002 - If You're Not Embarrassed, You Launched Too Late

[0:00] all right so now this time when i hit record it was connected to a hard drive which is really helpful for getting things to be able to be recorded um do you want to push the button this week which button do i press two

[0:52] picking the life you want to lead and how to make it happen. I'm Jeff. That's Katy. And before we get started, I do want to say one thing I wanted to do when we did this episode this week was live stream the actual recording. I don't even know if I told you all this, but I went in to go do it and I clicked the button and it told me that first off, it needs to do some final approvals before it would let us. And if we don't have a thousand subscribers, then it will only show it to like, like it's a basically a private stream that I would have to like, I guess, text out to everybody. Tell our family and friends. Watch us on the live stream. Yeah, right. And so I would either need to get all of your phone numbers or you can click subscribe and get us to a thousand and then we'll be able to live stream after a few weeks after that. So anyways, yeah, do that. Click the thing like the little button thing that popped up before this all did. Katy, should softball games in 106 degree heat be a federal crime? That's my question for you to start this thing off. Yeah, it was pretty toasty. Our daughter had a softball game, and I think Jeff and I, by the end of it, looked like we had been swimming in a swimming pool. And I have some bad news. Okay. We have another game in about two hours.

[2:11] But it's going to be less hot. Okay. So that's good. I thought it was going to be actual news to me. I already did know that being that we have to record this like exactly at an hour. So if you're looking at the play, like the little, the little, how far are we in? And there's more than an hour. Just that's how late we're going to be for a softball game later today. Yeah. Let's just rain down. But yeah. So I just, man, that was, that was miserable. And I have never like, I've tried to will our little umbrella to give us like enough shade to did not die we didn't plan well yeah so we had yeah katy was just a baby umbrella well and like i don't know why it's also legal to sell umbrellas with like the stem that's like 18 inches i don't not even that like i was about this far and so like trying to hold that while also giving both of a shade like getting the right angle and the sun was brutal there were no clouds it was brutal but such is life it was cute it was cute watching the girls play softball and nearly die and yeah they were also on the struggle bus as well yeah they were they're well and properly

[3:27] over it just like we are with this intro okay so um we we had some stuff happen this week yeah um so in the app store we and play store so i think we actually have some things in the app store pending and but then we had approvals in the play store yeah google did a good job of getting there's quick yeah thanks so we have some apps available now and how was that whole experience getting things in the google play store and all of those things did i say that right or did i say that wrong i i don't know that there's a right or wrong way to say anything um so you're good there i i want to say like the the really the the main thing i'm excited about as we've kind of gone through and built some of these things is uh having the apps available on all the platforms that you know the the desktop versions of them so this is if you're not into like software stuff the next like five minutes you might just want to skip past because it's gonna be super boring um but we'll get to some interesting stuff that's more broadly applicable uh but my my goal as a person who uses like mac and windows and linux and android and ios like i i want

[4:42] something to be available on all those things that's a real rare thing to to have right and and but like that does mean like the road is a bit long to get those things to exist and not suck and then um you know actually fit the vision of what you had when you started out down that path and so the the the thing that then you have to do is is go through app approvals and then um you know there's always some back and forth and had some back and forth and um but now you know we've gotten to a point where uh you know some of this stuff is out and live in the world and uh one of those it was like really early on in kind of the Bravely journey, but it was our to-do app, which is kind of a fun thing. So I'll do this for all you software, not interested people. If you haven't skipped already five minutes ahead, if so, man, you sure missed it. But I do think the to-do app stuff is an important topic to cover and actually something that as i continue to be a do all the things person a thing that i need to do more diligently and so maybe this is like a a

[5:59] live on air uh jeff works through how he plans to actually do the thing that he would like to do um with everyone but i i know for me when i feel most in control uh of what my day-to-day is and honestly like keeping anxiety lower is if i am using a system to keep track of all the stuff that i have to do um and so i i was a very young jeff when i first read uh getting things done if you are into to-do apps at all you've probably heard of that book um but that kind of has inspired a whole genre of to-do app and i i just want to say like of course shameless plug you can you go to bravely.dev and go uh go check out to doingly it's our uh to-do app but you can do this with many different to-do apps uh like i used to do this for the longest time and there's just certain things that i have always wanted it to do slightly differently that i am excited to be able to introduce that and how we do things and make it a little bit more flexible in a couple different ways um the the thing about getting things done like the whole methodology though is you take uh stuff that comes up and if it's not something that

