed to doing that not only for a, A, a day or two or a week, but potentially up to a month. Because the position that I'm working on is, and what I'm trying to execute, this is the execution gap that I'm talking about. It's like I'm executing on trying to fill this gap. I've been trying to fill this gap for two years, but I now know this is the pathway through. I've been in the weeds for two years on this position right now. I know this is the way I have to do this. So I'm going to execute on the stuff that Dan Martell taught me two years ago. I'm going to execute stuff that. It's really profound the way Alex Hormozy talks about it, because he's like, you will become the most productive guy in your, in you've ever seen when you start doing this. 15 minute increments. Because the gaps in your time and the things that you're wasting time on are glaring. They were glaringly obvious where you waste time. So I would, I would highly recommend that you take a stab at that. I wish I would have done it two years ago. Maybe I'd be a little bit farther along. The last gap that I want you to talk, that I want to like kind of talk to you about is environmental. And that's the people that you surround yourself with. So we've all heard this. I'm not, I'm not making up any new things, but you're as powerful as the people you hang out with. There's all the different ways you've done this. But you know, your, your team should be aligned, your systems should be aligned, your surroundings, your area should be cleaned up. And this is the way you create an environment where you can. So that's, I'm not going to beat the horse on that one because you guys know it, but it's, it's never in. Each one of us are going to be stuck in a certain thing. Maybe it's a skill, I don't know what, I don't know. Maybe it's the belief, you know, the belief system inside your brain. Can we even do it? Maybe you're not executing. Maybe it's the environment, right? You could have all four of these particular problems that you're dealing with right now, but there's one that's holding you back the most. There's the one thing, you know the book, the one thing that you can go after, whether it's the environment, get that fixed up and then you can feel more confident and then you can go to like, hey, I got to work on my belief system. Let me read a book. I just read this book. I think I showed this one to you. This one's a tough one. This is the nine figure mindset. And this is, this has really been a big help for the belief, the believing it's even possible. It's a great book. I would recommend that one. But maybe it's the environment. Get yourself cleaned up, stop talking to negative people, get into the belief system and then figure out how to execute and get going, get going. And then suddenly you're going to find out things that you didn't know, you didn't know. Your skills are going to get better and you're going to start to find these breakthroughs. So this is this is like the premise behind it. But let's get back to sales for just a second because while we're working on ourselves, we have to be, you know, working on our, on our clients and our prospects and taking care of them at the highest level. So back to that question. You know, a lot of contractors, and that's why we love to role play on Tuesday nights. That's our opportunity to ask these questions. So, you know, instead of, hey, do you want to move forward on the project? Or, you know, hey, when would you like to set up? You know, if you haven't heard them enough, they might go, hey, I need to think about it. And then you're, you're lost in the weeds with them. But if you haven't found their, their direct buying motive, right, then that's the point where you're like, hey, well, what's holding you back from moving forward on this project? That's very specific. They have to go like, it's money, it's, my wife doesn't want it. It's, you know, I have some uncertainty around the product. And so now you can talk to them about those specific things. That's holding them back, right? It's just like the person who's the fitness trainer is like, what's holding you back from, you know, losing the 30 pounds? And they're like, I think it's my diet, I think it's that I like to party on the weekends and I go drink alcohol with my friends and I, like, now it becomes specific and then they can attack those things. Right? But it's very important for us to ask that question and then shut up and just let them think about it and then give you the answers and then you can help them through the process. Right? Because when we ask this question correctly, with the right tonality, the right empathy, all that's wrapped around that, you know, we uncover their fears, we uncover their confusion, we uncover decision paralysis. Like they get, you know, they get caught in analysis paralysis or their spouses or whatever their priorities are. Because sometimes objections just aren't. They don't just exist there. They're really unspoken fears of how they're going to be moving forward on the project. Right? And so the sooner we can help them with that, the sooner you can help them, you know, get to their dreams. So some of the word tracks that could be wrapped up in this, like a role play on a, on a Tuesday night with us, if you're going to role play with us in twt, like, hey, what's holding you Back from fixing this pond? How long has this been a problem? On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you at in this problem? Right. These, these are the kind of questions we want to start asking in the right cadence at the right time to help your customers. Right? What's holding you back from building the dream pond? What's holding you back from solving this problem once and for all? What's holding us back from solving this problem? This has been a problem for four years. What's holding us back? What's holding you back from getting that, that problem fixed? Right? So these are, these are the way we ask these questions. And I want to, I want to pause right here. I don't think Joe's on the call. Is Joe on the call? I don't think Joe's on the call. So, you know, we've been practicing the I need to think about it