014 - Why Motivation Fades, Sleep Habits, AI in Business, and Daily Routines

[0:00] Welcome to Build Horizons, a show about picking the life you want to lead and how to make it happen. Today we have a rundown of several different topics. We're going to be talking about motivation. We're going to be talking about AI in business. We're going to be talking about routines and all kinds of other things. But first, the intro.

[0:54] I'm Jeff. This is Katy. Click subscribe and remember to hit the button. I have no idea what camera angle we were at to start that, by the way. So, sorry if that was incorrect. But, Katy, it's a good day today. It's a good day today, Jeff. Why is it a good day today? Because I let the dogs out and it felt cold. You let the dogs out? You want to write a song about it? Oh. And it was cold outside. Like, chill in the air. Chill in the air. It was so great. I haven't felt that since Sydney. Yeah. And even in Sydney, it wasn't this cold. Like, this was... Oh, it wasn't? Well, I don't know. I guess it was right around there. Tomorrow is going to be even colder, though, and it is proper fall weather, flirting with the high 40s, low 50s. I feel like this is one of my—this is my favorite time of year. But September usually is kind of the start of it, and I feel like September was basically just an extension of summer. It really wasn't September. Undoubtedly. So bring on October. I'm already a fan, and I love the Burr months. I love them all. The Burr months? the bird yeah and yeah so i put up some halloween decorations this weekend with our daughter so i felt like a winning parent like they

[2:11] seemed mostly just fall or do we have a little ghost and then there's like a little i don't know like a little um banner thingy i don't know uh yeah It says happy birthday, but it says happy fall. It doesn't say anything about fall. It just has pumpkins. You'll have to go check it out. Apparently, it's really obvious decorations since you're paying so much attention to them. But yeah, so we put up a few decorations this weekend and it's finally getting colder and I love it. And then you're going to abandon us. I am. I am abandoning you on Sunday. Yep. And I'm going to New York for work for, like, a few, four days. Like, it's a pretty long trip. I'll be solo parenting. How are you feeling about solo parenting? I want to know. So I want to know your perspective, and then I'll tell you my perspective. So what are you? Well, one thing I would say, like, back in the day, there were a handful of times when the kids were real little that I would do solo parenting. And when you have, like, the little littles, they are just. A lot. they are excellent at making messes and it's a lot of hands on a lot of hands on and just constant destruction. Um, and so I had thought like, Oh, you know, it'd be great

[3:28] is if I don't actually clean up for a couple of days and then we'll just do it at the end. But that it is, it is truly tremendous. The amount of, uh, mess that two littles can make, uh, by themselves left to their, uh, you know, just do whatever you want and we'll clean it up later. sort of mentality that was not a good idea i'm glad i was not yeah it was it was a disaster and it literally it took hours to get that cleaned up before you would come home um these days significantly easier they still make messes but it's not of the same scale caliber or velocity uh and so you know they're they're a lot easier these days um seven and ten so yeah the yeah it It is more fun. How are you feeling with getting them ready for school? Because that's kind of the different dynamic. With littles, they're more hands-on. But with this age, they are getting out the door to school, have to be on time. How are you feeling about all that? I assume they just do it themselves, right? Oh, my. They pack their own lunches. They just get dressed in the morning, and they get on the bus, and that's all. Okay. So it should be fine. I can't wait to hear about how. We'll have to check in again next week

[4:44] and see how solo parenting went. But I'll give you a little bit of a heads up. They do need some direction still, and lunches usually have to be made. Usually? Yeah. Well, sometimes they'll do school lunch, but not often. They're a little picky about that. We'll see how it goes. And it's so funny because I don't even think you know what I put in their lunches every day. Yeah. oh and also just and and you know i feel like you're you know how to pair like dad you're great but there's just a lot of the after-school activities that i do getting them to and from things so it'll be interesting to see how you balance all that but it's hard and i'm proud of you and thank you for doing that while i go to new york and then i just return the favor and leave yeah technically literally we don't even see each other yeah oh well it'll be fine but airplanes and airports such as life yep so on to our questions and topics this week um i did want to i did want to say like before we got into actual question questions um like last time talked a little bit about being a little bit um i don't know we watching more shows and

[6:01] just taking like a little bit of a step back from um you know just needing a little bit of time to like a mental break a little bit yeah and um you know for various reasons like the last couple weeks have been pretty tough generally but i will say um i i see myself coming down the other side of that uh where i i'm much more wanting to get to work on bravely stuff uh a lot more so than what i had been there for a few days um and so that it's just an acknowledgement that like sometimes that's just going to happen uh and that will wane um and as long as you stick to things like it it comes back it becomes easier honestly it's very similar to running like there's some times where running feels more difficult than others but if you stick to it you know like it there are the easy days are easy um and sometimes the hard days are hard but the the general trajectory that you're on um you know you can you can have a a good long-term graph that just has some ups and downs i think that's very yeah and i think that's human that's like life and just humans and and it's okay and give yourself grace there if you do have fluctuations and how much you're doing

