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5:00am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com
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you're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis stop optimizing your life and start living it. Welcome back to the show. I am your host, Travis Chappell. I am the host of the Travis Makes Money podcast. Travis Makes Friends podcast in the last almost decade now, probably read over 200 books, listened to countless hours of podcasts, interviewed over a thousand of the world's most successful people. And these episodes I like to just share some of the stuff that I've learned, some of the things that I've extracted from the people I've been able to talk to, the books I've read, the podcasts I've consumed over the last few years. And today's topic is all about optimization of your life preparation. And look, this is a difficult episode to put out because I'm a big fan of preparation. I think preparation is great, right? There's a great, a great saying, I totally forget who said this, so don't crucify me. But there's a famous saying, someone was asked, you know, or somebody basically said, if I had five hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the ax. And it is really important to do that, to prepare properly. In fact, even over preparation, I think is helpful in some cases, especially if it's something that you're not super comfortable with or something that you're super nervous about, like a, like a speech or a presentation or something like that. Over preparation can help calm those nerves and help you perform a little bit better, especially in those contexts. There's been several times where that's coming clutch for me, especially as a public speaker, I've seen this happen across the board where there's almost always, it seems, some sort of a tech problem, right? So I've been at conferences where I've watched somebody fall apart on stage because their slideshow presentation stopped presenting and they couldn't hit the button to see the next slide. So they had no idea what they were trying to say. And then they just stand there awkwardly trying to make joke after joke about like, oh, this is great tech, tech stuff, right? Hahaha. Okay, it's not coming up. Here is somebody, can somebody figure this out? And it's just like this super awkward moment for everybody in the audience and then the person on stage obviously the most as well. And to me that's a, that's always been a factor of being under prepared. Like if you need the slide presentation to work in order to be able to get your message across, then you probably haven't prepared enough for that talk. And there's been cases where this has sort of happened to me and it. And because I over prepared I was in a position to where it was like, I know, I know the bullets of what I'm going to say next regardless of if the slides are going to catch up to me or not. So I just keep going, just like, I just, I just keep going with the talk, keep going with the presentation because I know where I'm going next. And I've, I've structured enough of an outline and I've gone through it enough in my mind that I can continue moving forward professionally without having to worry about the tech problems. And of course I hope that they get fixed because maybe I have a funny thing on a slide somewhere that I want to point to or I want to show something visually to the audience or something like that. And those things are helpful. But if you're relying fully on tech because you're underprepared, then you could really put yourself into a pickle in one of those situations. So preparation is a really good thing. However, over optimization can become procrastination. Procrastination. I don't know why that sounded like a weird word when I said it the first time. Over optimization can become procrastination in disguise. So if you are constantly over preparing and you. It's almost like, it's almost like preparation porn. Like it doesn't actually do anything good for you if you never take the step forward. Right. So the, the whole five hours to chop down a tree thing, it's like yeah, theoretically that's a good, that's a good plan. If you sharpen the ax for the first four hours. The problem is is if you take the full five hours to sharpen the axe, you've not taken a single swipe at the tree. And the person who's just started swiping at the tree on as soon as the timer started is going to make a progress in that time than you would have because you never just swung the damn axe. Sooner or later you're going to have to take some action. You cannot just sit here in this preparation porn activity that doesn't do anything for you long term. So you can't get sucked into the the lie that is over preparation.
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A KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor. The Colonel made his $10 Tuesday bucket so full with eight pieces of juicy crispy chicken or tenders that it might just last you till Wednesday if you've got that kind of self control. I mean some people want leftovers, others are more into right nowers. The Colonel lived so we could chicken 10 bucks, 8 pieces. One big deal with KFC. $10 Tuesdays.