close, right? Remember when I broke out the closer survival guide from Grant Cardone, and we started going through the five or six closers that, like the closing lines that we needed to kind of perfect and learned that are affecting our business, every business, as I need to think about it, right? Joe was at a garage sale. I wish he was here to tell the story. He's at a garage sale. He's selling the stuff. And someone wanted to, to buy this special cooler that he had. And Joe's like, $30, right? And, you know, at a garage sale, 30 bucks is kind of a lot for something, I think, you know, I'm like, I'll give you five bucks for this. How much you want for this chainsaw? Give me $5. You know, you buying chainsaws for $5? So, like, this cooler's $30, and the guy's like, I need to think about it now. In the past, someone like Joe might just assume, oh, they can't afford it. It's too much money. They're gonna try and talk me down, and I want $30, so I'm not gonna do it. So, like, that's old Joe probably happening, right? But he says, yeah, cool. No problem. That, that's, it's in the closer's guide. Look it up. Toodle. You know what I mean? Agree with them. Like, yeah, cool. I, I, I totally get it. I know it's on. It's not. It's not uncommon for people to think about a decision like this. Hey, but there's. There's typically only three reasons why we need to think about a decision like this. Is it cool if I just share those with you? This is At a garage sale, bro. And he even said I was sitting down in, like, in my chair in front of the garage, and they were standing above me. So I was like, subordinate to him. Him, you know? So, like, his. The way he's thinking is like, hey, I was down low, he's up high. He had the more dominant position in me. And I'm down here just cool, calm, collected. And I go into the. I need to think about it close, right? And so you. If you guys have trained with me, you know, like, you either you're. I think he. How did it go? He said, you're not even sure if you'll use the product. You're not sure if it's the right product for what you need to solve, right? And. Or it's maybe because you don't like me. But we just met. You don't even know me long enough to know whether you like me or not. So it can't be that or it's because you can't afford it. He literally said that to this person sitting in the driveway. And the person reached into their pocket, pulled out the money, and just flipped him 30 bucks. And he said, thank you so much. You have a great day. Boom. Sold it like that at a garage sale. We're learning these prompts to help people right in. You know, those are. That's identifying that. The. That's identifying the objection truly. Was it the money? Or maybe you don't like me, maybe you don't believe in me. Maybe I've talked too much instead of listening to you, right? So, like, these are absolute objections. And so I just think it's real fun that these role play prompts that we're talking about, you know, now we're using them in garage sales and having success with it. So let me turn this inward just a little bit, okay? The same question that you ask your clients, I hope that you're asking yourself, because if you can't identify what it is that's holding you back, then you don't have clarity where you're trying to go. And that's what's truly probably holding you back. So what's holding you back from hiring people? What's holding you back from raising your prices? What's holding you back from being organized and being in the shape that you want? Because if you avoid this question or you don't, you. You can't, you know, find the problem. You can't find that the thing that's holding you back, it is you. It is you. So just remember this clarity is Going to create direction. Clarity will give you the absolute direction of where you need to go and when you have the direction, that's when you can even see the resistance. Like I just told you, like I am all muddy in the weeds here but now I'm doing these 15 minute increments and I can really dial in. Like this is what needs to get done in the morning, this is what needs to get done in mid morning. This is what needs to get done before lunch. This is when we need to call the crews and make sure that they have all the supplies and resources they need for tomorrow. So we have time to update our CRM so we can be prepar and lay the foundational tracks for tomorrow. Like this is what I'm doing and so I see all the resistance now because I have a lot of clarity in how to get it done. So let me just ask you, okay? What is holding you back from being the kind of person that you want to be? From being the kind of person who asks that question every single day, not only of yourself, but to the people that you love in your life and to the customers that you're trying to serve. Hey, it's Triplett here. Listen. In a world where quality is often overlooked, Helix Life Support stands proud bringing you American made excellence for your koi ponds and water gardens. And I want you to know I worked in the field for over 15 years and had professionally built nearly a thousand ponds before I designed my own proprietary filtration equipment. So trust and believe when I say that Helix Life Support is a product line that was crafted for those who demand durability, advanced technology and a deep commitment to fish friendly designs. Now at the heart of the product line is our patented award winning Helix pond skimmer. Built with the safety for your koi and other fish as our top priority. No sharp edges, no unnecessary risks. Just an innovative fish friendly skimmer you can trust. And every piece of Helix equipment that's made is with high quality materials so you can get a filtration system that's as tough and reliable as it is efficient. Whether you're a first time pond builder or professional contractor looking to elevate your game, my team and I are ready to help you realize that vision for personalized pond design assistance or to get your hands on Helix Life Support filtration equipment. Give us a call today at 800-522-5043. That's 800-522-5043. Support American craftsmanship and choose Helix Life Support for your pond. Built for koi Built for life, Built for you.