[7:16] you can just do in the like immediate right now and it needs to be deferred till later is just have an input so you just plop that stuff in and goes into like an inbox and you just know that that is going to be something that we'll address later And then if that is something that you are not doing, to go back to what I said, when I feel the most on top of things or I feel the lower end of the anxiety spectrum, it's because I have that system. When I don't have that system, it is like I'm trying to keep all these things in my head. Well, and I remember there's been a few times even with your job and home life, you did feel so overwhelmed because you didn't have a tracking system in place. And this was way before we even considered building an app for it. But when you took the time to build kind of structure your thoughts, it is a ripple effect to not only how productive you can be, but also the anxiety part of it too. Yeah. Um, I, I would say in, in leadership, uh, in my career, that's been

[8:34] one of the things that I've had the most, I don't know, it, it's been a very fulfilling journey on that. Cause as a person who kind of went through that and found it, uh, you know, through, uh, you know, going through some of those trials, being able to help others through that, I've realized kind of a really common pattern that happens. And, um, if you don't have this system in place, this is like, uh, I feel like I've seen this a hundred times. Basically how, what happens is, uh, you have a bunch of, a bunch of stuff. Like you have a very smart, capable individual and smart, capable individuals by, uh, by nature are like magnets for more and more and more and more stuff to get piled onto them, which, uh, at first you solve by just working harder and harder and harder and harder. Eventually there becomes a point where, uh, you become overwhelmed. And in those instances, um, what I've had the experience of doing is being able to say like, okay, um, I know you feel overwhelmed. Uh, we were, we're talking through this. I think the, the thing that would help me understand what all you have on your plate is to write all this stuff down. And this is a very getting things done thing is to go through your head and i want you to write down

[9:49] all these things that you have to do right and when they do that then we go through i'm like okay so which of all these things that we wrote down do you need to get done today and then it's like okay well these three things have to get done today um i need to get these these couple things done um tomorrow and then by the end of the week at some point i do need to get you know these things done here and you can like you can see like as we're going through this exercise the like the realization the light bulb moment of oh i i did have 40 things that i need to keep track of but i actually only need to care about six of them this week and three of them today and when you are able to contextualize what i can work on today what i need to get done today and if it's only a couple or a few of things, then all of a sudden it doesn't really matter that you maybe do have 40 things over the next six months that you're going to have to care about. Um, you only have to worry about those handful of things and it becomes a lot less overwhelming if just in the context of what I can work on right now, here's what I should know about and be able to put those other things out of your mind. But if you don't have a system, which I am, I am mediocre at right now at best um trying to to be a little

[11:05] bit more diligent and um having the app out in the world is definitely a good reminder of that but uh if you if you don't have a good system then you can't get those other 40 things out of your mind if you're you know a particular type of individual some people have some magic ability to put that on the shelf um i i know for me uh for for stuff that is like hard and complicated and gonna have to be figured out that is like impossible so for me to be able to put it on a shelf, I need to have trust in some system that I know that I'm going to come back to daily. And, and that's, that's the whole methodology of the, the, the to-do app that we made is you put things in the inbox, you know, that you're going to go back through and clear that thing out and make sure that it's either assigned to a project, um, or that it has a due date. And, and then, you know, like, okay, I put this date, so I know I'm going to see this on this date so i don't need to worry about it right now right and and that that alleviates a lot of a lot of mental load that you have to go through in your day-to-day yeah and one other part of the app that i wanted to touch on is we made a option to be able to add friends or collaborate with others and even for our marriage we i have found that to be really helpful

[12:24] because i am a person that i think every wife perhaps is this way that when you every one of the wow bold claims here katy making a statement for all women across the world yeah and i'm watering out of my i think it's allergies so i'm having just getting emotional yeah i'm getting really emotional about these to do apps um anyways is one thing that i struggle with is when i have things i want you to be doing that's on the honeydew list and you have other ideas of how you want to spend your time this allows us to get on the same page of what my expectations are for you to do in the weekend through the week and how you're going to get those done or vice versa of i have all these things on my to-do app don't think that's going to happen this week and me being understanding of that yeah all like sorry as you're talking all i could think of and i don't know if this specific thing happened but versions of this happened especially early

[13:39] on in our marriage uh and by early on i mean also in the last probably week i would imagine this is a pretty common thing but like i just remember like we were at our old house and working on um we had a berm that we had to build and just a whole bunch of heavy bricks so and then I swear you would you would like find like hey he looks like he's about to do a like a whole bunch of this all at once and he's going to be really really tired I'm going to do now is the moment I'm going to like introduce this new idea hey honey when you're done with that also I need you to come fix the chair it's broke it's like I do not need to know about more things to do while I'm literally dying out in the heat fixing the thing that was so hard and it's so funny because in my brain i'm just thinking oh it's a thing that needs to be done it's like i am your to-do app that you just get an offload hey i just need to make sure that someone knows the chair needs fixed i just need to get it out of my head so i don't need to worry about it thanks a lot yeah all right well i don't want you to have to feel like you're going to get too emotional so we can yeah thanks yeah i the next thing my allergies chose a wonderful morning to hit me hard um so we do have the um the sydney marathon coming up which we'll talk about a little bit more as it gets closer i think we have i don't know seven weeks or something like that oh so close which means we need to get