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Prices and participation may vary. Taxes, tips and fees, extra creation. And this is probably a symptom of perfectionism. If you want things to be perfect and you're very systematized and you're very ardent and, and almost OCD about having everything be perfect, it feels like you're presenting something that's less than what you could have presented it because it's, it's just not there. You know, just gimme one more week. I, I gotta really just put the finishing touches on this and that. It's just like you are, you are never going to see any of the results happen if you don't just take some action. You don't just do something. So imperfect action beats perfect planning. And I think the most famous phrase around this is probably from Reid Hoffman who's the founder of LinkedIn which he basically said if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, then you've launched too late. And I felt this in real time even when I was building a software company because I way over developed, way overspent on development and UX UI before we brought a single user in the door and it ended up being a detrimental decision. So I understand, I understand the need to. Because you want to put something out into the world, you want it to be a great representation of who you are. So I get the desire to do so. But also the more you postpone the initial action, the more you postpone the feedback that's almost required to decide whether or not this action is one that you should continue going down. So the over optimization at that point can start actually being something that is a detriment to you and not just in a business context. This can happen in life. If you over prepare for life, life can just pass you by while you're too busy getting prepared to live life so don't be one of those people that sits on the sidelines because you're giving yourself this excuse to constantly be waiting for the perfect moment for this thing to. And this, this another scenario pops up in my mind. It was a friend of mine who wanted to meet this mega online. It was Gary Vee. This person wanted to meet Gary Vee. And I remember talking about him was just like, okay, well have you tried reaching out to this person, that person, or have you tried going over here? And they're like, well, I just don't want to do it yet because I don't have like the perfect opportunity to be able to present and like when I get in front of him, I want to be able to do this thing. Well, guess what? That was close to a decade ago and they still have not done that thing. They still have not taken that action. They still have not gotten in touch with Gary Vee like they really wanted to. So if you just constantly wait for the perfect moment, it's never going to come up, it's never going to happen. You just got to take the first step and then sometimes you got to jump off the cliff, build the airplane on the way down instead of having the most perfect airplane you possibly could to fly off the edge of the cliff. So imperfect action beats perfect planning. You just wanna, you wanna live life and stop preparing to live life. And if you're not careful, you can spend your entire life preparing to live a life that you don't have ever actually get to live. And this is sort of one of the reasons for the Traps Makes Money podcast is to say that, you know, most personal finance advice is really pushing people to sacrifice now and have the reward later. And Look, I am 100 on board with that. For, for the most part. The problem is when you over optimize sacrificing now so that you can live whatever life you want later is that you never know if later is ever going to come. Life is long, there's a lot of other things, there's a lot of variables that are outside of your control. So if you're optimizing for this time when I'm, I'm 65 and I can finally retire, I can collect my Social Security and I can finally take draws from my retirement account without penalties, then I'll be able to travel, then I'll be able to get the car that I want, then I'll be able to take my kids here or there. And it's like, yeah, but you couldn't do that when your kids were at an age that would have been way more fun, or you couldn't do that when you were in better health, where you could have, you know, climbed this mountain when you went and traveled. Now you're sitting, you know, on a tour bus because that's all you can. It's all you're physically capable of doing because you waited too long. You postponed everything too long. So that's sort of the purpose of the Travis Makes Money podcast, is to say that you need to make more money so that you can have both of those things so you don't have to sacrifice everything that you want now. You can have. You can engage in some of those things now without sacrificing the version of the life that you want to live later. So don't let life pass you by while you're preparing to live it. Here's a few indicators, a few things that that might be. You know, I don't know if you guys ever watched or listened to Jeff Foxworthy the whole, you know, you might be a redneck series. Well, this. This is a. A list of a couple of things that I think that if you're experiencing this, that might be an indicator that you maybe might potentially could be over planning, over preparing, over optimizing just a little. Your morning routine is so long that it prevents you from completing your most important projects. You might be over optimizing. This is. I. I got sucked into this pretty early on. It was just because I was getting into the personal development space. And to be fair, some of it was really helpful for me at the time because I didn't really know what to be doing, and I didn't have enough tasks or projects on my plate to actually work on. I basically was just like, look, I. I do the podcast, and it was like, that's pretty, pretty much it. So what. What else, what else do I need to be doing here? And so I've, like, filling