[Terry]

So how do you decipher between challenges and hold backs?

[Eric Triplett]

Can you give me some examples? I mean. Okay.

[Terry]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, like, for me, weight loss is one of them. You know, maybe marketing or there. I feel like everything is. Is, you know, it's a challenge figuring out the right way to. To market things to get the right calls for the right jobs that you want. Weight loss. The challenge of knowing I know what I need to do, I've identified that, you know, I need to start doing it right. And, and. And, you know, and it's. And it's. It's making it a challenge for me to do my work because I'm freaking fat, you know, so it's a challenge, right? So I hope those are some descriptions of challenges that are. That are maybe.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. Challenges versus what. What was the first part? Hold back. Okay. Are they the same? I guess. Is a challenge and a hold back the same thing? Because I'll tell you this. You know, when I got cancer, like, there's. There's no choice. Like, okay, there's no. There's the choices. You have to eat, right? You can't drink. You have to, you know, you have to eliminate stress from your life or just die, right? And I have this dark mode right now I want to share with you. When I do 75 hard, right? And my cravings for alcohol or eating something bad or not doing the workout, when I get into that mode, I'm like, bro, what if your life got turned upside down? What if you drank so much and you got in a car accident, you killed someone and now you're in jail? Like, you're in jail right now. Triplet. And just so you know, I don't drink and drive like that. I've never had a dui, but. But I take my mind there, like, and. Because that's when the. That's when the. That's when the lever flips, right? When you get cancer, you have no choice. Die or do it. Okay, if you ended up in jail, which I. I threaten myself with all the time, I've never been to jail, never been to prison, never been arrested, none of that, right? But if I go dark like that, like, if you're in jail right now, you couldn't have a drink, you couldn't have any advices, you couldn't do any of the things that you wanted to do. You'd get a bowl of slop in the morning and a bowl of slop at night, and that would be your thing. And all you'd have to do is work out. That would be your only responsibility. You don't have to make payroll. You don't have to take out the trash. You don't have, like. So, like, I have to go into a dark mode like that to break through the challenge of, you know, listening to my inner voice and pouring myself a drink, right? Or just like, all right, we're. I guess I'll just work out tomorrow, and I'll eat some chips at the Mexican restaurant, right? You know, you eat too many chips, and then you have to eat all your meal because your mom said, finish everything on your plate, and you leave feeling horrible, right? So I go dark for me on those challenges. And because it is such a mental game, man. I mean, anyone who struggles with weight, it's a mental game. My brother's struggling with it right now. He wants to lose 60 pounds by. By October 10th. He's getting married on October 10th. And. And the reason I'm telling you this right now is because. And whether he hears the show tonight or not, I just. I just was at Pod house with him out in San Antonio, Texas. We had a great time. And when I was talking to him, he's like, hey, I'm gonna probably go get my back looked at. My back's really hurting. I'm gonna go to the VA and see what they can do about my back. I'm like, you know what they're gonna tell you? Lose fucking £60. Lose £60. Your back's gonna feel better. I promise you, bro. And he's like, oh, well, yeah, okay. Like, well, what should I do? I'm like, we should not drink. You should eat healthy, Like. And the problem is, it hasn't switched for him. The holdback hasn't happened yet. One of his. He's in a band, and his, like, bass player or guitar player just had a stroke, dude. Same weight as my brother, same age as my brother had a stroke. Now he's in a wheelchair. He's jacked. Never gonna play bass again, you know? And so, like, that wasn't enough darkness for my brother to make the move yet. So it is a total mental game. It's so mental. And that's why we have to work so, so hard at mindset and surround ourselves with the right people, you know? So I don't know if that's helpful in that. That regard. But let me tell you about one of my personal challenges and holdbacks is not knowing what I didn't know, right? So I've been hiring people for 2530 years. And after I read the book Teamwork. Oh, I don't have it. I gave it to my wife. It's downstairs. I have Natalie's other book, Start the Work. So when I. When I studied under Natalie and I heard her speak, and I really dove into the book, my hiring process is completely different. It. My holdback was I just didn't know. And by being in a group like this of other people who are wanting to become a better version of themselves, and everyone's reading different books and having different experiences and sharing those things with us, like, I didn't know how to hire people well. I thought I had a good character. I used my gut. I've been doing this for a long time. I have good intuition. You know, I could see a. When I see one, I know someone who's lying, you know, but, like, I just didn't know until I literally sat in front of Natalie, and she's like, this is how you do it. Step by step by step. If they answer this question incorrectly, they are gone. Move to the next applicant. Period. End of story. And what clarity it's given me. It's unbelievable. So read more books. Go dark if you want to change your weight. That's what I. That's what I would say. And I'm speaking to everyone. Not exactly just Terry, but the marketing. You mentioned marketing. I don't want to skip that. The marketing aspect, if it is. Again, sometimes we don't know what we don't know. You just boost a post on Facebook and you feel like it's marketing when it's not really marketing. It's just a little trick that Facebook does to get, you know, 300 bucks out of us, and you got a bunch of likes on it, so you feel like it got in front of more people, and it's just not working right. So, you know, we have to get deep into the marketing aspect of it. We got to get deep into how do we market. But every sales coach that I've talked to, you know, and I've been. I've been spending a lot of money on coaching. I told you that every single one of them, every single time, is get your sales process locked and loaded. Be incredible at it, because when you turn on that faucet for marketing, sometimes you're just throwing money away. So it's a chicken before the egg kind of thing. And I do think you're getting really good.