[14:56] some long runs in babe but if you can make it not be a thousand degrees outside yeah we both had really crappy runs this past week of training and both of us had to really push through getting through them with the heat it's really hard to have marathons in august and september yeah during these summer months but we both pushed through them and do you want to talk a little bit more about that the mind shift and how yeah i mean we can kind of condense the the next two things into to one block if you like so um we also had our utah valley marathon that we ran yes a few weeks ago and it was also equally terrible um altitude and running uh apparently if you're from the flatlands uh that could be a bit rough and we came in so optimistic to utah thinking we were both gonna pr and knock it out of the park and that was not the case yeah at all uh we we haven't even uh really talked about this but i i i am curious now that it is a few weeks in the rear view mirror like when you look back at that experience or look back at you know some

[16:11] of the crappier runs in the last few days with it being a thousand degrees what what would you say you take away from the i mean it sucks to call you finishing a marathon a failure but like in a lot of ways it felt very failure like uh especially in the moment yeah so as you look back at those things like anything you take away uh like that you carry forward from those? Well, I think for one, it's the memories, the experience of getting, I have the, I have an opportunity to push my body to that point. And I know that not everybody gets that chance. Um, so framing it as a blessing that I have a body that can do this really hard thing um and i think another really fun part of utah was we brought our kids and um our than the grandparents shout out to my parents for watching the kids thank you so much um and letting them see us in it and see us push through something really hard and obviously when we saw

[17:27] them at random points in the race. They didn't know we were hurting so bad. Um, but seeing us finish something, even when it sucked and persevering through that, I think, and I don't know, just having the kids there was so fun. I loved it. I thought giving them hugs through the race was just such a sweet thing. Yeah. Yeah. It was, I don't know if I answered your question the best but those were yeah i'll be honest i got a little distracted when you were talking about kids and then we heard them upstairs and like it's like man i wonder yeah if episode two is going to be the time we have a kid invasion i mean it's going to like it's gonna it's literally it's going to happen we are going to and we just have to decide at that point do we edit that out or do we just embrace it i'm pretty like this is real life i'm pretty anti-edit on this podcast because we have about 600 trillion other things to do but depending on the state of the child That may be the thing that dictates whether or not that we are, maybe we're legally required to edit these things out. I'd say for myself, the thing that I take away is that not tying the outcome to the

[18:44] validity of the journey. Right. Because. It's a really good point. And this is applicable to business. This is applicable to things that you're trying to change about yourself. And this is certainly applicable in a sport like running, uh, which I, when I look back at that, the thing that I am most proud of, um, even on the races that do go well, um, I I'm, I'm proud that I showed up for the day-to-day grind of the thing. And ultimately, you know, if I ever am going to have a good marathon, um, it is going to be on the heels of showing up every single day and, and doing what I need to do to make that happen. Because consistency matters so much and showing up and having that discipline is so important and it's hard and it takes time to build that. I don't think it's something that happens quickly. It's definitely a thing that happens with showing up day by day, one at like one time once at a time that's what i'm trying to say i'm still laughing because we're just hearing i'm hearing mom mom mom so it's probably going to be this podcast

[19:59] episode so this is why we need the uh we need the subscribers so if you haven't already please subscribe because if we get a live stream we can tell our kids to watch the live stream and they can know what's going on right because right now they just have to hear us yelling around it's like a stampede upstairs right now yep um so the but we're gonna we're gonna power through i believe in us it's the day-to-day commitment right now the day-to-day commitment requires trying to turn off the adhd brain it's not gonna be a perfect scenario no it's not um yeah it's but like to go back to it It really, the necessity of enjoying that grind. And in the moment, it is rough. But when you look back at a hard week of training or you look back at a hard week of really powering through a bunch of app work or getting something changed on the website and helping the onboarding flow for people who are new customers or something like that, like to enjoy that grind is what turns something from an aspiration to something that is like, you can, you can see it at the end of the end of the tunnel. Yeah. I think too. I think it was Robin

[21:17] Arzon that said it, but you have survived every one of your hard days. You've seen, you've seen the other side of it. And I think that's something too that when I heard that, I was like, that's really insightful and just solid. Like you've survived every single one of your hard days. And I know some days are way harder than others, but even when you're in a hard run and we've talked about that is we, we will be done. Like it will, it will finish one step after another, but it is hard. Yeah. And I don't want to like minimize how hard it is in the grind. Yeah, there's definitely moments of trying to figure out like, like, how do I how do I live with my my brain in this body that is going through this right now? And, um, that, that realization, like if I can survive for the next 60 seconds or the next five minutes, um, and I can string enough of those together, then I will finish at some point. I will take the final stupid step of this