[7:17] something it's okay and i think giving yourself that grace and just knowing too that again that's just going to happen depending and then depending on the season that you're in i mean it just you just have to give yourself um grace but then also get back on get back on the horse yeah and i think it's it sometimes can be like you can be really self-judgmental about that because you know a person have big goals and things I want to do aspirations. And, you know, the, the quickest way toward that on paper is just to work every waking second on making that happen. And certainly it does require a ton of work to make it happen, but that doesn't need to be, you know, a hundred percent of all available time at all moments. I think just being okay with that, I think is an important part of the process yeah and i think it helps get back to being able to allocate more of your attention and energy on the thing that is your goal when you have been able to take a healthy step back yeah and and and it's all relative too because it's not like i did nothing um this is like rather than you know maybe the the two hours in the evening where we'd watch a

[8:32] movie or a show um or or where we would not watch a movie or show we did and and then now back to you know more what we were doing before so yeah and we like really committed to we like finished a series a whole show in a couple weeks and it had how many seasons like three three oh my goodness but it was good and it made us laugh and i feel like i needed that i don't know it was just nice it's always so refreshing like when you find a good show and can um just enjoy that together and i had one other thing i wanted to ask oh i remember now um just a little bit of bravely updates just because i don't think it's in the show notes at all but he gave our website like a big upgrade and we did it looks so good i know you worked really hard on that and i know aaron worked really hard on that yeah it looks um so go check it out um it's brave bravely.dev right there um but we gave it a really really big upgrade and it looks so good i'm really happy with how it turned out and um yeah hopefully it can uh do well and people can see all our stuff that we got

[9:49] going do you want to talk about anything with about apps or new things you're working on before we dive into questions um how about this let's save that for the end if we have extra time i can talk a little bit about some of the some of the things we got going cool yeah all right so questions and topics so topic number zero that's what i just talked about oh okay okay i'm like zero topic okay number one got it so this question comes from the alpha adept and the question is why do we get these motivation spikes like, and then it says dot, dot, dot. So I'm just going to read what they kept saying. So why do we get these motivation spikes? Like I'm going to change myself starting today. I'm going to work out consistently and get a super fit body. I'm going to get this or that job, this or that car work hard for it. But then motivation stops after two weeks and you just go back to your old ways. Why does this happen and how do you prevent it? Yeah. So, um, it is a very, one, it's a very fitting question given the thing that we just talked about, um, with us, um, you know, kind of being on the, the, the rollercoaster of things. Um, I, to me, I

[11:05] feel like it, it comes from a place of aspiration. Uh, I think if you are the sort of person who does have big goals for yourself, or you do want to be a better version or sit down, sit out on a better path, I think it's very natural to have these motivation spikes where it, the, the contrast between who you are and the things you're doing and what you would like to be and what you would like to do are, are, are really brought into focus. And so you feel that draw toward, like, I know I have something better inside of me to move down this path, but, um, yeah, it, motivation is a, is a tough thing because it's not going to be enough to get you there because like we've already talked, like that's going to ebb and flow um and so i for starters i don't know that you should i i assume the question isn't you know how do you prevent um having the aspiration part um if if so um yeah i don't know just scroll social media a bunch or something and uh uh and just find ways to to numb that desire to be better but that's probably not what you're asking um i think the the question is how, how do you stay motivated? And that's

[12:23] a motivation isn't going to be something that you can count on either. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we talked about that a fair bit. So I would say you can use motivation to work on figuring out like small pieces that can stack toward being toward that goal. Uh, so, you know, maybe, maybe you use the motivation to start a habit of going to bed earlier or, you know, something like that. I mean, honestly, like if you listen to the show long enough that you're going to hear me say that a bunch of times, but I think that's probably one of the number one things that you can do to set yourself on a path. Um, even if that, the thing that you want to do, let's say is, is workout or, you know, I want to eat healthier or I want to start a business or whatever. To me, the number one common denominator across all those things is go to bed early so that you have the energy to devote to that consistently. If you are waking up right before you have all your day obligations, um, you're going to be pretty wiped by the time the, the free time rolls around, unless you move some of your free time to before all that exhausting stuff. So I have actually a little thing I want to ask you about with that, because I do feel like we talk about sleep a lot

[13:39] on this podcast and I do remember it being kind of a hard stop moment for you. I mean, obviously there's days and evenings where we don't get as much sleep as we need to, but you have to become such a crucial part of how you live your days, how you fill your days to make sure you actually get enough sleep. what was that defining moment for you what made that such a important thing because there was a time jeff where you would stay up till 1 2 3 a.m playing video games um and then go to work the next day but then i do recall and this is just what my memory how i remember it happening um is you listened to a book and then actually started tracking your sleep and then it really snowballed from there. Do you want to talk about that a little bit more? I don't feel like that's something we've really talked about because it is something we talk about so much sleep in general, but what was that defining moment for you? No, I think what you described, man, it's crazy how applicable that is to so many things, because what it really boils down to is I gain knowledge