[Terry]

I think I can explain what I asked. I think you gave me the answer. And I think the answer is by being in the Group. So the challenges, by being in the group and talking with everybody here and reading books and everything that you talked about, are making you aware of the challenges that are holding you back. Because I feel like I'm aware of them. Like, fear used to be a holdback. It's not a holdback, but I have challenges. And I guess those challenges, like you said from the start, you know, they're. They're the same in one or whatever. You know, challenges and pullbacks, both.

[Eric Triplett]

Well, wait a second, wait a second. Let me clear. So if you have. Let's say you have multiple challenges now, we just do one at a time. We don't throw them all in a bucket. These are all my challenges. We're like, what's my one challenge? We go back to Dan Martell's book, what's the one? 3 1. What's my big challenge? Whether it's weight or whether it's marketing or sales, put them in the different categories and go, what's the one thing that I need to work on that is holding me back in that challenge? And then let me attack that one thing. Does that make sense? Because when I came back from 10x360, he assigned me three important things. I need to do KPIs better, I need to do SOPs better, I need to do hiring better, and I need to do job descriptions better. Okay. And I'm not trying to do them all at once. I'm like, let me get this job description figured out. I'm slowly working on the SOPs. I'm not trying to do them all at once because then I'm. It'll take forever. I'm just getting locked in on one thing because. Because then it's like of my marketing, my weight, my. You know, you'll find, does that make sense one thing at a time?

[Terry]

Yeah, one thing at a time makes sense. But another hold back is finances. Because, you know, you have to get the jobs to want to like or to get the more employees and stuff to feel confident that you're going to be able to afford to pay your bills and their bills. So that's why the marketing, the marketing and the finances kind of go hand in hand for me, you know?

[Eric Triplett]

So we need more money. So it's like, okay, how can we get more money, right? Do we raise our prices? Do we get more efficient? Or do we sell more. More to the client? Like more services to the same client, right? So if, like, you just need to lock in the finances, how can I make. How can I make more money? Right. A lot of times we should look at it closer.

[Terry]

Yeah, no, I'm looking at it closer. I just feel like I need to get my marketing right so I get the right calls and get the right, the right. Not saying what you're saying is wrong, but I just feel like I need to get more. I need to get that market of, you know, people that want to do builds, bigger projects, you know.