[22:33] marathon. Yeah. Even though right now I feel like I would like nothing more than to sit in one of these lawn chairs that are from the spectators along the route and and it was so hot to the run it was yeah well just a little bit cruel thing about marathons is when you start usually it's like absolutely pristine beautiful weather and then it's just a game of like as you go in distance uh first off of course you you know if you run 18 miles you're going to be quite quite tired um at best and you're pushing yourself because you're trying to run quick yeah and and so but you also have yeah it's getting hotter and hotter as the day goes on and uh it just yeah becomes more and more unsustainable and we do this for fun this is the thing that we like doing this is the hobby yeah i actually um had a question come up in my head jeff okay with what you said and i think it's applicable to a lot of what we're going to talk about is, and things that I think that you have experienced, but can you talk through tools and things that have helped you to what you said, discipline your mind?

[23:50] How, how do people do that? How do you discipline your mind? What are some ways that people can do that. Yeah. I mean, I talked about it last week about, you know, kind of trying to convince your algorithm. Uh, like if you are a person who is going to scroll on your phone and you like, you're not trying to solve that problem right now, then at least make that be more productive. Um, so like that, you know, if there is a particular thing that you're trying to go down, whether it be running or starting a business or what have you, um, you you know, surrounding your things, surrounding yourself with things from that genre or that topic or people that you aspire to be someday. I think that at least makes that be more productive, probably not the most productive use of your time. I've mentioned buying books and listening to things. I would say one thing that I've found tremendously helpful, and it's kind of like a dying breed of people who do this but take the time to write stuff out whether that be type it out or write it on a notebook but i think taking time to be with your own thoughts helps you realize some of the things that maybe you

[25:07] wouldn't notice about why you are going down a certain path if you hadn't take the time to like try to articulate to yourself and if you don't take the time to articulate to yourself um why you're going down a certain path or why do you have these feelings that you're having why are you overwhelmed then you're just going to keep going down it um like whatever direction that you've been headed down you're just going to keep doing it so to break out of that cycle you have to do something that that causes some sort of realization about yourself that like hey i i'm going down this but i don't want to do that because i enjoy this thing more. And, um, and some of that requires making a statement that may not be entirely true at the time, but you, you have to be willing to do something. And this is kind of a thing we talked about last week. And we'll probably talk about for the end of time is sometimes you have to do stuff before it makes sense. And if you want to be a person who wants to write a book someday, you have to start writing a book with no, like the first time you write a book, you're going to start down that journey without having written a page of a book

[26:25] before. Like the first time you try, that's just like by definition, that's going to be true. And that's a crazy thing to go down and do, but that's the only path forward. And so if that's something that you want to do um you're going to have to become a person who is a writer you're gonna have to call yourself a writer you're gonna have to surround yourself with the people who you want to be you like i talk about that algorithm thing like there are plenty of writing influencers for example um if you're going to be a writer that should be what your algorithm is because a lot of writers especially as they're getting started out are going to have those sort of things is how they fill their mind and they're going to get ideas and inspiration from those people um but but yeah I don't know. What, what have you experienced with yourself with that? Um, I think there's, did I answer your question? Um, yes. I mean, I think a little bit, but I had a couple other parts I'd be interested to like prod you on, but we can go or do you want me to answer? Yeah. You, you do your answer. Um, I think writing things down, journaling, which I would love to get back into the habit of doing. It would be great. Um,

[27:45] because I think when, and I, I am more of a very traditional with a journal and handwriting till my hand starts to hurt type of person um but i think that when you take the time to write it down it just adds the intention it gives it more intention for you um but like you said i think when you have you surround yourself with that identity that you are trying to identify yourself as, it really helps you buy in to what it is that you're trying to do. Have you ever, um, what's your, what's your experience been on like imposter syndrome when you show up to do a thing for the first time that you want to you want to be the sort of person who does x um and so you have to be doing it for the first time um what how big does imposter syndrome play for you personally for me oh my goodness bad i don't even feel equipped to hardly talk

[29:00] about this because this is genuinely somewhere so i don't i struggle i don't understand how that i wouldn't have guessed that was as big of a thing because like you show up to uh like you you have like book groups that you've shown up to that are like a bunch of people that you've never met before and you just find those things and go do them which uh like i that sounds like crazy person activity i would never in a thousand years do something i think it's and maybe defining it a little bit more granular is i feel imposter syndrome when it's something i'm leading if i'm in charge i always feel like i'm not going to be doing it well enough nor have the experience to even consider leading something and i struggle with that a lot well i mean that's fair but like when you so so do you not feel imposter syndrome when you show up at a at a you know a book club or you show up to some cycle class for the first time and you've never been there before and a little bit but I am more excited for the fun of