[14:56] like through a book, which is a very common way for me. Uh, we talked about it last week. I think that is such an underrated thing. Um, still like is, is just, you know, finding things to push into this skull of yours to, uh, to, to be able to, you know, add to the number of things that you have at least a little bit of uh you know working knowledge with um so you know increase the the knowledge side on the topic um and then on the tracking side of it adding data so like actually being able to objectively see like okay how is this going and and also reflecting based on that um objective sorry based on the subjective data that i have how do i objectively feel and uh the days that i would feel overwhelmed or massive amount of anxiety or even and you know like panic attack level of suck um that would all be on the backs of like real crappy sleep nights um or just like you know i got four hours of sleep or you know i um for a while when i had more weight on me dealt with sleep apnea stuff and so like prior to um you know working through all that stuff, you know, my, my sleep was crap. And so the, it was pretty clear

[16:13] how much of an impact it had. And then it becomes a easier decision to make. It's like, you know, I, I know that I can stay up later. Um, and then I'm not going to die, but if I string that together too many times, I'm going to be chronically sleep deprived. And when I'm chronically sleep deprived, I know that I feel overwhelmed easily I'm more you know erratic uh I'm going to spiral on things like overall I'm just not going to be I'm not going to it's going to be really dang hard to do all the stuff that I want to do if I'm in that state and it's kind of interesting um because some people want to I actually think this relates to the question a little bit even though they didn't mentioned, get better sleep. But just motivation in the sense of it can go up and down because you can wake up in the morning, feel exhausted and know you didn't get enough sleep, but then get into your day, get into your evening and then bedtime is going to roll around and you have to commit to getting to bed early. But what's interesting is when you do start tracking it and you do start making those commitments to yourself to me and i guess this could be pushed back a little bit but it's a pretty easy thing to start with if you're going there's

[17:31] so many different devices out there that you can track your sleep with and committing to just going to bed early i just don't i don't feel like it's a really hard where it's like trying to run a mile can feel a lot more daunting than tracking sleep and just going to bed. Like it's just an easier way. I don't know. It's a good first step. And then I think other things fall into place from that. So yeah, I don't know. I don't really know where I'm going with that, but I do feel like when you, that is, if you're wanting to make changes, it's a really easy one to do. Yeah, it's- Depending on your season. And I know some people don't have, like have littles, newborns. Yes, obviously. Yeah, everything that has big impacts is going to have lots of asterisks, even the easy things. And the thing for me is, by and large, I think you're 100% right, that it is a fairly easy thing to do and also just so happens to also have the biggest impact overall. I think if there was the one thing, I think that's probably the one thing and just happens to also be one of the easiest. to get started yeah and i think even for me being a woman is i have i mean hormonal

[18:48] fluctuations every month no well hang on but that does impact my sleep sorry i'm trying to be real here jeff this is a real podcast me too man but um i still like i will get my sleep score back like last night it was hot garbage like i slept horribly um but i still got enough sleep so don't get too fixated on the the numbers but i think as long as you're you know committing those hours to sleep it does have big impacts even if it isn't necessarily yeah and like any individual day is not going to be the end of the world yeah um it really is a cumulative thing. And, you know, the, the other day, uh, for my, uh, day job, I had to, I was up till 5.00 AM, which is obviously completely counter to everything we're saying here. Um, and you know, it took a couple of days to bounce back from that, but, um, you know, I, you survive those like crazy disruptions. It's not like you have to be, you know, completely perfect for weeks on weeks, it, again, it's, it's just the, the discipline of, you know, what does your average look like on a seven day, um, you know,

[20:05] rolling, uh, and what, you know, what does that, what does that compare to what you actually need and, and how well you're setting yourself up for, um, for, you know, having the energy to, to do these things. Um, the, the other part of it too, though, and I just want to underline the point is I think it's incredibly important to note That if you do have things that you are wanting to do beyond just get better at sleep, um, a extremely effective way to make that happen is being able to shift your days earlier so that you can work on whatever those things are, whether that is, you know, working on a business or doing fitness stuff, um, to, to move that prior to the, your day actually getting started. because, um, there's no amount of sleep that's going to magically make, you know, 6 PM feel like you're like, all right, and here we go. Um, you can still do stuff in the evenings. Don't get me wrong. But if you have creative work or hard things in front of you, um, the, the energy barrier is going to be a lot higher in the evenings than in the morning. So if you can make that happen at the beginning, um, it'll, it'll be a lot easier for you. So just as a, and actually I wanted to, that's so funny.