out my morning routine with additional things was helpful for me at the time. It gave me more. More things to do, and it got me in a good headspace. But this is one of those things. This is like one of the cardinal sins, I think, is that people, they look at the finished results, so they look at what Tony Robbins does on a daily basis, and they go, well, his morning routine is what sets him up. People do those things. So I need to do the morning routine. Like, if Tony Robbins nixed his morning routine tomorrow, he would still be Tony Robbins. Like, that is not what's built his life. There's plenty of People who do cold plunges that aren't Tony Robbins like you doing. Doing the. The morning routine of the most successful person that you follow is not going to make you the most successful person. Doing the work of that person is what's ultimately going to lead you down that path. So over optimizing for, like, I'm gonna wake up at five, I'm gonna meditate, I'm gonna journal, I'm gonna cold plunge, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna do my affirmations, and then I'm gonna look in the mirror and tell myself I'm awesome. And then I'm, you know, like you. You do. You have 19 things on your morning routine. It takes you four hours to complete. And then you wonder why you don't have any energy to complete. The first project on your task list has been sitting there staring you in the face for the last three weeks. Well, it's because you're over optimizing for. For your morning routine. You're over. And then you start feeling guilty when you miss two or three things on the list. That was the thing that was most detrimental to me when I was trying to build this, like, crazy morning teen. I had, like eight or nine things I was going through, and it was like, I felt great when I accomplished everything, even though it took me a long time to do it. And then on days where I'd only get like three of the six things done or five of the eight things done or whatever it was, I would feel almost like a failure. I'd feel like, man, this is. This is a waste of a day. Because I. I could only get my workout in and I could only journal, and I didn't do my gratitude session, and I didn't med meditate and I didn't do this other thing. Man, I'm such a loser. I can't even figure out how to get these things done. And he puts you into this negative spiral of negative momentum rather than putting you in a positive light, which is what the morning routine is supposed to be doing. So if your morning routine's so long that prevents you from completing your projects, you might be over optimizing. If you feel guilty for spending time with your family, with your kids, with your loved ones, that you might be over optimizing your time. If you are constantly working and have your head down, you have these projects inside, and you have a clear vision of what you want your life to look like.
- [12:37]
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Look like look like and you're and you're getting after it day in, day out. And then one afternoon your kid comes home early from school and they had a really bad day and you say, you know what, I'm just going to spend the next couple of hours with my kid because I feel like they need me right now. And then you do that and then the whole time you're feeling guilty, feeling like you should be working, and then, and then you don't even actually spend that time with your kid because you feel so much that you should be working that you just have your phone on you and you're answering emails and you're replying to Slack messages and you're doing DMS and you're doing this, but you're also trying to focus on your kid and then your kid sees you focusing on your phone and then your work colleagues are getting upset because you're not getting back to them in time like the on the schedule that they want you to get back to them on. Because you're spending time with your kid and it's like neither one of them are getting the priority at that point because you feel so overwhelmed with guilt because you're spending time with the kids again. Maybe this means this could be an indicator that you have over optimized your schedule, you've over optimized your time. Blocking and spending time with your kids sometimes just needs to happen regardless of if it was put into your calendar or not. So if you feel guilty for spending time with your family, you might be over optimizing your time. And by the way, that goes the opposite direction too. If you feel guilty for working when you should be working, then you might be over optimizing for family time to say like I, I have to spend this, this time with my family today because that's what I saw that, that's in my. And it's like, yeah, but if you're in the middle of a really productive work project and you're feeling really good about the stage that you're in, then you shouldn't feel guilty about just hammering in and focusing in on that for a second. Just saying, like, hey, guys, we'll spend time together, you know, after dinner tonight, but right now I got to get this thing done. You know what I mean? So you might be over optimizing your time if you feel guilty for using your time to do some of these other things. Now, again, you could be under optimizing if you have. If you never stick to a calendar, if you don't actually respect or prioritize the things that you put on your calendar, then you know, you. That's also not good. So that I, I understand that probably for a lot of people, the productivity piece and actually working on what you say you're gonna work on, that thing might actually be the more difficult piece. But this episode is really geared toward people who are, who are just constantly over optimizing everything and then not allowing life to take place in the meantime. So feel guilty for spending time with your family. Might be over optimizing your time. If you feel shame for eating your favorite dessert every once in a while, you might be