[30:17] it and meeting new people I think that's I don't I think I don't feel imposter syndrome because I'm I don't know it's enjoyable to me and but if it's something I am leading or trying to well even for example jeff uh the company and trying to fill in on roles because there's so much to do and a lot of hats yeah and i'm i don't know how to do it but so i do feel a little bit of imposter syndrome like i'm not gonna know what i'm doing on this social media thing i don't know what to post but like you said it's just you dive in and you try it and if it doesn't work it's fine you pivot and you try again and eventually you do that enough times and it you get good at it you get better at it and honestly it kind of even comes back to what we talked about last week with failure and how that makes me feel and you feel and I'm definitely still growing here this isn't something where i i feel super equipped to have much good advice for people well i think you're

[31:33] you're good at this uh especially on the just willingness to dive into a thing like i'm if we let's say i told you or i don't know we just we were watching something and then there was like an ad and then we got convinced that we need to become pickleball people were not pickleball people um how how much pickleballing would you need to do before you would show up to couples pickleball night and feel comfortable ish i mean comfortable enough to do it to do that like from zero to a thousand hours of pickleball well how much pickleball would you need to play before you would show up to couples night i would be fine first night it's because something like that just hear me out something like that doesn't like add that imposter syndrome feeling it's more of like um if I were to lead a book club for example people come to our house people lean on me for questions on what we've read um one thing I've actually had to really work through with my own career is I do project management and when I first

[32:50] got hired on I was so nervous to lead projects oh yeah I've seen this in you yeah and I wasn't confident that I would know first of all the questions to ask how to like how to lay out the timeline um and i i literally told my my boss that i would i didn't know if i was going to be able to fill that role and but it was situations like that which now i am leading projects were good i of course yeah i i don't feel imposter syndrome anymore it's so funny because like the the thing i would say to you is of course you can do those things like that's that's no big deal but i would i would answer the pickleball couples night question as i i don't know what the number is but i can tell you it's i would need to go more than i more than 10 times alone just you and i pickleball practice before i would feel even remotely like okay like okay i can i can show up to all these other people with their paddles and be one of one of them and maybe they won't noticed that I've only done it 10 times. Uh, but yeah, it's so interesting because

[34:07] it's different. I think there's, maybe there's different levels of imposter syndrome or there's different. Yeah. Cause if you ask me, Hey, do you want to go talk on stage and give some, you know, hour long presentation? Oh, uh, I would be like, yeah, sure. Why not? I'm so not okay with that. Yeah. So it's interesting. It's kind of like figuring this out right now, But yeah, the, I think at the, the, how I would summarize that though, is, you know, you're going to have things that are uncomfortable, um, and hard and that you feel weird doing and to get good at it, whether that be, you know, uh, pickleball practice with your best friends or your, uh, willingness to be a project manager, uh, and, and take the lead on things, uh, or to start running. or to write a book is you know all those things if you you have big dreams and you have big aspirations there's going to be times where steps along that path are going to require you to do something that feels real weird and you have to become willing to dive into that

[35:25] weird and also be someone who once you do it enough uh or you do it a handful of times or even go through it once where you're like really mindful about what you're doing is realizing that feeling in yourself of like i i feel i feel uncomfortable doing this this feels crazy why are we doing this uh and and knowing that on the other side of that is realization that you were capable of figuring this out. Or maybe you, you go into that and you learn, uh, something to, to not do next time, or that you need to change on how you want to do that. Next time you go to a couple's pickleball practice and, and, and, but that it's still okay. Like even if you fail that it's going to be even easier next time to show up because it, you know, going from zero to one is hard. We're going from one to two is not nearly as hard. Right. Yeah. So one question that I had thought of after our episode last week is, and honestly, I think it's relevant to what we're kind of talking about right now. And maybe then after this, we can segue into something else, but with change and Jeff, I think in your experience, you have

[36:42] experienced the most dramatic changes in a life over the past three-ish years. It's been a pretty wild, yeah, 36 months. So how did you do, and I think maybe sobriety might be a good one to talk on with this, but obviously I think you can apply it to other things too, but how did you move from day to day to week to week to month to month? How did you keep taking those steps forward um and I know and I think the thing that's so raw to me was the sobriety journey and I'm happy to talk more about that and the emotional side of that for me as your spouse um and what that felt like for me but we don't have to get into that today but what how did you do that because I do remember with you like not drinking anymore and honestly when you made that decision I made that decision too because I would that was just something that I decided if my husband has this struggle there is no reason why I need to be bringing it even in our home and that was just my own personal decision so we really kind of did it at the same time so but what and I'm getting I'm getting off track a little