[21:20] I'm going to like push to that a little bit. Um, so we've talked about before how working out in the evening is so, so hard. Um, it's really interesting cause as we've not been training for marathons, I've kind of shifted more toward lifting weights and doing things like that. And, um, I've actually been working out in the evening shocker. Um, but it's because of partners and having that accountability. because I've been doing personal training with our son in the evenings after school and then I've also been going to a group exercise class and I think having that accountability has really helped me too so that was just another tool I was going to say is having find some accountability find a partner find and here's the thing like you don't necessarily have to have a one-on-one thing but even just committing yourself to go do an exercise class or I don't know, there's a hundred different ways that you can find accountability without actually having a single person to do that. Um, but yeah, I know we've talked about that before is how motivation in the evenings are, is really hard and it is still very hard. And there's some days I definitely, it's

[22:35] way easier to think of doing that in the morning than it would be in the evenings. But that's just another tool that I've seen. Cause you know, just answering the question, um, that's really worked for me as having some accountability and you don't want to let, like, I don't want to let Avren down and, um, and then, you know, going to the exercise class and I've gotten to know some of the people in there and you know, it, it kind of just evolves over time and it builds and you just keep committing to it and showing up it, it does turn into that. Yeah. Those external factors can can really help get over some of the that evening energy barrier if yeah there's other other things at play um one thing before we move on the last thing or not the last thing the the next question is um i also wanted to mention don't beat yourself up if you do feel like you're on this like yeah hey i want to change everything and then i come down the other side um that extremely common thing to do and you know if you're starting a or you you want to try to start a habit and then you, you go down a path and then you find yourself falling off the wagon and I'm like, ah, I just, I'm never going to figure out what workout routine is going to stick. And, uh, I would just say, don't, don't be

[23:51] discouraged by that. And it, it might be the 38th time that you try before it sticks. Um, and, and that that's not like a unique path, like tons of people have that sort of experience. Uh, it's just part of the journey. And as long as you keep trying, you're like, you only lose if you give up and you'll find, you'll find something eventually, um, you'll find a way. It's just a matter of, you know, getting the repetitions and figuring out what doesn't work. And then looking back, I'm like, okay, where did I like actually spending the time to reflect? Like, where did I actually like make the decisions that resulted in me not waking up in the morning to go work out or whatever. And, and then like, okay, cool. So that seemed to be a part of it. So maybe I can, uh, set things up to avoid that particular pitfall. And you know, you do that enough times and you actually, uh, are willing to, to reflect on that. I think, I think you find a way, right? Yeah, that's really good for sure. We're moving on to number two, number two. Okay. So question number two, I don't even want to try to get the last name. Ian. Well, I got Ian. Ian. Just say Ian.

[25:06] Ian. Okay, user Ian. Should I focus on AI implementation in traditional businesses or building my own AI tools? So it's a pretty long question, but Jeff's highlighted part of it. So they go on to say, the hard part is understanding how people already work, where information gets stuck, what customers care about, why a technically good solution may still fail in a real business um and then the specific question is over the next one to two years should i focus primarily on becoming better at ai implementation inside traditional businesses or should i spend more time building and validating my own small ai tools and i guess i should go also add is they're working on implementing things um in a like import export food company trying to figure out is ai actually helping me is it causing more barriers or it so trying to it's a balance there and how do then how do they navigate that so as a person who has done technology stuff for the last like 15 years i can say that the thing that you're describing is actually uh incredibly common i mean this is not a ai specific thing it's just more

[26:22] brought into focus by making some of this stuff more accessible. The, the, the real value of a person doing technology stuff. So in this case, someone doing some AI things is understanding how the business operates and being able to connect the dots. Um, otherwise the thing I've always said, otherwise it's just an academic experiment. Um, you are doing some stuff and you might have some interesting, you know, takeaways from a technology standpoint, uh, but it's not actually creating value for the business. So it was just for fun. We just did it for learning, which to be fair is not a bad thing necessarily. But when you're talking about business, you have to figure out how to build that into value. And that is going to be true, whether you start your own thing and build your own tools and try to turn that into, um, you know, some kind of economic engine, or if you are wanting to be, um, you know, bringing value to the business that you're working at. Um, and so the, the funny thing to me about this question is you have to solve that top part regardless. You do have to figure out how to understand how people work, uh, and where information gets stuck and what customers care about and why this is technically a

[27:39] good solution. Like I'm just literally reading that thing. Um, you have to figure that out, whether you build your own thing or whether you're building it in the business. Um, it's just, do you do it for a broader segment and try to make the thing be broadly applicable to people trying to solve those problems? Or, uh, is it going to be for the company that you work for, for more specific use cases? Uh, but the, the principle is the same. And, and really that is the difference between being a person who can have technical deliverables given to them and they execute versus being the person who can transform how a business does something. Yeah. And I think too, we've talked about this a little bit is the robots are great, but we still need humans. We have to do those critical thinking skills. We can't just depend on the robots to do all that work for us. And I think some people don't i don't know they probably understand that but there's just a lot of critical thinking still that humans are going to have to do and like you said identifying the problems granularly figuring out what is coming into those problems and then figuring out how ai

