005 - Planning vs Doing, AI Agents Explained, and the First Five Minutes Rule

[0:00] Hello and welcome. Today we're going to be going over agents, what they even are, planning versus doing, the first five minutes of any hard activity, creativity, and whatever else we find ourselves in. And now I'm going to start the thing.

[0:54] picking the life that you want to lead and how to make it happen uh i'm jeff this is katy uh click subscribe if you're watching i'm pointing out my phone because we have live stream participants this time live stream happens they got to see us do our pre-show uh yeah that's fun um the uh thing i wanted to say was oh yeah uh also this thing right here katy doesn't even know this this thing fell down in the middle of me recording thing yesterday and it does look a little bit sketchy yeah so it's not it's it's not flush this podcast recording has just a little extra drama that uh you know it's just a little bit of danger a little bit yeah uh katy kick us off today uh you you made a comment uh that made me so this was it last night we were talking and i i don't know we were working on something for the company and i mentioned because i think you were sending agents out to go do something you're like send five agents and i'm like you know when we first started this i honestly didn't know what agents were like i knew um ai did ai things but i didn't know agents were the the thing and we started an ai development and services

[2:11] company uh just to keep you in the loop on that um so i want to hear now now that you're just you know so well educated on the topic also i'm going to switch this thing going uh tell me uh what is the katy definition of what an agent is oh you didn't tell me i was gonna have to define something so i think i would say an agent is a it's the robot one of the robots it's the i don't know it's the intellect of one of oh wow the summation of all human knowledge oh my god let's go let's go really foundation i'll i'll bail you out okay well hang on let me try let me just try um that you send out and go find the information there you go there's my definition of agent yeah i mean it's just a instance of a model that you are running yeah and yeah they they do all of our uh all of our things but i the thing i was saying though is because like obviously this is very real life we're not trying to filter anything out is the um i didn't know what it was and i think there's a lot of opportunity to help people that don't know much about ai to talk about it and

[3:28] define some of the terms because they're all new um that, you know, people are figuring out what to label things as. And I don't know, I can't be the only one that didn't know what an agent was. No, it, I mean, it is kind of a funny thing about how you can like just be around a term a lot, but then if you don't actually take the time to sit down and like, okay, what, what do we actually mean when we're talking about this thing? Uh, I would say that one of the things that like I am just a naturally curious person about if I hear someone use a term I'll like right away or write it down and then like I want to understand what exactly it is that we were talking about or just I'm also not a shy person to just ask questions yeah and I I would encourage you and also anyone like if there's just stuff that's out there especially now that we are in an ever-changing world at an increasing pace, the ability to ask questions, try to figure some stuff out, a lot of the time, the basic understanding of it, or even the intermediate understanding of it, is not a very high barrier. So I just would say that as a point of encouragement that usually, uh,

[4:44] getting into something, the, the, the feeling of how much, you know, barrier it is to understanding is actually a lot, uh, like it, it feels a lot higher than it actually is. Yeah. And I think as I'm approaching 40, I'm having to look up, I mean, not, I mean, if you're approaching 40, then I, I got my reservation set at the restaurant okay okay but what i was gonna say is i've had to look up so many acronyms because you know i don't know what any acronym is ever and i always have to look it up i think you know more well i know for a fact you do because i've had to ask you like a hundred times what does that even mean so that's another one i don't know you you got all intellectual on me but i was yeah life is measured in how many acronyms you know i don't know many yeah well oh boy you and you get times running out as you mentioned all right kitty you have a first question also this week can you go ahead and kick us off with that sure um so what percentage of your time should you spend planning versus doing when you're trying to start something new yeah that was kind of a topic as we kind of do some new

[6:00] things in the business. And I mean, and honestly, you know, right now in our company, there's certain things that we have out in the world, like the apps and things like that. But there's also, you know, a lot of other things that we have aspirations for and being able to find the balance of how much do we continue to plan this thing versus how long until we, you know, just start getting something out into the world. Um, so I, I mean, I've definitely thought a lot about this and maybe be the right way to go about it, or things that I've found that have resulted in good outcomes, uh, to lessons in this space. But I know that we come at this maybe a little bit differently. Um, whereas maybe I'm a little bit more willing to, you know, just throw stuff out there. I'm starting a live stream randomly, um, or, you know, I'm willing to just, just start a podcast and, um, figure it out as we go along. but you are a little bit more, you know, conservative in that space. Um, so I guess like where, where do you, where does your mind come at from, from this sort of thing? I think, and I think it's just, it's probably the type of person that I am compared to you. I think you definitely have more of a