[Eric Triplett]

Huh.

[Terry]

I'm getting a lot of small, a lot of repair stuff over builds. And I feel like there's, you know, more profit to be made on builds than there are. I mean, there's good money in repairs. But, you know, I feel like, I feel like when. With the, with the builds would put me at the level to be able to hire another guy and the repairs. I can't really just send a guy out to go do repairs with builds. I can hire another labor and train them anyway. I don't know if I'm getting off topic, but. But that's my holdback. That's a challenge. That's where I'm going with it.

[Phillip]

Would you mind if I said something about this?

[Eric Triplett]

Please, Please.

[Phillip]

So, Terry, what do you feel that you are presenting to the world when you, when you're asking for the clients that you're telling us you want builds, But I see you on social media and I would, mentally, I'm thinking you're the repair guy. And I just want to let you know that, that I think you need to give the world the understanding that you're a builder. It's tough because you're doing good things, you're giving people tips and tricks and it is helpful. But then visually, from websites to your Google page to your social media, what are you giving them? So maybe taking a shift in that and looking at that from a drone view, I would say, and make, if you can make a shift there, that might help redesign marketing towards building people. And in that process, if you focus on routine and discipline, that's where the weight loss can happen. During that process, while you're working constantly on marketing, like planning it out, shifting it. Like, I know they're each separate, but at the same time, they're all fluidly happening every single day. Every day you're going to eat food. Every day you're going to do something for your business. Like, so every day, how your routine is set to run your business and speak about your business will give you those clients you're asking for. I think it's like a full circle subject now.

[Terry]

I get that, but how do you propose I market pond building and not repairs when I'm, you know, I'm doing videos and stuff on the, the jobs that I'm getting. So do I just go back to old builds or.

[Eric Triplett]

Yes, yes.

[Phillip]

Voiceover over Old builds stand in front of giant builds that are golf courses and just talk about how this would be done. This process is going to take at least six weeks to dig this and we like to start and make sure. Well, you know, like you go, go big or go home. I get just go. It's kind of what I think you need to do. Yeah, for sure.

[Eric Triplett]

Third party on that.

[Terry]

What do you mean by that?

[Eric Triplett]

Meaning you don't have to be the person that built.

[Terry]

Yeah, I see what you're saying about it.

[Eric Triplett]

You're describing an aspect of it and I'm not trying to say that you should be doing like showing, making people think that that's yours. That's not what I mean at all.

[Terry]

I get what you're saying.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Phillip]

But yeah, if you have old clients you built big stuff for hitting them back up and making a video in their yard, like that might be another angle that's very realistic and natural because you can truly say what you've done. But anyways, it was. I just wanted to say that I felt like all your subjects were important, but I deal with them all day long too. So it's like if I'm not routine and disciplined, all of those things are not going to happen. And so just like Eric's saying, he's always working on something of the subject. It's like an, an all day thing.

[Terry]

No, I appreciate it. Thank you. That was good advice.

[Phillip]

Go, bro.

[Eric Triplett]

It was awesome that he chimed in there because I immediately went like, hey, the past like 10 videos I saw from Terry were very much like, hey, I'm repairing this pump, I'm repairing this little punish waterfall. I'm doing like. I was like, he really made sense. And so the marketing aspect, especially if you don't have money, you want bigger jobs, there's a double edged sword here because you can call your old customers and go like, hey, I wanted to record some video at your pond. We had so much fun building your pond. Now you're there recording video that hopefully it's all grown in and lush and landscaped out, looks gorgeous. And then you're doing a free inspection while you're there and you go like, hey, did you know that you need to have this thing fixed? And suddenly not only does it help improve your marketing, but it might even improve your finances because you're going to get potential work. Work out of it as well. And Phillips has lost 100 pounds in the past year, if you don't know that.

[Terry]

Awesome, man.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, Good stuff, Phillips.

[Terry]

It's funny because I had a customer that. That, you know, that I wanted to go back, and I was really proud of the pond build. It was one I did with a. The profi drum, you know.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Terry]

And it's been there for a couple years now, and it's really proven to be a good. A good system, and. And the people are like, you want you. Anytime you want to show it, you can do it. But what I was doing was just pond builds, and I wasn't focusing on the landscaping around them. And they haven't moved forward and done any landscaping. And now they've kind of spent their wad. You know, they had some money, and they're not really in a position to do that. And I was almost thinking about just having them cover the cost of, like, you know, the materials and going out and doing it for free for my own, for that offer, because it's a beautiful build and to show it off, to just finish it for them, especially with them being willing to let me have customers and people even come to the house and use it as a display. What's your thoughts on that?