[38:00] bit but how did you move how did it feel easier how did it move into okay this is the day I'm doing this like you said hard stop today this is the day yeah to moving to the next day to moving to the next day to that being the next week how can you talk about that journey a little bit yeah well I mean, for starters, like it was something that I tried to do, I mean, for years, uh, of, of, of day, day ones. Um, and the thing that started the shift really like to, to even get any amount of traction the first couple of times was the times where I decided like, okay, this is, this is done. Like I'm not, it's not like a thing that I want to do someday. Um, I'm, I'm willing to commit to this now and even that didn't stick at first um took a handful of tries so the the initial part of that is it's a heck of a journey and just you just have to not give up and keep finding your way through that um how did you work through the like addiction part of it the how did you work through that because obviously you wanted to take a drink you wanted to not wake

[39:15] up and run. How can you talk through that a little bit? Um, well, when I, the only thing that worked was that I didn't want to drink, honestly, like, um, so the, I mean, certainly there's like the physiological parts of that, but, um, it's never in my, in my experience, and I'm sure that this is different for others uh it is more of the relief of a psychological discomfort that is the the prompting and that can be overweighed by what you really want to do and so it honestly it ties together to like how do you make how do you make day two turn into day two or day three to day four to week seven to week 52 and i i would say it it's very uh very similar it just becomes a heck of a lot easier once you get a little time on you uh just like in the same way like if if i asked you how is it that you continue to run every day um i would assume it is because that's what you do or like why do you work out on a given week um it's just

[40:32] because it's what you do yeah it's just my lifestyle at this point yeah and i mean it's it's a little bit fake it till you make it kind of thing where you you do have to just decide that that's the identity that you want to adopt but the the fact of it is is if you do surround yourself with that information uh you do surround yourself with with those influences on your mind that hey this is this is not a thing like i i want to be the sort of person who lives this sort of life then it just it it follows like your behavior will follow that like if you can change your beliefs on the thing then it's just a matter of living your life and go through that knowing that you have silly monkey brain up here that will revert to what is most comfortable and it may need occasional reminders that, Hey, I'm going to listen to this podcast episode, even though I don't feel, uh, like I have any sort of, you know, temptation to do anything differently. I'm just going to go ahead and listen to it because I know that it's a good influence on my life to, to have someone talk about, you know, their own journey through something and it worst case scenario it's a hour of time or

[41:49] however long and uh best case scenario that keeps you on you know on the path that you want to go down i think another really good tool to use on this is surrounding yourself with it in the sense of like put sticky notes on your bathroom mirror put notes on your whiteboard and i know at one point when you were losing weight you had it displayed on a computer yeah as a number so surrounding yourself with really i don't know easy ways to see it even in the day-to-day not even just like on your phone but you like get a like i said a sticky note or make it around you in every real way that you can i think Yeah. And with addiction things, it's especially true because, um, marketing exists. You are, uh, if, if you're not being intentional about, uh, having the, the influence to, you know, Hey, this is the sort of lifestyle I want to live. And, and, you know, that that's not going to include alcohol. And here's all these things that I'm going to listen to or

[43:04] read or look at or see. Um, there's billions of dollars that get spent on alcohol advertising. so you're going to see it like there there will be bombardment the other direction and um and so yeah i would 100 acknowledge like there is a absolute necessity to make it be a visible part of your um of your day-to-day because you will walk through life and have counter versions of that in fact that's very likely how that has become such a rooted in part of what you know whatever the specific thing is and why that's become something that is a part of your life to begin with. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, so we also have a cool thing where we have our dogs barking upstairs, which also helps so much with trying to keep the train of thought going real salient point about a very serious topic. And it's like, um, how do I talk through the, how do I, what sticky notes do I need to block out dog barking in the background? um, which I hope these mics are good enough that the people don't hear that, but I certainly do. Yeah. Um, so any, any other things on, um, on change or, or any of that, like

[44:23] questions that you would have that maybe, um, the answers to might help someone out there. Oh, I'm definitely one to i want a physical way to apply it to my life um so i think anything else that you have for people that want to make changes that's a physical thing they can grab would be great but i also think we've we've covered some things on this one yeah i mean uh applicable i i don't even have it on um on bravely.dev like the website uh but we do have a sobriety tracker yeah like that's a, that's the sort of journey that you want to go on, uh, you know, and talking about ways to just make it readily apparent, like on, on my phone right now, like I have, like if I open it up and, um, like I have the number of days, uh, yeah, 1098 days. And when you are, you know, I don't look at that every day, but I do see it occasionally. And so like, it has like a little widget that you can do, or you can get like notifications and the early days that's like super, super helpful. Yeah. And I, I, I had that through other means. I didn't have an app at the time. Uh, but I, I'm like, you know, as I talked through some of these things and I, I, I internalize what that would have looked like for me,