[7:17] visionary mindset where I'm more of a support in that. So when there's a big idea that you want to do, for example, starting the podcast, starting companies, I think the, and we've talked about this a little bit, the overwhelming feeling of all of the things I have to figure out kind of bears down on me a little bit. And I, if I don't feel like I have a clear path it like I feel like I just kind of crumble a little bit so where which is one reason why I think we complement each other so well yeah is I'm definitely one to go execute once I have my plan but sometimes building that plan takes a little more time for someone like me than it does and not necessarily I think that you just do a really great job of figuring out what those steps are um and then I can go execute because like a lot of the time well for example Jeff even when we were doing kind of sitting back and re-evaluating where things were at you made us do a that brainstorm session and I you know I was like okay I'm on board like we're a real

[8:34] company yeah right um with sticky notes and everything but I for me sometimes something like that seems a little overwhelming but then once I get into it I'm good was I because once you wrote down the specific things that because when you said okay we're gonna have a brainstorming session I was like oh my gosh I don't I suck at this um but when you wrote down the specific questions that we needed to answer it brought it in a little bit for me so I was able to like oh okay I can I can build on not um so where see like yeah where if i had to be the one that had to like define the questions i probably would have struggled a little bit but once you define them i was able to run with it yeah so i don't know if i answered your question no that's good and honestly the the brainstorming session i feel like is a good uh analog to use to talk about some of this stuff uh so the how i would answer the question first off is while i am willing to hop into things i do think that the planning, uh, like giving the stuff intentional thought is super, super important, but where I feel like maybe, maybe if there's some piece of advice that you could take from this, the thing that I would suggest is maybe the answer

[9:50] actually is, you know, you, you spend at, in the start of something, you spend 95% of the time planning and 5% doing, but that 5% doing, I would encourage you to have that be very early on in the process there is a clarifying amount of uh just when you go into something and you actually start and you can see a little bit of the rubber meeting the road it helps all inform all that other planning so you know for example with the brainstorming session that we had for bravely the i didn't really have i just had like this this feeling inside but like okay we need to have a really uh clear understanding as a company where we're going and i want to make sure that you know you me the team we're moving toward a direction that is going to be successful i don't know all the specifics i have some like general themes of something that you know i would like us to to work through and strategize about um and i know just how my brain works. I need someone like you to be able to bounce some things off of and we can have some good dialogue and conversation. And just

[11:07] through prior experiences, I know for me, the number one way to do that is get me a whiteboard and maybe some sticky notes and go through and talk through it and just get started. And honestly, I didn't know where we were going to go with that. I mean, we started with a pretty vague premise of you know write down questions or challenges of of like and i we had three or we had just one question and what was it uh yeah it was challenges questions and ideas yeah or dreams or goals goals goals yep yeah goals challenges questions and we spent like five to seven minutes on each one of those things and just like what stuff about the business do we need to talk about and then no i was gonna say one thing i really liked how which i don't even know if you did i'm sure you did this intentionally maybe but the way we did challenges first so we identified things that were pain points and then we did questions based off of those pain points and then we did dreams i don't know it was nice to end with dreams and things that you know big goals that we want to do yeah um but i liked how you laid that out very i think intentionally um we'll go with intention we'll go with intentionally yeah make you sound really smart thank you um but it helped but it

[12:23] also really helped me expand more on what it is i was trying to get to and i i feel like i came up and i was really proud of myself but you know when you were putting up the sticky notes you were like these are really good questions oh and we had a lot of you know a lot of aligned things um the the thing about that though is you know we could have sat and you know talked about all the different like individual pieces that we have been working on right over the past you know a couple weeks but uh to me i you know i needed to take a step back and more holistically look at something the that activity in and of itself that that could have resulted in like another two weeks of kind of just floundering or we could take some action in this case you know have this little brainstorming session and and now you know when we talk about stuff and we do do planning and we're working through things we have now a shared understanding of how we want to move forward and and that's why i say you know going back to the question like what percent of your time should you spend doing versus planning um that i just action is clarifying. That would be the one thing I would say. Action is clarifying. Planning is important. And if you want to

[13:40] have a good use of your time planning, having some action that you're basing some of that planning around helps. Because otherwise, it really does just become an academic exercise that may be related to how things play out and how reality actually is, but not necessarily. And you could go way down a road and spending a lot of time trying to think through how something's going to work and then you actually go to execute and you realize ah son of a gun like all of this stuff is like 10 off or 20 off and you know if we had we just started we would have learned a lot more along the way yeah and i could just i could i could think of so many times in my career or through this business where that's been the case and it it really is just something that you have to just take the plunge and do yeah and i know we talked about it on another episode of you know you're not gonna do it right you're not gonna do it probably well the first time but you just have to try and learn and pivot and try and learn and pivot but do you want to talk about what kind of made you sit back and want to do this session because it kind of threw I honestly didn't know we were doing that yeah um let's see if I can articulate this so um i if you can't tell