[Eric Triplett]

I don't want to say to be deceiving, but there's no reason why you can't film that pond even without. You could even be like, hey, once this is landscaped, as you can imagine, this is what's going to happen. You don't have to make it, you know, to be like, well, we just finished this pond last week. It's two years old. But you can use the. The words to just be like. Can you imagine once this gets filled in and different people have different choices. So, like, this might be a Japanese thing with a Japanese tree, but meanwhile, you're showing the gorgeous work and the edges and the waterfalls and all that. You know, if you. All we'd have to do is put a couple of bonsai things here and have an Asian feel with a statue. Or we could load it up with all these pretty flowers and make it a cottage thing. Like, you have to just be creative in the way you lay out the content, and that aligns with what Philip does. You know, he wants you to put out a bunch of content, because if you don't have finances to dump into marketing, then you have to just put out lots, lots, lots and lots of content.

[Terry]

Yeah, well, I think I can do the Marketing. I just don't feel comfortable getting the other, the additional employee until I get the more jobs coming in. So yeah, I am working on that. Like I said, I'm working on switching up my website to the. Which one are we going with?

[Eric Triplett]

The Shopify.

[Terry]

Shopify. Oh, you're gonna do that and then I'm gonna. Yeah, I'm gonna, I don't even know because I gotta learn all the stuff I'm gonna be doing. But yeah, I have a website person gonna help me with that and all that. So I said that a couple weeks ago. I kind of stalled on, on, on the punch on that, but I'm definitely doing that. But yeah. Anyway, that's, this has all been helpful. Thanks.

[Eric Triplett]

Cool. You're absolutely welcome. Hey, it's triple here. Let's be real. In a world of reels, swipes and virtual trends, it's easy to forget what really moves the needle. Pawn Trade magazine isn't chasing clicks. It's preserving the craft of of water features, arguably the last stronghold of long form education in our industry. Where real pond builders, koi pros and innovators share their knowledge unfiltered and unrushed. You won't find gimmicks or clickbait in pond trade. You'll find depth, detail, strategy story. From advanced filtration systems and aquatic plant care to retail strategies and contractor spotlights, Pon trade is where the best in the business speak freely and where the next generation of pond builders learn what it really takes. If you build ponds for a living, maintain them, design them, or dream about doing it all better, this is your magazine. Delivered free. Written by professionals, respected by the entire industry. This isn't just content for the algorithm, it's content for life. Legacy. Subscribe now@pondtrade mag.com stay connected to the heart of the pond world. Now back to the show.

[Terry]

How do you manage and just, you know, you got probably like 20 things on the back burner so that you're constantly thinking about how do you go through and just manage all. Everything in the back of your mind?

[Eric Triplett]