[28:54] can help you with them yeah i mean it's uh it's definitely not just a silver bullet that solves all your problems um and i think the thing that people portray like what ai will be slash is is something that is more um it it's described as something that is distinctly different um in the sense of like autonomously figuring all these things out and just doing all this stuff um and i like some use cases yes that that is how that is like if it's stuff that like a person would look at some data and then put some data somewhere else like of course like yes that's going to be automated that's been being automated for a long time it's just now more rapid and more accessible but when you're talking about how do we creatively solve a problem and what can that look like in the real world um that still has to have a person directing the thing otherwise the you might you'll get it it's on again it's it's a very similar feeling like you'll get a technically correct solution that doesn't

[30:11] solve any problems um like it doesn't solve any of the real issues you still have to be able to like someone has to be able to articulate the vision um and then you know the you know the the ai robots are are really excellent um executors on that um but you still have to know what you're looking for and if you just like just say that hey i have this process i want you to automate it for like it that's not that's not how this is gonna work in actual businesses um you have to have to understand specifically it'll be able to really, uh, lay out the requirements of what it is that you want to, to have happen. Um, it is very, very similar slash perhaps even the exact same as, uh, if you ever have worked at a company and you work with, um, outsourced development, uh, or even in-house development to some extent, although it's a little different, um, you have to be able to lay out the requirements extremely clearly. Um, otherwise you will not end up with a product that matches the actual need. Again, you'll get technically correct. Like it'll, it'll technically fit per the

[31:28] letter of what was given. Um, but it is not going to actually be something that fixes whatever the problem actually is. Yeah. Oh, sneezing. Um, it's interesting too. I think for my, just to add to what you're saying is I work a lot in product development. And as you were saying that, I know you do more AI or technology, but I do more like physical products is if I do not present a manufacturer with a really, really strong brief of what it is we're wanting, it's just going to, I almost feel like if i don't start strong then we're playing catch up for so much longer so i don't know it's just interesting that parallel there yeah and you know i like to to take a different slant at it so for the for bravely obviously data is incredibly important to us and you can make clod code or codex or whatever make excellent looking dashboards um with every metric from that you could possibly imagine um but the we just got asked in the chat what time it is

[32:44] where we're at it is early in the morning and we are in the central united states um wichita kansas so it is 7 20 yep bright and early um but the sorry distracted squirrel um the what was i talking about bravely and i was talking about product briefs and the parallel of if you don't start off with a really and you were talking about dashboards oh yeah yeah data stuff um you can get all kinds of stuff but the the thing is is like you really like the things that i actually look at, um, that actually move the needle on the business are things where I like, you have to like rip away all the other things that, um, that you could possibly look at and decide specifically like what metric over what timeframe and in what way do I want to see this thing and then build that out and make sure that that is absolutely solid. Cause you can like, we're in a, we're in an age right now where you can say to cloud code, Hey, I want to know all the metrics for my business and you will get what looks like something that is all the metrics for your business uh but that's not going to be anything it's just

[33:59] a bunch of like like it just just fluff it's nothing yeah it doesn't actually help you make any of the decisions you still have to be able to concretely define what it is that you're trying to achieve and and like what do you need to know about that to, to be able to have the insights that you need. It, you can't, it's like, you can't ask AI to tell you what insights you should have. Like you that's, that's a you thing. Um, and until you answer that and give specific direction, you're just going to get just a bunch of crap. Like it's just how it is. Do you think that that is something actually that could be an opportunity as we're moving into this very ai world of people that may not know data as well but have a company or have a small business to understand how they can apply that knowledge do you like i guess do you feel like that's something bravely could do someday of helping guide and direct that because you are like you're definitely a data specialist it's literally what you do um and for some like for me, I couldn't follow that. It's just not how my brain works and that's okay. But do you feel like that's an opportunity there even for a company like bravely or somebody who

[35:14] might be thinking about doing something like that, that this is, do you feel like this is already way covered with the resources that are already out there? Or do you feel like there's a lot of opportunity there? Like, are you talking specifically with how to think about metrics? Are you more broadly talking about like how to um think about the objectives that you're wanting to achieve and how to break that down into something that you can have i think a little bit of both i'm sorry i think i knew i think both it's like understanding okay what what metrics am i what are my metrics because i think even that can sometimes be very daunting because it could be endless so to really understand what are the important metrics but then also understanding how do i use ai to get that information yeah properly i don't know if i'm asking the right question but it's like it's interesting it there's multiple let me see if i can just off the cuff give you some coherent thought here so the the first part of it that is hard is like you have to understand how like what what, like, how does a business work? Um, how does a business make money and what the, what are the important metrics of a business for the