[14:58] just in my mannerisms and talking uh like i have undiagnosed adhd almost assuredly uh this is probably not a major shock uh but the the thing that i have always found is i feel like i have a superpower if there's a thing that i can singularly focus on for a long period of time. But I feel pulled out of that if I feel that there is no clear singular good thing for me to spend my time on. And if it's very ambiguous, then I almost feel like I just, even if I had a very clear couple things that I needed to do, if it's not toward a goal that i very concretely understand i just i feel unsettled yeah i don't know how else to describe it like i i can't i can't focus on that because i feel like there's a bigger problem just in the same way like honestly like in our relationship uh whereas like if we uh had a fight or like we're disagreeing about something uh you you might based on my interpretation of things just think that that's like a bedtime story or something like you're you're out no big deal like i could sleep i'm fine whereas like i will you know ruminate on

[16:16] that i won't be able to sleep like it'll take me hours to go to bed and then i'll wake up and i'll be thinking about it and then like i i just have that like just nagging thought and like that's even true you know if we have work things or business things that are just not going good yeah like i can't let that go um and so it's very similar feeling when there's not a clear direction or goal or there's just parts of the goal that maybe have changed and like I know that it's changed but I haven't figured out the specifics of what that new target is and and so for me the it just it quickly becomes clear when I'm not able to work on something and just I trying to identify why and then in this instance I'm like okay well you know we've we've had some shifts in how we think about the company and i need to really understand what that actually means so that i have the peace of mind to clearly chase after you know whatever that new goal is yeah for sure does that make sense yeah no that makes sense and i obviously having been with you for as many years as i have i feel that on every level what you're saying oh my goodness yeah sometimes i have a hard time letting some things go just a bit just a

[17:33] little bit just a little bit of fixation problems um okay what's next katy uh oh yeah we have a new corner katy i have my quote corner and katy has her own corner katy you want to introduce your sure it's katy brings a short to short corner um i really like shorts and i always send them out to everybody whether you like it or not and so now you're all subject to this as well yes we're not going to play it on the podcast though yeah because that is technologically challenging and we're not editing this show very much and that would be a lot of work and so therefore katy is just going to describe yeah yeah so it was i saw it on instagram and it was i tried to look up who it was and i need to probably i should have spent a little bit more time trying to find out what the gentleman's name was um but he is a running trainer in kenya and he made a reel about and he has a whole bunch of reels he's actually really really good um about talking about the first five minutes of running and how the battle isn't with finishing for example a six mile run in the morning because you want to sleep in it's just a matter of getting out the door for the first five minutes and if you don't feel it after five minutes then you just quit and you

[18:48] don't you can do that guilt-free you can you know say okay it's not today's not the day but you put on like you lace up and you go out for five minutes um and i just thought that was really insightful and one thing i was thinking about too is and i think it could be good for even anything it doesn't have to be running it could be anything that's hard if you just start for five minutes see where you get to five right and i think sometimes you know five to 10 minutes is a good amount of time to give yourself trying to do something hard. Um, but I don't know, I just found it to be really insightful and good. And, you know, I think having feeling like you have that permission to quit, if it's just not happening that day, guilt-free is a little bit of that freedom, um, that you don't have to let it hang on you. Yeah. And I mean, definitely that is a feeling that I've had before, you know, the, the hardest part is getting out the door. Um, with that, are there things that you've, I mean, you're a very disciplined person. Like if you say you're going to do something, then like it's going to happen. Uh, whereas I historically maybe consider commitments to be,

[20:04] um, you know, just ideas, suggestions of what I plan to do. Um, I try to do a lot better at that these days, the, uh, as someone who is like, as long as I've known you, that's been a strength though. Uh, are there parts of this that you employ to, you know, like, okay, I'm, I'm going to start this thing that I've committed to. Uh, and then, you know, you get into it or like, what's your experience in this space? I'm curious. It's weird. Um, and I think it's kind of honestly just like you say that when you have your superpower of you can really hone in if you have that focus time whereas for me it's if I've made that decision for myself that I'm going to do something I just don't give myself another option I'm going to do it um I don't I know that's not that helpful or insightful but i think it's a commitment to myself um but i struggle too like i'm not like i'm not the most disciplined person on the planet but i feel like you're in the upper percentile though but i don't know i i think it's just something i i make a

[21:19] decision that i'm going to do something and i commit to it um and i don't know i think that can look different for different people could be writing it down it could be you know setting your clothes out the night before like we've talked about could be you know just putting on your workout clothes um or you know just being intentional about what it is that I'm doing and then making sure it happens making that commitment to yourself because if you can't if you can't keep a commitment to yourself then I think that's just going to be hard to do other sort of commitments too. Yeah. So I can, I can give an example of where I do feel like I do this well. Um, that's outside of like the, you know, running and fitness examples is, and this just comes from my own experience in career and working on stuff. Oftentimes I do not feel like getting started, especially, you know, after a full-time job and then coming home and then spending another, you know, four to six hours on bravely work. Uh, but I have strung together now, you know, a pretty consistent habit at that. And, and Katy can attest, like sometimes,