[45:40] like if I could go through it again, or if I could, wow, nope. If I had to go through it again, what would I, what tools, what I want at my disposal. And that's one of them that I've made. And, um, you know, that I know that other people have, have utilized that so if that's something that you would like to take advantage of definitely i could check that out uh horizon sobriety tracker so it actually has a little inspiration from the same thing that is the name of this podcast and we can actually pop it in the description if that if so people can find it easily yeah if you want to do that katy for the people you you do that uh so katy has signed herself up for some post-production work yeah we'll put that on our to-do app bringing it full circle um so one thing i i i i'm i'm a big sucker for quotes uh yeah you are i i am a big sucker i'm i'm a sentimentalist at heart for sure um and so i'll probably occasionally on this podcast bring a quote and i'm curious about what you think about this one so this is reid hoffman he's a the linkedin founder i don't really know if he's a problematic person. I didn't do too much reading into it. But he's definitely been involved with a handful of bigger tech things over the years. And I think his quote, even if he's a

[46:55] problematic person, his quote carries a lot of truth. But the quote is, if you're not embarrassed at the first version of your product, you've launched too late. So, you know, if you reflect on stuff that we've built, you know, I certainly feel that way. But, you know, that I think is true for many things in life if you're not embarrassed by the first thing that you are willing to let other people in on you're probably letting them in on the thing too late but what are what are your thoughts oh gosh i didn't i was not prepared for this one so i'm gonna it was in our show notes you did not read um that one's hard because obviously you don't like to feel embarrassed or that you've made something silly yeah um but i get i get what it's where it's he's coming from um with and i think again it just rounds back up to like being okay with failure um showing your ideas to people and making it a reality yeah i i think that the because there's some things that i feel

[48:14] no shame feeling like yeah i don't care if people know that i'm not good at this thing um but the i think that's unique though well i i was gonna say i think the funny part about that is it's almost like it it has an inverse relationship with skill so um you know my my background like professionally like the thing that i got really good at is you know writing sequel so database stuff um and fun fact for basically anything like that especially technical stuff is, uh, no one person knows all of the things you just get really good at figuring out how to figure out how stuff works. And do you feel like part of that too, is asking questions for sure. Um, yeah. And, um, but like what, what it came down to, what, what, what I mean by this is, and when I, when I'm talking about like an inverse relationship, the more you do that and the more comfortable in your own skill that you become the more willingness you have to be like yeah i have no idea how this works i know i can figure it out but like we can i don't care if you know that i've never done this

[49:31] particular form of regex expression or whatever um and but when you are starting off down a journey like that it's like oh i don't i don't want them to know that I don't I've never done this piece of it before I have no idea and uh and that's hard and so but like everybody starts from the same place like we none of us are born like I have done a thousand podcast episodes welcome to earth alien uh no we're every podcast has started at zero subscribers and zero listens that's just how it works there's no other path through it so you have to feel silly the thing is how long do you stay unwilling to feel silly and i think the the quicker you can be okay getting that out into the world and feeling silly the quicker you can become someone who's highly skilled at a task it's true and yeah because just you know as we as we kind of talked about uh before and we've had plenty of conversations offline is the you know we talk about this podcast we'll just use it as an example i actually think that's

[50:47] a really great example and i hadn't thought about it so we could have planned four months not four months four months yeah to how how how can we make this be as good as humanly possible and when we started we would still be complete garbage when we started there's like and so if that's true and i i genuinely do i think it's i think it's 100 true if you have not done a thing especially when it's something creative or something technical, the first pass at it is going to suck. Like you will not be as good as you're going to get to when you start. That's just how it works. There's, there's no shortcut past it. And, and I even know this from doing, I know it's true for technical things too, because the, the most, the, the, the tail I've seen played out again and again and again with stuff that I've done, with stuff that I know other people have done, is you build a thing and you spend all this time and effort. Let's say it takes you five weeks to get something to be like, okay, I feel like this actually now works. When you get to the point

[52:02] where you're like, okay, I get this thing to now, I'm okay with how it works. The thought that's hard to even get out of your head is like, I need to throw this thing away and start completely fresh. It would be a thousand times better. But you'll, if you try to like nail it on that first try, you're just never going to, because you're going to get so much smarter as you build it. And we will get so much better at doing this silly thing where we talk to each other while dogs are barking and kids are stomping around. And I don't know, I'm surprised we haven't heard a blender go off at this point. But the thing is, is like, we will a hundred percent get better at doing this just by doing it you will get a hundred percent better at running just by running there's no amount of preparing to run that's going to make it not suck at the start like it's just going to suck you know what makes not running suck running running makes not running not suck and the so yeah the to go back to the quote um and the reason why i i liked it is um it's not you know if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product you've launched too late you are going to be embarrassed by the first version of