[36:30] specific industry that you're in? Um, like that in and of itself is a big thing. So for us, you know, what, what are the things that drive revenue? What are the expenses? What are the, you know, what is the, you know, return on ad spend for acquiring customers? Um, what is the, the, the important pieces along the journey to be measuring? Um, like what, what are the major milestones with the relationship with a customer and where all do those things live? And so like, there's, there's the, the understanding the business and the industry that you're in type things. Um, there's like technical pieces of that, which are like, how do I store that? How do I capture it? How do I display it? Am I okay with that being in 50 different places or do I need to pull that all into one and the strategy of doing that? Um, and then there's like the, the, the blending of those two things of like, okay, if I get to a point where I understand all the things, and then I also get to a point where I can track that in a way that I, um, that I feel good about and I understand and I like, I can wrap my head around it um then it's how do i operate my

[37:47] business in such a way that um leverages that value because if you can figure those two things out that's like two major pieces of the equation and then you have to strategically like do things that you can scientifically test like does this move this metric in a way that is helpful for the business or did this other path do it or or even and i think this is the thing that uh a lot of businesses like the bigger you get the the more you can fall into this trap which is declaring everything is a success um and it's just simply not or or certainly some things are more successful than other things and the way that you do that and the way you like fight against that like temptation to just say everything's sunshine and rainbows is to prior to making a big decision especially anything that's going to cost money uh or or move one of these metrics is to understand which of these metrics are we expecting this decision to move and what and how much like what and defining up front what our goals and targets are um and not trying to revisionist history your way into success after the fact i think we like it's a very natural human thing to want everything that you do to be like not a

[39:02] mistake uh but the the real value is in honest feedback loops on that um if you estimated that this was going to you know have a 5.0 row as but it was still a 2.0 row as that skill can be good for the business but it's not as good as you were expecting and either you need to get better at expecting or you need to get better at achieving your results um and and if you get distracted by the fact like okay yes i turned $1 into $2. Um, yay, but that there's still things to learn and improve on there on either again, the, the, the ability to estimate, um, and, and be more accurate with that because that will matter because next time, if you end up estimating one, but it's a half, then you turned a dollar into 50 cents, which doesn't do you any good. Um, or if you, um, you know, if you keep estimating high and, um, and under hitting or under delivering on what you're expecting, um, Maybe there's something tactically that you can change with how you're doing it and improve or do more tests to see what gets you closer to what would have been that 5.0 or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I just think metrics are always really hard to figure out which ones are important and which ones are just noise.

[40:18] And like you said, just narrowing that down and understanding the business is really important. Yeah, I think it's actually, I don't know, I'm pretty nerdy about it. but the, the being able to trace like, I mean, a for-profit business, um, or even a nonprofit, um, you know, you're still looking for income, um, and, and understanding like at a real basic level, when I look at the financials at the end of the year of like what defines a successful year, um, and then that, that's really only going to be a handful of things. There's not a lot. Um, And then from there, working backwards until you get all the way to like, okay, these decisions affect these things, which affect these things, which affect these things. And like learning and documenting those, I mean, that is the secret sauce, like being able to really understand what things so far upstream affect those downstream real big targets. Um, and then being able to measure those more incremental pieces along the path. Um, and, and yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's, that's why I think business is so fun is because I think that it's just the,

[41:34] the most fun stuff. Yeah. Figuring it out. It's like a puzzle. Um, but anyway, so we answered this question very well. I just want to make sure before we move on that we, I mean, we didn't directly say like, should I do this in the business or should I do, um, you know, my own tinkering? I guess they're, they're not mutually exclusive. I think learning the skills and like learning what's possible, the, like what tools do you have in your toolbox? I think that's always great to expand that. Um, so even if you are just wanting to do this in the business that you're currently working for, I still think you can spend the time on your own to, you know, start to figure out what's possible. Also some, some, uh, some jobs you're able to do a little experimenting. So I think if you can find, you know, uh, some, some sweet spot of continuing to build those skills, it does help you be able to, you know, know what all is potentially possible. Um, but I like to, I think the general premise of you, you, the, the, the idea that you don't have, like that one of them doesn't include understanding customers and understanding how people work and how to, you know, get over road blocks and stuff like that. Like that's a fallacy. Like you a hundred percent, I'm going to have to figure that out either way if you want the thing to become economically valuable

[42:50] yep yep okay so question three how to make a routine um and it's from user status awkward 3304 and they go on to say do you follow any sort of daily routine the things you do every day no matter what how do you um build that and actually stick with it do you start small or just dive in tell me how you made yours basically they keep trying different things and failing um and they just really genuinely want to know what works which kind of talked about a little bit already yeah i think i think there's some fun things yeah so when you put this in here um i was like you know it would be kind of fun to kind of go through like the things that you have in your daily routine and like, what would you not, like, if you could only pick one of them or two of them or three of them, four of them, like what would be the things that you're like, I can't give this up? What are your daily routines right now? Like what are your things you do every day, no matter what? Um, I, so we've, we've gotten into the routine right now of, we take turns on who lets the dogs out and makes coffee. Um, and I'll, I'll say, you know, that, that is the first thing of the day. Um, I, I think that would be