[22:35] you know, I'll come home and I just like, I need to like reset for five, 10 minutes, or sometimes accidentally fall asleep at five o'clock in the evening. But the, the, the usual path on that is, you know, I'll take a little bit of a reset, But then, uh, I know that like, if I just get started, then it'll be fine. Like every, every time that's been true. Like if I just get started working on the thing I can, I can power through yesterday. For example, I was, yeah, like you, we needed to do some filming for advertisements and some stuff for the website. And, you know, that's not something that I spend a ton of time doing is, you know, reading off a script or coming up with stuff to say and saying all that stuff and getting it recorded and uploaded and stuff like that. And so, because I don't have like a really long practiced history doing it, it feels big. Like it feels massive to do. Yeah. And, um, and I'll say almost all of the actual hard part of that is just starting. Yeah. I like, for example, one of the, one of the videos for the website, it ended up taking about five to 10 minutes to write out what I wanted to say and kind of planning through and picking

[23:52] out what it was. And then I went down here and recorded it and it was five minutes and then it was done. And so in this instance, it wasn't just the five minutes that was what I needed to do. Like that was the entirety of the thing I was worried about. And you put these things in your head and it's like, well, I can't, I can't possibly film tonight because I have so many other things we have to do dinner and then like I'm tired and I have a few other bravely things I need to attend to. I'm not going to be able to fit this in. And it is such a freaking cop out that we trick ourselves into because in reality, like all in, like if that was what I wanted to do, I actually did another one too. And it was challenging for different reasons. Uh, but like all, all in, I think I was down here about an hour and a half. Um, and, and i would say had i had not had some technical challenges that i had to work through i think it probably would have been about 25 30 minutes uh to record two videos and um and plus the the prep work that had to go into them that's that is nothing i you could fit that i could fit that in every single day of the week if i had to but the the mental block that i've had on this for like several days uh was so high and it's just like i gotta i gotta just do it like i just gotta to say that I'm going to do it and I'm

[25:08] going to get started on it do you feel like now that you did the thing and I know you've done it just a couple times you feel more comfortable like the next time you want to record or the next time you want to do something that isn't necessarily something that you've done very many times do you feel more do you feel comfortable yet or do you think that's going to come with more time? Um, you know, I think that comfort is a hard word. I would say more so I now confirmed what I already intellectually knew, but now I've experienced it is that it's a cop-out. It's a cop-out to say that it's going to be that big of a deal. It's fricking not that big of a deal. And, and so now I, I know that about myself, that if I say that I'm not going to be able to do filming on a given day or night. Uh, it has nothing to do with the practical requirements of me that I have to, you know, somehow muster. Uh, it is truly a mental block on it and just realizing that that's what it is. So like, to me, that knowledge is like, I can't go back. Uh, and like that, that's just the truth now. And that comfort will come over time for sure. So one other thing about

[26:25] this short, and then I think we can move to something else I was thinking about is and I maybe you can speak to this a little bit more than I can um but if somebody is just starting running for example they want to have they want to start that habit they want to have a more healthy lifestyle I do feel like um the first five minutes can feel really hard and all the minutes afterwards I think this is uh oh my gosh I can hear our children and upstairs not getting along, but that's okay. We're just going to power through. Um, but, um, how, what would you tell somebody that if that first five minutes turning into 20 minutes or even 15 minutes is going to be hard the whole time? Like what, what advice would you have for somebody? Like, does it really get easier after the first five minutes would you say, or does that just have to come with time even relating to what it is talking about? Most, most of the time it does, uh, get easier right away. Um, but it like with running specifically, like I do think it's good to acknowledge that if you haven't started a running habit, uh, you're probably going to be in, in it for, uh, you know, a few weeks before that truly even starts to feel,

[27:40] uh, accurate. You certainly mentally get better at it, but like there's physical, like you can't, can't change the laws of physics and it does take a while for your body to adapt. and and there's there's no mental tricks that make that not true um but you know a thing i would say to people and this is jeff bringing a short to katy's short corner um a quote that i had heard on that was something along the lines of it's okay to suck it's not okay to skip uh so you know that's really good you can you can show up and you could do a crappy job and you can go you know half-heartedly jog for five minutes and call it a day and run walk and run walk or uh you know you can you can get down here and you can do a bad job at filming and end up throwing it all out um that's okay yeah uh the the thing that you have to stop yourself from doing is stop skipping don't defer don't don't give up because and i think this is a maybe a james clear quote or something like that but um something about like you know missing something once is a uh i can't remember like it's something about but basically the the premise is if you miss one thing um you know that's just a hiccup but two thing

[28:56] if you miss two times in a row then you're starting a new habit yeah and and that's the importance of you know not skipping yep that's good so i want to address two adhd things one we have our kids screaming up and then we also have some comments in the chat that i wish i could see there's flags i don't know what flags they are um i'm bad at flags this will be a fun game to play someday yeah i need to get the you need to have like another screen over here so that yeah so you can see would it be worth grabbing it or i don't know yeah can you do like a monologue while i go and see if there's any good comments in the chat do Do you want me to read your quote, or are we going to do that here in a minute?