It's a great question. I'm going to look up this graphic I just made. I'm going to take you back to the Eisenhower matrix. So I did a podcast on it, I don't know, two months ago and let me find this graphic. I just made this graphic to share with my team because while I'm jumping on all these coaching calls and we're doing our trainings all the time, I find that a lot of times I'm not Coaching my staff on some of the same things that I'm working on for myself. But I think this is important for you to think about. Let me open this up a little bit bigger. So the Eisenhower matrix is where you document these things in your life. Okay? And so right here is, in this section right here, these are important and non urgent things to do. These are the things that really help your business the most. When you're doing R and D and you're doing these, you know, long, you're planning these long term goals and you're, you know, the websites and you know, you're focusing on all these big strategies and tactical things and scheduling things. This is where I want to live all the time. I want to do these important and non urgent things. But we find ourselves over in this important and urgent section, okay? And so, you know, these things have to get done. You got a flat tire on your thing, your wife ran out of gas, you got to go pick her up. Like these things, requirements require immediate attention. You got to act on them right then and there, you know, but they don't always, they're not always part of your goals. Right. I feel like. So, like this says right here, immediate action to achieve your goals. This, this is, I just made this two or three days ago for my team. So it's not perfect, but these are typically crisises and deadlines, problem solving, putting out fires. It doesn't always hit your goals unless you have the mindset. Like if you put three things on your list that you want to get done today, three important things are going to help me get to my goals. Hopefully you can live in here and you can be planning towards them. But the three things that you really want to get in your life done, they have to get done today. They are urgent and important for that day. But we can't let the crisis and all these other things fall into our, in our place. Right. And so Johnny, back to what we talked about earlier is to document 15 minutes that you do every day. You might find a lot of flaws in your day. You know, maybe I'm just going to make stuff up. I don't know you that well, but playing video games for two hours, you watch, you know, a two hour show with your wife every night. Do you scroll on Instagram before you get out of bed? Like you're going to find all these spots in your life where you can, you have a lot of time. And so we want to delete some of those things and eliminate the things that are holding us back from doing the Things that are more important and urgent. So a to do list is, you know, just you dump everything there. But we find that we, we should be eliminating and deleting a lot of things in our life, right? So, and then once you can, you delegate things. So here's my delegate and pass on section in the lower left. This is not important and it's, you know, it's really not urgent. If we can delegate that to someone and this could be, if you're a solopreneur, maybe this is you hire a cleaning lady or maybe you, you know, you start to outsource some of those things right to people. Delegate. I'm going to delegate the website being built to me for someone else, right? I'm going to delegate that. So I'm going to plot, plot, plan in this important and non urgent quadrant. What I want to live. I'm going to go into my urgent and my urgent and important things and I want to handle my tasks and get back into this other area as much as possible. So I don't know if that's helpful. But if you do the 15 minute increments and you find that you're doing the things that are not as important, sometimes us as humans, we want to do two or three things that we can check off the list real easy because we feel, we feel satisfied like we actually got something done. But if we're just doing busy work and we're not hitting the, the big things that tick the needle forward in our business, then we're not, we're not growing, right. So I think a self audit is really going to help you with what you're doing right there. I do have a to do list. I'll show you. Let me see. Calendar. Here's my calendar. How do I make this bigger? I've showed this to you guys before. So this is my, this is a vision thing. I'll just dump stuff in here that I want, I'd like to do one day. Here's my get shit done list that I need, I need to handle stuff. Here's my sales leads. But this is all going to get transferred over into go high level. But then here's my, here's my sync meeting with Kathy Jo. This is a delegate spot for me. I'm like, I need to book a hotel for this, you know, But I'm not going to do it. I'm going to delegate it to someone. So I like, I'll open it up on my phone, click in this thing, go like, hey, I need to do this and I'LL put it in the sync meeting with Kathy Jo and then she's handling those things and then she moves it to the get shit done list for herself. And I had the same thing with, with mj. You know, I'll dump these things on her and then when I sync with her every morning, I'll be like, where are we at on these? And then when she's ready, she slides it over to the get shit done list. And then she's like, she's working on that. But this, see this vision area right here, this vision area, I don't, I don't spend a lot of time there. I might just open up something one day. It'd be cool to do this and then I'll kind of look at it and go, oh, I forgot about that. And then sometimes like this 2 second lean plan is pretty important to me still. It actually is more important to me now than ever because we're working on SOPs, so I might just move that over to here. Now I need to add this into my get shit done list.

[Terry]

Nice.

[Eric Triplett]

And this one, schedule a suction grid design secrets book from Tootle. He's going to be like, bro, when are you going to do that? See this book, AR15 Training. I just don't have time for that right now. I'm just, I'm going to go undo that. I can just delete it. It's clouding my vision right now. So these are the little things and you're like, don't take off the book. The AR15 training, don't take it off.

[Terry]

Nice.

[Eric Triplett]

So that, that's, that's how I kind of manage my to do list. If that's helpful.

[Terry]

That's awesome. I appreciate that. But really it's nice to be able to see and to organize and you know, for one second you could take it off your mind and you could be clear about what you're doing right now and then you can, you have a place to go back to because I didn't know if you had like a board or whatever. But that does really help.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. Cool. What else? Phillip said getting on paper is a great start, but did you like how that, did you like how I had that organized? Phillips, have you seen that before?

[Phillip]

You know, I'm kind of tripping. That was in your calendar?

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Phillip]

Under what? Reminders or notes?

[Eric Triplett]

It's a task list.