[44:07] pretty dang hard to, to give up is the, I have, yeah. Coffee first thing in the morning is my, and obviously dogs, no matter what has to be my first thing I do. And if I don't, I get a little grouchy about it. And if the kids start shoot firing questions at me before i've had my first cup of coffee mom can be a little bit not nice no you've all kinds of revelations on the show this this week um yeah and also so we we never did the i don't even know how how did we ever decide who made the coffee i don't even know did we just make our own route i don't know honestly i think what started it is i felt like i was making it every single day and I'm didn't I was tired of it I'm like okay this is gonna be take turns because I'm tired of making the coffee every morning I don't know about that oh I don't know I mean you did it sometimes but I just know there was like a week where I feel like I did it every day yeah basically now uh we just alternate yeah I mean there's been a couple exceptions but um we just alternate it's like a gift it is it is like every other day you get the gift of just being able to wake up and coffee exists yeah and it's pretty nice and when you do when when someone does decide to do it two dates in a row it's like another gift

[45:22] like oh it just it puts it in a different perspective than it used to i think i do it two times in a row more than you do yes yes you do it is sometimes because i abandon you and go on work trips more than you do that's true but gotta remember when i get home do i have to make a week no no no i think before you leave you need to do it tomorrow also oh no okay that's fair i'll commit committing on the podcast that i'm gonna make your coffee in the morning. We'll have to follow through with that and see how it went. Just remind me. Um, okay. So waking up in the morning and coffee. Okay. Yeah. What are your routines? So that's your first part. Like what are your daily routines? Like no matter what that you do. Um, so the other thing I would say is almost looping back. Actually it is looping back all the way to the farthest part from that, which is the night before figuring out what time do I need to wake up in the morning. Uh, because for us that does vary fairly frequently depending on if we're recording a podcast or going on a run or, you know, what it is. Like if we have job things in the morning that we have to do or kid things, kid things. Yeah. It can, it can just vary. So, um, now I will say it usually comes down to like the same, like within

[46:37] a 30 minute window five or five thirty five or five thirty basically every day yep um but that that is definitely another thing like if i if we don't do that then i don't know we sleep we just would sleep we just lay in bed lay in bed be lazy we'll admit to it yeah well like part of it also comes down to like knowing what it is that i'm doing in the morning too yeah and and then like mentally being ready like okay katy's gonna make the coffee and then we're gonna go on a run and we have to be out the door by this time and so i don't i don't because otherwise we would just miss stuff and sometimes we text it to each other yeah well you're really good about that texting out the schedule the night before because in the morning it just life happens and it gets crazy and it's really nice actually sometimes when we have it already written out so we know what we're doing which you know that's maybe another really great i don't know idea for somebody that yeah text your schedule for a routine yeah text it to yourself or text it to your partner and figure it out like set it in stone i mean things might change and that's okay notably in stone yeah completely immutable oh my gosh all right um what else are your routines um i don't know do you have routines at work that you do when you get to your day

[47:54] job i do do you want to guess what it is every single day do you make coffee i make one cup of coffee and do you fill up your water bottle no oh you should i know that's actually a good point i probably should that's that'd be a good routine i've been trying to drink more water at work uh but yes every single morning i make one cup of coffee i have exactly no matter how many cups of coffee i have at home uh whether that's zero or five i always have exactly one cup of coffee at work every single what kind of coffee do you guys have at work i'm genuinely curious um i don't even Is it a Keurig? It's like a super fancy, like you have like little disposable, like single serve. No, no, no. Like single serve drip coffee. Huh. Things. Like is it with beans? I'm genuinely curious. I don't get to go to your day job very much. No. It's just like a little packet of ground coffee. Oh, okay. Pop it in. You just pop it in and it runs hot water through it and turns into coffee. Interesting. Learn something new every day. yeah but okay so you make your cup of coffee and then you get started on your day it's always black i never there's nothing in it uh just black one black coffee and that is it no matter no matter

[49:10] what oh okay unless i'm like do you i don't have time um okay so you have your cup of coffee then you get in your day that can obviously depend on what's going on but then i feel like so far we've just described coffee and also coffee we have a caffeine problem um okay so coffee but then you have to have so when you're driving home from work do you have a routine then that helps you get ready to like walk in the door to all that i listen to books i love listening to books but that is your routine like is that something you do uh yeah pretty much every day pretty much every day okay yeah i listen to i i do not listen to music in the car unless i'm like on a road trip with you or something yeah um it is exclusively audiobooks these days audiobooks or podcasts yeah yeah so it sounds like you really and then we get into our nights and honestly i feel like that can change very non what's going on we really don't have a i also have big routines for the business of like the the like looping of getting stuff yeah because uh since um we work asynchronous schedules with Aaron, um, I have to make sure that I get all questions answered and everything teed up as best I can for her in the morning, um, or by the morning so that