[29:41] Oh, my goodness. Y'all, if you can hear our kids upstairs, it's not sounding good. I have all of the comments summarized from the chat. You ready? Ready. Just a bunch of people saying hi, and that's about it. Oh, hi. Hi, everybody. That's so really nice. Yep. all right so um i i do have a quote for for quote corner uh that i want to talk a little bit about as i think it's an interesting way to talk about or think about creativity yeah uh and it's uh twyla tharp and i don't know a lot about uh twyla other than um tony emmy award-winning american choreographer so definitely a prolific person in the creativity space yeah the quote is creativity is a habit and the best creativity is a result of good work habits and i found that one i feel that resonates and two it is unexpected because i if you ask somebody you know to define creativity and what some things around creativity are i feel like a lot of things that are associated with creativity are things like spontaneity

[30:57] or uh you know unconstrained or you know spur of the moment extemporaneous spontaneous and to think about creativity in the context of habits something you do repetitively habits don't seem inherently creative um you know having creativity be a result of something repetitive is an interesting way to think about that. And I hadn't really thought about it until I read that quote that way. I'm curious, how do you feel about creativity? I mean, you're a drummer, a musician, you have background in the creative arts. I don't know that you think of yourself necessarily as a creative person, but I think you have some some parts of you that you have some good creative expression i mean you've done random youtube things back way in the day we won't go into some specifics we won't dig that out but but there's some some creative streaks in you so uh but like how do you i want to i want to know like how do you think of creativity oh um so okay so when i think of creativity without going

[32:14] into as much is kind of how you defined it I think of like artists um music and um you know paintings and like that's that's kind of where my brain goes with creativity I don't think of it because that because when you think about that you're like oh yeah they created this beautiful thing but it took time they had to start from you know drawing little stick figures probably and yes, some people have, you know, a natural ability to, you know, have, you know, good artistic style, but it definitely, that did not happen overnight. And I think that's always a really good reminder of, um, that it is a habit. And I think this is really good. And it, and honestly, I know we've talked about it earlier. Our kids are so, I'm just curious what I'm going to walk up to it is so hard to focus on podcasting right now um but is the brainstorming session um and those types of situations make me a little uncomfortable but the more that we got into it the more you know we started trying to define it the more we started working those brain muscles

[33:29] like the easier it became um and i think that that is something i'm still learning um and i do think and what I found interesting, the more I've done it, the easier it does feel. I'm not saying it like, I don't think it gets easier because I think you can always grow it. Maybe it does get easier, but I think that it's really bad. If you want, I could go on a little bit of a solo monologue about creativity yeah i might have to go and see what's happening this is a podcast first everybody goodbye katy go understand why our kids are absolute screaming maniacs well this is a a fun solo adventure so i'll tell you a little bit about you know my experience when i feel most creative and i i think the thing that's interesting is it's tied to some of the other stuff that we've talked about when like you get started and you become comfortable in something i there's nothing that is a better feeling than you know sitting down and

[34:47] feeling like you have a mastery of your craft and and then coming up against a problem and being able to see like oh here's all the, you know, five to 10 different ways that we can handle it. And I know that I can get down a path. I'm going to switch the camera real quick to only be on me because I don't need a, this is just a solo. This is solo pod now. Um, who knows what I'm going to say, but, um, so anyways, when, when I sit down and I have the, the ability to, to look at all these different, uh, potential solutions. And I can see like the one or two that I want to go kick the tires on and go and execute. And that is, it's just a really fun moment because you can, you can see all these different paths and you're picking that out. And that level of creativity of that creative problem solving or a creative design idea, or like that moment of inspiration that like crystallizes a whole path forward. Those moments are, are just truly special. And I don't think that I think like you think of all these, uh, grand things that you see out in the

[36:02] world that are products of, you know, people, um, you know, creating companies and you hear these great stories and now they're brands that you see everywhere. And, you know, Amazon exists or, you know tesla or spacex or um you know walmart or you know pepsico or coke and like they have these just massive massive presences and you go back to the beginning and you're like oh well somebody just had this like spark of inspiration and i could turn into this whole thing and if only i could have such a good idea but in in reality i think if you go and you look through those things Or obviously there's millions of examples of stuff that is, you know, a little less than, you know, nation and world changing type technology companies or whatever, which are examples. Welcome back, Katy. Glad to have you. Do we still have two kids? I'm curious. Two? We have two. Two kids? Yeah. Good. Two dogs still? Two dogs. That's good. And everyone's living alive? I think so. Okay. Freaking welcome. Welcome back. So I'm talking about how, like, if you think