[Phillip]

Task list inside Google Calendar because we live off our Google Calendar. So this would be super efficient to add to.

[Eric Triplett]

So here's the calendar. These are all the sales calls I'M going to make on the road today. These are the ones I'm behind on. And. And they're not going to, like, see if this is a task. It's in here, right? So things get in the way and, you know, I. I get caught in the. In the wrong quadrant, and I don't get all the things done. But, you know, they don't disappear on me. I can literally just move them down the line. And.

[Phillip]

And so you could share certain lists with certain people when you were saying that you have, like, MJ has one. So just anything you do on the MJ list, she can see at any time.

[Eric Triplett]

That's an important. That's an important question. Because, you know, MJ and Kathy Joe, like, they can reach into my life. They have everything they need to know about me. They know my calendar. They know all my passwords. They're in my bank accounts. They're like. They're like an extension of myself. So I'm very blessed by that. But so, like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't like my crew chiefs. I have four crew chiefs. They don't have access to this page. This is all in my life. But they have access to my calendar. So. But what I could do in the past, I've done this, like, and this could be helpful for someone so I can create a new one and I can make a new. New pipeline or whatever you want to call it, right? I'm going to exit out. Let me just put. I'll put on here. This is going to be Josh Sync. Okay. Is this right? No, that's creating something else. I. I don't. So you know what? I have to discard. Create a new list. Here's the new list. MJ's over there going, you're doing it wrong. Triplet. I could be like, josh Sync and I'm done. And then now I have a Josh sync. Now I can add a task. We need to do xyz, we need to do Y. This, we need to do. This is another task we need to do. Enter. You know, so I have these. I have these three tasks that I just made now, right? I can schedule them, right? But, like, I have a crew meeting every morning, so I have a spot in the office. When I meet my team in tailboard in the morning, I kind of go through the whole list. But if I have someone in my life that I need to do that doesn't have access into my soul, then I would just pull up my own list and go, hey, I want to talk to you about these Things like this could be a subcontractor that you deal with all the time and then. And like, hey, because what we get done, what happens and what we. We blow our. Our lives, you know, it. Putting it on paper or putting it somewhere and just putting it out of your mind, then you can get some clarity. You know, you're not going to forget things, but if you don't put these things somewhere, then you're like, I got to tell the excavator, you know, subcontractor that I use that, you know, we need to make sure we get the right tracks for the next job. Right. That's a month and a half away. But you don't want to forget it. So you call him or you text them and you break from what you're doing. Instead of just going to your app, I just do this on my phone and I open it up to Josh sync, and I make create a task and say, hey, next time I talk to Josh, I want to do this. Because now I'm going to call Josh and he's in the middle of building a waterfall or fabricating Helix life support, and he's going to stop what he's doing, and then he's going to take a note, and it's like, you do that five times a day to him. He's totally off. Off production. He's not getting shit done. So this is where I can brain dump. I don't want to interrupt MJ in the middle of her day. She's got so many hats she's wearing. She's doing all this shit. I don't want to interrupt her in the middle of the day, and then she's going to take a note somewhere. I just know I got half an hour with her every morning.

[Phillip]

Time blocking is beautiful.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. So I'm going to delete the list. Delete the list. It's gone. Hey, thank you so much for your time and attention to the podcast today. Remember this, at the end of the day, it isn't about motivation. It's about clarity. Clarity around what it is that you want and where you're going. Because once you become clear on what you actually want, everything changes. Excuses get exposed, gaps become obvious, and the path becomes clear. Not necessarily simple. There's still a lot of weeds get through, but when you can see the other side, you have. You have hope to get through. Okay. And too many contractors and people are running around there with absolutely no hope. Okay. You're gonna find out if it's a skill problem when you see the direction you're gonna find out if it's a belief problem or an execution problem, or the environment that you built around yourself that will become exposed when you have real clarity. So I highly recommend that you do that. Here's the simple truth most people don't want to admit if you keep avoiding the question of what's holding you back, you are the one that's holding you back. So don't just listen to this episode and move on. Don't just nod your head and say, yeah, that was good. I should do something. Run it back again and again. Let it sit with you. What's holding you back from becoming the kind of person who asks that question every single day? To tick the needle forward on becoming the best version of yourself day in and day out? Do something about it. Welcome to to the Deep End.