over optimizing your diet. There's. There's a difference between being healthy and being a bodybuilder. It's like most of us are not trying to go compete in the next bodybuilding competition. We do not have to worry about everything that those people need to worry about. And frankly, they would even tell you this. By the way, the vast majority of people that I know have competed in fitness competitions were like, yeah, I looked great, but it was also unhealthy. The things that they do to get that shredded for those shows are. Some of those things are objectively unhealthy things. They're not things that you should be doing to be a healthy, healthy person. And you're might be restricting too much, or you might be consuming too much, or it might be some version of the two of those things, or you're cutting water weight, or you're taking these pills, or you're getting these injections into your arm because it's going to make you look better or appear more vascular or whatever the end result is that you're trying to go for. And that by itself is not a healthy Pursuit. So then I've heard from some of these people too, that when they're done with it, they feel worse about themselves when they're actually being healthy because they don't look as good as they looked when they were being unhealthy in pursuit of the best physique. So it was like, man, I looked awesome at this show and now I look fat. And it's like, but they're not fat. They're like 13 body fat. It's just that they know what it's like to look like to look. They know what they look like when they're at 7% body fat. So now they feel like they're fat because they're actually just being a healthy, regular person and enjoying a dessert every once in a while. So you can over optimize your health too if you feel guilty about eating something. Now again, I'm not talking to the person that's having difficulty saying no to dessert every single day of the week. That, that could be a problem. That might be a self control problem. But I'm talking to you if you are listening to this right now, going like, man, I don't know the last time I had that. I had some dessert, you know, a week ago. And I felt so guilty and so shameful about it, I woke up the next morning feeling like I committed a crime because I had a brownie last night. It's like, look, if you're doing that, you're probably over optimizing your eating habits, your diet. And lastly, if you are in your 10th coaching program, but you haven't increased your income yet, you might be over optimizing your plan. I see this happen again, it's this productivity porn kind of. It gives you this feeling like you're accomplishing a lot by being a part of the next coaching program. But I literally watched this happen in real time to people where it was one of the first mastermind groups that I was in and it was my second year in it. And I looked around at some of the people who had been in that group for four years, five years, and then we start like, I got to know them obviously over the course of a couple years and then realized that like half of those people that were this is their fourth or fifth year in here, it's like they haven't, you haven't made any progress in this period of time. You're just paying this. It's, it's like annual dues for a membership that's not actually like helping. You're not doing anything. You're not progressing. I'm making anything better. You know, you're just, you're, you think that buying into the next coaching program is the highest leverage activity you can do. When it's not, it's, it's just, that's just access to information that you have to take action against in order for you to be able to see any results. So if you're in your 10th, 12th, 15th, SE, 7th, whatever coaching program, you're not seeing any of these results actually take place. It could be an indicator that you're over optimizing the plan that you have to attack, when you should just not be buying in the next coaching program and just be doing one of the things from the coaching program you were in previously. It's like the next thing isn't going to solve the core problem of avoiding the work that you know that you should be doing. So stop over optimizing the plan and just go get to work on the plan. So optimization is great. Avoiding procrastination is great. Over preparing is great. All of these things are things that we should all be trying to do. But there's a point there, there's a tipping point where as soon as you step over this line, you've now crossed into the realm, the territory of over engineering your life to degree where you're not actually able to live any of your life. So in an age where everybody's trying to optimize and everybody's trying to be over prepared, try to at least interrogate your plan of action right now and ask yourself some of these questions. Does, does my life look like this? Am I feeling guilty? Am I feeling shameful? Am I, am I, am I not being able to actually enjoy the things that I like to enjoy on a daily basis? Am I not not able to spend time with my kids? I'm not able to, you know, have that brownie every once in a while. Don't let, don't let life pass you by while you're too busy preparing to live life. So you probably don't need to optimize anymore. You just need to act, you just need to take action. Because the preparation part, it feels safe. It's like I, I know that I can prepare, you know, like I know that I can sit here and work on these slides for the 13th time for my presentation coming up. Like I, I, that feels comfortable, it feels safe. So the preparation feels saf. But the action part, that's when, that's when you start feeling alive. That's when things start to happen. So don't over prepare so much that you just never take action. And then you know the timer runs out and you haven't taken that first swing of the ax. Don't be that person. So that is it for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.
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