[37:19] of some of the big brands or like big technology companies and stuff like that, how people think of that, of like, oh man, they just must have had like this really, really good idea. And like, that's turned into this whole thing. And if only I could have such a good idea, then I would have this big thing. Um, but in reality it, that, uh, the ability to really build something cool comes not from the first, like, Oh, I just had this dream and I turned it into a whole thing, but rather a consistent willingness to go back up to, to take another swing and, and then take what you learn and then do it again and then take what you learn and do it again. And you build that practice. And then you get to a point where, you know, you can have those moments where, you know, I'm, I'm building a tool and I have like this little spark of like, Oh, what if we did it this way? And, um, that, that little hint of creativity can crystallize into like a important path that you go down, but that moment doesn't happen. Like just in a vacuum that, that moment is a product of, you know, like the quote says, um, it's a, it's a result of good work habit. Yeah. Like it's result of coming back to the table again and again and again so um just for our

[38:37] our listeners benefit do you want to describe anything is there anything exciting from up above oh uh just you know just yeah just parenting is hard it's really hard parenting is hard it's a good reminder uh that there's always going to be challenges you know and what's funny and not i don't know funny we have a parenting moment for a minute but our two children are so different so it was like I told one to please stop and then the other one started crying and so then I was trying to make that one not cry anymore and the other one was just like I don't know it's just so hard you're trying to navigate two very different personalities they're not they're not alike and I'm sure you know other parents can relate to that they have multiple children um or children i can't talk um of how parenting is such an interesting thing navigating these big feelings and big feelings felt very differently depending on the child oh man this has turned into a parenting coping podcast okay i feel like we needed a parenting coping corner oh man yeah that's

[39:53] real life for yeah um well anyways that was fun it was fun doing the solo pod uh yeah yeah i could just talk forever you know but i'll say this um summer is ending and school starts in two weeks yay school they need to get out of the house they need to get out of the house structure returned to their lives yes i know um so i'm curious we didn't have this in the show notes but, uh, it's just the thing that I was thinking about, um, as you, like, as we go through, you know, building this company and, uh, and, and, and figure out what bravely is, you know, that I, one thing I really appreciate you is your support and all of my crazy ideas up to and including this podcast that we abandoned our children for perhaps misguidedly. Um, and I, I'm curious from, from your perspective, what, um, what's the litmus test for you of like, okay, this is something like you would encourage me on as opposed to like checking me on that. Cause there have been things that I've had that are ideas that you, uh, that you push back against. And for, for you, what, what is it about

[41:09] a particular path or idea that you have from your crazy dreamer husband, uh, that it's like, okay, yeah, I, this is, this is one of the ones that we should see through. Um, I don't know if I can like articulate that well, but for me, you know, just being the support for you is you have talked about wanting to have your thing for so long um and I know you've talked about this we have a graveyard of brands if things and ideas and um that we've tried and you never really pursued um but one reason why I feel like this was different was I feel like the excitement was even more so and I felt like even in our lives we were to a point where I felt like, okay, this could actually happen. This could actually be a thing. Um, you know, we've matured enough. We feel like our kids are at a good spot to be able to do something. Sorry. I'm laughing because we can't even do it. I think it's obvious why you're laughing. We didn't even make it halfway.

[42:24] They weren't just little infants anymore. They were, you know, in school and, you know, we had, you know, we could spend, you know, the time because, you know, it's just a lot more hands-on when they're little tiny babies. Um, so I think it was the spark that you had when we talked about Bravely and all the things you wanted to do and how it now felt like you could define it. You had the tools to be able to go after it. And, um, you, you were just really excited. And I think that was a different moment, but then to bring up your other question of when I push back, um, on things with the company right now, it's usually just when I try to identify who this is helping, who, what are we trying to solve here and if there's not a good solve then or if you can't if you can't articulate it or you can't define it then that might be a good time for me to push back a little bit um yeah and figure out does this does this make sense to put our time and efforts in

[43:41] this thing right now or is there something else that we should be doing but we're not doing because we're doing too many other poking arounds that, you know, we need to just do the hard thing that we, for example, you know, make videos, make ads, even though that's not as much fun as trying to poke at this new thing that we have an idea on. Yeah. And that's where I feel honestly really grateful because, you know, not a lot of people have a partner that they can lean on to, you know, in this case with business, keep, have that, that, that clarity presence, because I do feel like even yesterday, you know, we talked about coming down here and filming and, um, getting stuff knocked out and ultimately it wasn't that big of a deal, but I, I mean, I wasn't really in a mindset when I first started the, the evening shift of bravely to really get into that. I mean, I definitely, I I've realized in myself that if I just declare that I'm, you know, in the mood to do something i kind of eventually get into the mood it's like when i'm running hills and i say that i love running hills even though hills are the worst oh wait i mean i love hills hills are bad um but you know you just kind of speak it into existence a little bit so i was trying to speak that into existence yesterday but