[53:19] your product even if you spent a little like if you spent if we spent 10 years on making this first episode um that we that we made and and you put it out into the world um you're still gonna feel like like oh man i could i could have made this better. Like that, that's never going to go away. And, and so if you are holding on to some hope that it's not going to like suck, whatever it is. Um, and that that's true for funny things. Like I'm just talking about with this podcast, but it's also true of, of like a journey through sobriety. Um, there's no amount of preparing for it. That's going to make it not suck at the start. It's just going to, like, it's just going to be hard and you have to figure out how to make your way through it. And you're going to learn a lot of lessons along the way. And, and yeah, so, um, but yeah, in this instance, I think if you, if you're seeking to not be embarrassed, you're going to launch later than you should have, whatever the thing is. And I think honestly, too, that's kind of why it took us so long to start this you've been asking me to do this for a really long time i mean off and on for years

[54:35] yeah yeah and honestly and i think um we have much more understanding of things now where we are in life um that we have maybe more to talk about but yeah i think that quote brings even this whole podcast experience for me because i am sure in a year when i go back and watch that first episode i might cringe a little bit but we would have been a year in of experience and that's really cool to think about yeah and and the the fun part about all this as once you get over that embarrassment once you get down the road being able to look back and honestly this is one of my true joys in life and this is why i highly recommend journaling on whatever path you're down uh because you may like we humans generally speaking you feel like the way that your brain works now is the way that it's always worked there's nothing that will jar you out of that though more than reading stuff from your past and realizing how far you've really come. Yeah, that's a really cool thing. Because I know like things that I wrote

[55:53] down and if I could have known that this was going to be the outcome, I would have been like, oh my gosh, this is everything that I ever dreamed of. But when I wrote down that that was my goal, that that was my aspiration, it felt like I was writing down the words of a crazy person. I remember, and I won't go into the specifics, but there was a person in our young lives as teenagers who ran a marathon. From that time forward, I've always thought, man, I want to be the sort of person someday that can run a marathon. And then when I started down my running journey and actually started giving running a proper try and I signed up for a half marathon, I wanted to do that. And, but it felt like, honestly, the half marathon felt like crazy. And when I did the half marathon, a full marathon felt like crazy. Full marathon still feels a little crazy. Full marathon still feels a little crazy. It probably never will not feel like crazy. Yeah, and ultra marathoners are my heroes in life, I think. Yeah, that's another breed of glutton for punishment.

[57:10] Um, but the, uh, where was I going with this? So the man I have, uh, no, it's okay. You were talking about, um, somebody that you knew. Oh yeah. Thank you. We're back on track. Um, but yeah, you, you look, you look back after you've kind of gone down this path and you're like, wow, I, I did that. And the, the reason why that's cool. And the reason why I think you should journal is because when you go back and you do realize that. And I do think it's really hard to have that realization. If you don't have some sort of record of what, what you were thinking in that moment that you, that you used to think it wasn't possible, but here you are, uh, when you realize you've made that shift and then you just become like, well, I can tell you right now, like, uh, I'm not worried about Sydney. I mean, it'll, it'll, it'll be hard, but like, I know I can do it. It's no big, like in real, like, honestly, if we didn't even train, like, I know, I know for a fact we would finish that stupid marathon um and to be no so nonchalant about something that used to be like if only one day i could only to now like ah well whatever like it's fine we'll finish no big deal but to see that shift in my own mind and my own thinking about something i thought was so impossible makes me realize that stuff that i feel

[58:26] impossible about today guess what if i if i take the steps down the path then someday that's going to feel the same way that the marathon felt for me you know you know through my adulthood and and then you know on on the finish line of that half marathon where i'm like maybe maybe i should do a full next that's so cool yeah it makes me definitely be held accountable to writing things down so yeah so they'll take that as another takeaway everybody um and like honestly uh you know if if i can leave you with one thing it is write it down going to start today. Um, and, and, and then if you, if you go down this path and you could figure that out, then you're going to learn a ton of lessons that you can apply to other things in your life. All right. So we are to the housekeeping section of our show. Okay. Uh, we've made it and we've, uh, gotten to the part where I need to, uh, remind you that if you haven't already, uh, hit subscribe, this is very important. Uh, like I said, we have the kids upstairs and they need to be able to have the live stream to tell them what is happening with their crazy parents and to do that we need a thousand subscribers so i do need you to do that um also if you uh would like anything from us that's not what i meant

[59:41] to say but if you would like to get in contact with us for anything uh email us at build horizons.com katy's going to put that in the show notes too while she's in there editing things i guess um i'll sign you up for other things um but yeah if you have questions topics to cover uh i just want to say hi um or tell us that we missed the mark on something or misspoke uh by all means please hit us up and with that katy i'm turning it over to you to sign us off yet again okay um keep building and we are cheering you on you're really committing to that one you're we're still doing that i guess i guess that's what we're going