[50:28] she's ready to go for her day. Um, and then, um, in the evenings, you know, making sure that I'm moving all this stuff along and, and, you know, checking in on stuff and, and then hopefully have some time to, to focus in and work on a few things if uh if the evening allows for it yeah um i mean really the real big days the business moves forward uh for things that i do is on saturday yeah the weekends yeah and sunday but the still try to do my absolute best to make sure that the the weeks are as productive as possible too and so that there's like some morning and evening routines that i go through just with the business and the all the agents and stuff that we have running it's all that jazz but i do feel like we should reflect on routines i feel like we could get some more good routines in our schedule yeah i don't know it's interesting i don't know because like yeah for me it's very similar you know i have my cup of coffee get kids out the door like obviously that's a routine and then i get how do you start your day like when you actually start your day day for work. I feel like it just varies depending. I don't usually have a second cup of coffee, but wow, that's amazing.

[51:44] And you, and you survive. Wow. Um, I know that's possible. I don't know. Yeah. I feel like my working day, it very much can, and you know, if the kids have appointments, I have an appointment. I'm usually the one that's all boring. So the, like, what is the first thing you do? Like, do you open your email? Yes. Oh, that's terrible. Okay. So there we go. I don't believe in email. Oh, I have to. I have to believe in the emails. But yeah, I guess that would be my first as I start digging through emails, figuring out, because I work a lot with overseas, so stuff comes in every now and then. Do you clear out your entire email inbox every day? No, but I usually get through most of my to-dos from my, I don't like clear out where I've like organized every single email. Are you at the mall? yeah pretty much i have to though so do i but i also don't well you have a little bit higher level of a job than i do but um yeah the emails and then i don't know i guess getting kids off the bus or picking them up from school is definitely part of my routine what would be one thing that you could add to a routine to your to your day-to-day i don't know it

[53:00] feels very crammed i think it's it's kind of like what could you add but then also like what do you want to add like what would be a really valuable ad i don't know what do you feel like you need to add you don't right now what's something i need to add i do feel like having just a quiet time in the morning would be valuable for me reflecting on the day a little bit yeah i i would like to i would i would like to spend more time writing and then for the business i would really like to spend more time recording content and actually spending time creating content i gotta get in that habit at some point in this game or it'll never be anything because like just getting the stuff out in the world is by far the hardest thing yeah or most critical thing um because otherwise it's all just a bunch of academic experiments if nobody knows about the stuff to buy it. I mean, like you could definitely get some organic traction and, and, you know, that's what we've gotten to this point, but like the stuff that'll actually scale stuff is, um, a little bit more of a reliable, um, content funnel, um, to, to get people aware. So I think too, honestly, um, a good routine for me would be figuring out kind of where I fit in with bravely and how I can help more there. Um, I feel

[54:17] like that would be a really, and then knowing, you know daily what are things i can do daily to help yeah um because right now i don't feel like i have that i mean i help with the company and i do things but it's not consistent and i would love to figure that out a little bit more i feel like we need like a work therapist i guess yeah um what else i feel like i thought of another really good routine thing that i would oh and reading more i would love to read more i feel like i could do that more in the evenings once I start winding down. How many books have you read this year? Do you know? Oh, I don't have any idea. A few. I mean, I've probably read like eight, maybe, maybe more, but I think I've probably read about 2030, somewhere around there. But I mean, I listened to a lot of books too, but I also would love to get back into the routine of actually reading my books. Um, what's hard though, and this is where I need to just take time to figure it out is I don't like to be listening. I don't like to really be reading a book and listening to a book like different books but I have done that before but I would love to figure out and I know there's ways I just need to look into it a little bit more of if I want to if I'm listening to an audiobook and then or if I don't start reading it figuring out a good system with that

[55:34] because I honestly really love to read books before I go to bed at night sorry this might be a little boring but I don't know that's another routine I don't know I'm sorry I'm just sometimes you know the podcast is for us and we want to talk through things and that's fine because there's zero tiktok listeners right now you know we uh there's a person on here that joined i know it says zero but i don't know i don't believe it anyways the uh yeah it's it's it's the time where we do the wrap-up yeah anything exciting coming on jeff coming up that we want to talk about really fast for outro i don't know i just thought i would shake it up a little bit questions um nope i don't thanks for asking um if you would like you can uh email us at buildhorizons.com if you have any questions or any topics you want to go over you just want to say hi or ask um i don't know say stuff to us yeah feel free um and yeah thank you guys for listening uh if you'd like you can hit subscribe uh wherever you found this you can Follow us on wherever you can follow us at. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Katy to send us home. Thanks for building with us, and we are cheering you on.