[44:57] at the same time you do an excellent job of you know if if we're going down a path that like kind of has wandered astray uh to bring us back and center on like hey we talked about that this is the thing that we want to do i really want to get this done And I think that's been what has been really interesting about this experience because before, at the beginning of the company, I was the one who was having all the ideas, having the, I mean, and you would like have contributions that were like add-ons to the things that I'd come up with. So like I'd come up with like a idea for an app, you know, early times, and then you would help me understand like, okay, what's the name of the thing or the logo look like and stuff like that. Whereas now, as you've gotten more comfortable in the company and have a little bit more of an understanding of the sort of stuff that we're doing, you now pull me back in and get me going down a path that you want us to go down because it's something joint that we've talked through, like through our strategy session of what it is that we want to accomplish in the next 6, 12, 24 months at Bravely. and so i think i feel very fortunate in that it's just an interesting shift that

[46:15] has occurred over time yeah and that and i think too there's a part of it that sometimes because for example yesterday morning we woke up and we were so excited because when we came home we were going to film so many so much content we were going to knock it out of the park but i was pretty zonked from my day um you were pretty zonked from your day um took us a little bit to kind of get going then you know we had kids that needed some attention and wanted us to watch a movie or a show with them so we had to adjust and i was the one to go hang out with the kids and watch the show with them while you went downstairs and film. So it wasn't exactly how we had initially planned it, but we had to figure out a way to make it work, um, with the situation that we had. So to take a slant at this, um, I have another part of it that I'm curious on. Um, I mentioned the shift of overtime with Bravely. There have been things that you really latch onto and now there's like a arm of the business that

[47:31] is honestly the, the arm driven by you and your skillset and the things that you bring to the table and the things that you're good at, uh, and the things that I can obviously contribute to as well. But, um, I I'm curious, how have you, how has the experience been of figuring out what this looks like for you and where do you, Like, how do you feel now about Bravely and your place in it? I think I'm becoming more warmed up to the fact that I have something to bring. I don't think six months ago I would have even thought that was a possibility. And I do think there is something about you keep coming to the well, you keep coming to the thing and eventually you get comfortable with it. And I think that's kind of where I've got to is I've, which, you know, this is something too, we've talked about, I've immersed myself so much in Bravely and the company and all of the things that, um, you know, it's sparked the creativity of how can I contribute. It sparked, um,

[48:49] understanding of things that I can support you on more so you don't have to lead so much. Um, but I honestly don't remember the initial question. It's okay. I feel like this has just been a little bit of a rough episode. Nah, I think it's been killer. I think I had the best monologue I've ever had. So Don't worry. I brought up the average there for sure. No, I'm just joking. The perspective shift that time brings, I think, should not be underestimated. Things that feel impossible today will not feel impossible in the future. Yeah. Or or if you have something that you feel, you know, three percent comfortable doing today, that is not going to be your lived experience in the future. And I think we we look at stuff as insurmountable because we look at it with the skill set that we have at the bottom of the mountain. And that is just not how it works.

[50:05] you learn how to climb the mountain as you're going and the skills that you have halfway up are going to be significantly different than the skills you have when you're at base camp yeah and i it's it's just funny like i i see this um in you a lot the the lack of confidence that at the start that you're going to be able to contribute uh or that you are going to be able to figure out a thing but like i there's not a there's not a part of what we've done that i feel like you can't do. And it's been fun to see you shift a little bit in understanding that about yourself and figuring out like, oh, this is a category of a thing that I can own. It's just been really cool. Yeah. And I will say this new branch of the business is definitely far outside my comfort zone. So there's a lot of growth still happening there and will happen. I definitely feel at base camp right now i'm you know it's it's a little uncomfortable but i know i can do it i know i have the tools and the skill set to do the thing and i'm there's like nerves but there's also a lot of excitement because i am excited

[51:21] to see how i look halfway up that mountain how i look you know even you know yeah it'll just be fun and like even just hearing you talk through that it's such a funny thing from my perspective because it's not like it's something that you haven't done before i know uh and it's a thing that you without any help or anything can handle from start to finish and and sure yeah there's some rough edges that we can work through but like my gosh that like you already have 97 of the skill set to do the thing effectively uh and so and you also have a very enthusiastic husband who will help on some of the more, you know, scaly type things, uh, to, to make it be an efficient process. Like that's just honestly about the most fun thing I could think of is like, Ooh, a cool process to be able to automate some stuff on. That's, that is like straight over the plate, Jeff stuff. Um, uh, yeah, like I, I'm good at that sort of thing. And I think that's fun and easy. Like that's no big deal. And so perhaps even the, you know, the small number of things that are not necessarily strengths of yours are strengths of mine on this. And so to me, it's, it's funny that you think

[52:36] that you're at base camp. Uh, but I, if you're at base camp, I feel like you are a very prepared hiker, but no, that was a lot of kind words. Thank you. I think sometimes I don't have as much confidence in myself as you have confidence in me but when i hear it it does help that so yeah thank you i mean it's it's not even i'm not not sure i mean i'm glad that the side effect is confidence but that's not even the intent like it's just calling it like it is um and i think sometimes you i think sometimes people need to hear a different perspective on where they're at because it doesn't always brains are weird man like you don't always have a very good uh understanding of where you're actually at yeah and that which is unfortunate because i think it limits people if they if they feel that they are at base camp but in reality like they have all the skills to get to the top of the mountain uh already so it's not even not even a matter of figuring it out as you go so much as it is just going and doing stuff that you're already capable of. Yeah. And I think too, another thing about that is if you don't feel that way, if you feel like you don't have the capabilities to do something, then you should evaluate

[53:52] who you're surrounding yourself with and what you're surrounding yourself with, because you're a lot more capable than what you realize. And I'm really grateful that, you know, even when I have moments where I doubt and don't have that confidence that you do such a great job of lifting me up and making me and it just it just helps a lot um especially someone like me that doesn't that self-confidence isn't always the strongest um personality trait i have so thank you i appreciate that well and i i think honestly uh man i wish we could have gotten to the best part of the podcast more than 54 minutes in because now i feel like we're gonna run out of little bit but the uh i think that's so true and i think that's such an important part of all this is the the understanding of where you're at is so it's so important to have people around you and surrounding yourself with people that self-correct that or that correct that uh in the positive direction and not in the negative direction because like honestly i i mean first off if you are so arrogant that you can think you do anything you don't need this anyways um

[55:07] and so this isn't to those people um but for everybody else who either has a accurate representation of what they can do which i would say is probably not most people um and then the vast, vast majority of humans on the planet who have a lower interpretation of their position with regard to what they're capable of than reality actually is. If you don't have people who are bringing you up, then you need to find different people to spend time with, Which, I mean, I realize the loadedness that that can be because that can, depending on who those people are that are bringing you down, you know, the circumstances with that. I mean, when you have like family or other, you know, people that you work with or things like that, like some of those things are easier to change than others. But I will say that it almost certainly, and by almost certainly, I might as well just say certainly, it is unjustified. You should not have people who make you feel like you could do less than what you think you could do. You should not have people who pull you back in. You should have people who are pushing

[56:24] you out because, and not pushing you out is a funny way to say that. You should have people who are encouraging you to try a new thing. Lifting you up. Lifting you up. Thank you. You're welcome. almost assuredly that is the the correction that you need with your perspective yeah i agree maybe we can talk more about that on another podcast so really fast before we sign off let's give our viewers a how is sydney how's sydney going um sydney training going job lord it's so bad you guys it's so hot outside oh it's it's it's bad i mean what are we like this weekend we're planning to do four mile loops just again and again and again uh with ice pack things that we carry on our shoulders and uh and just honestly to reset because it is it is truly dreadful yeah it's like so it's so depressing like like my heart rate is like complete garbage but i mean i know that it's from heat and stuff like that but man it is it is hard and i i do not handle heat well yeah same and i hope that it just translates really

[57:40] well for sydney because it's gonna be their winter when we're there so hopefully all this heat training pays off that's what i'm that's that's the optimism there i'm gonna i'm gonna like stand on that yeah well we're definitely gonna see what the lower limit of training can be, uh, going into a marathon. I mean, we do have the benefit of having just finished a marathon, um, a handful of weeks ago. So it's not like we're starting from zero going into this, but it is, it is definitely not going to be PR territory. I can't wait to fill everybody in on how it goes, but maybe it'll be really good. I'm going to stay optimistic, but yeah all right any final thoughts before we go into the the outro housekeeping things thanks for hanging with us we know this was not um as the other episodes it's a real banger there in the middle uh where but but our um our panel didn't fall thank you panel yeah you stayed up panel good job yeah i wonder when that fell i i don't so it fell but i don't know when it fell like it was like when i was out of the room because i came back oh okay so you weren't like filming well i i had been filming because i went like there it was not down on one part of when i

[58:56] was filming and then it was down on others and so it must have happened like when i went in something who knows okay so uh first off for those of you who joined the live stream thank you for joining the live stream that was fun and if you have questions for us uh we've had a couple comments here or there, and we've tried to incorporate those, but I would love to get more questions from our listeners. If you can email us at buildhorizons.com, we would love that. And we will incorporate those into the topics that we cover. Um, and yeah, just send us whatever you got, uh, say hi, whatever you'd like. Uh, and with that, Katy, I'm going to give it to you to send us home, subscribe if you liked it and keep building with us and we are cheering you on. Thank you. Bye-bye.