006 - Feeling Invisible at Work, Comparing Yourself, and Starting Over at 30

[0:00] Hello and welcome to Build Horizons, a show about picking the life you want to lead and how to make it happen. Today we're going to talk about a number of things, very exciting. We're going to talk about comparison, feeling invisible at work, starting new journeys, fears, and how to get out of a rut. But first, play the intro.

[0:59] this is katy click subscribe and let's get rolling uh katy you want to kick us off today what did we do yesterday yeah i first hit the auto button it's not on thank you you're welcome i got you great uh i got you production notes yep yep um okay so yeah last night we were kind of smote from the week um it's not oh there it is i was like oh it's not working um but we decided that we needed to just kind of veg out last night and watch a movie and watch the first episode of season four of ted lasso which i was it was just so fun yeah what what is what is unique about give give some background about ted lasso and maybe even yourself in general and while you'd give this little monologue i'm going to fix one of our cameras while you do that okay yeah um so i don't want to spoil it but ted lasso is a story about a guy from wichita kansas represent wichita wichita yeah that's what we always say here in wichita um and he gets recruited to go or he gets hired but like hired not in a good way

[2:17] like coming like hired because he had no experience to go and coach a football team did you just start i'm sorry i wasn't paying attention did you start at the beginning of ted lasso and we're just gonna walk ourselves through it i don't know i don't want to spoil it but anyways it's just a really wholesome show the coach is from wichita yeah we're from wichita we're from wichita born and raised yeah and this season starts out in kansas city which is near and dear to us as well yeah it's been lots of time up in kc and it was fun to see all the different stuff up there oh it was so much fun they did a good job and obviously i don't want to spoil anything but it um represented some casey current stuff which is so fun um the i don't think there's really any spoilers in the first episode to be fair like there's literally nothing that actually happens so kind of um but anyways and katy's boss uh for her uh current job is actually from the uk yeah yeah so she's from the UK lives in the UK so I feel it's so funny seeing the dynamic of the um the crew coming in from uh London and then Ted Lasso being in Kansas City for this part of the season um

[3:33] there are so many things that relate to me and my boss from this episode just so funny I love it so much um and i actually was the one who told her to watch ted lasso and it's like one of her favorite shows now yeah i feel like we both do a good job of living into our stereotypes pretty oh my gosh it's so funny but that's okay i love him and i'm okay being associated with that because he's fun there's worse things there are worse things for sure i mean he's not perfect by any means but i don't know it's just so fun it was just such a good good episode really wholesome i'm excited for this season i know it was kind of resurrected um so we'll see how it goes but episode one two thumbs up for me yeah all right so we're gonna do something a little bit different to kick off our show today uh we're going to answer questions but rather than questions that we asked one another which is normally what we'll do and we'll still have those uh to be clear because there's going to be things that we uh definitely want to talk about but we've wanted to to mix it up a little bit and so right now we're going to go through and answer some questions off of reddit

[4:48] that have not gotten responses or if they you know they've gotten minimal amounts of responses and and feel like they deserve uh a proper a proper answer and so uh i'm just gonna i don't know if you looked at any of these that you wanted to kick us off with or like one that you're like oh this is a good one I might just start or we could just start at the top yeah all right yeah you want me to read it to you uh sure okay go for it so this was so then and I will say I didn't have much prep for these so we're kind of kind of just diving in um question one losing motivation because my work feels invisible has anyone else been through this well yeah okay did i did i read that wrong i'm gonna i'm gonna fire you from oh wait question so it's okay wait i see harry c4 oh okay sorry and yes that is the title of the reddit post because y'all 10 out of 10 uh we are a high production quality podcast i mean you did remind me to hit auto on the thing so i'll give you credit for that but yeah it's a person who uh feels like they're at work they spend a lot of time working and building things they're definitely more in the doer seat and they feel like uh the people doing that doing seat stuff

[6:05] including themselves barely get mentioned in meetings and conversations and things and uh it kind of end with the thought that they can't shake the feeling that people doing the implementation become invisible and so um how how would you uh give advice to somebody who feels like they're losing motivation because they feel like their work isn't being noticed by the people that are helping kind of driving things forward are you asking me that question um i i'm gonna pass it back to you because i need to think about it for a second because this is something i've dealt with kind of but i've also only pretty much i mean yeah i guess i've only worked in small companies i've never worked for anything um like a corporate and so i do feel like this isn't something i can relate to so much because when you work in a small company there's just a few of you so you're all wearing so many hats anyways that i don't i've never really felt this now i think that there are things that sorry go ahead i was just gonna ask if like you feel that there's been times where you

[7:22] just don't feel appreciated or you know if you if you think back on you know any prior roles where you had to do a lot of things and you know that that really didn't get valued at where you thought it was valued or yeah that's true I have had that before and um where I was working I mean literally going through burnout and just bending backwards trying to get things done on projects and was just not appreciated for the effort I was putting into um and for me the best decision was um I tried to have a conversation and it you know it wasn't really going in a path in a way that I felt was going to be productive for my future and decided at that point that I was going to switch things up and, um, start looking for something else. But I know that's not everyone's answer or everyone's path, but that was just what was right for me. And also I do think sometimes that is the right answer for some is to remove yourself from that situation and try to find something else um because there's a lot of things and

[8:37] um though I don't think anyone should ever feel trapped in a situation especially if this is how they're feeling um but I think maybe you have a different perspective of that so I'd be interested to hear what what your perspective on that is yeah so I guess one thing that I've always found helpful in general is, uh, is taking interest in other people's work. And I know that's going to sound like not an exact direct answer to feeling like your work is invisible, but anytime that you are someone working on the implementations stuff, like if you're the one actually getting in and doing the work and making the projects happen and things, uh, you almost certainly have other people that you're having to do that alongside, uh, or you're having to work with the, you know, the decision maker that you're referencing and, uh, and, and being that in between either way, uh, I think spending time talking, asking questions and, and having, uh, the opportunity to have like those discussions, even if they're not formally like in the project meeting or something like that, I think that is helpful because you, you get a broader perspective for

[9:53] when you're doing the work and um i guess the the other thing i would say is the opportunities that you'll have to talk about those more strategic conversations might be few and far between but you don't have to just take the ones that happen uh as the only opportunities like you can almost certainly uh take the initiative to to start some of those conversations yourself and if you do that if you spend the effort to have those like to start those conversations then people will associate you more in in talking about like okay well we want to take this project this other way um let's bring in that such and such person because they were the ones helping do it and i know they kind of understand things as we've talked about it and i think you just kind of build momentum that way i mean it it definitely sucks to like do a lot of work and not feel like you get the recognition and and you know you're ultimately having to be the one the the

[11:08] glue that's keeping it all together but at the same time i i feel like people paint themselves in boxes based on like title stuff like that way too much and i just don't think that that's necessary obviously each like organization's culture is going to be different on that like what's okay to do or what's okay to push on or how much time can you spend you know striking up conversations about strategy but even if you're on the low end of that spectrum the answer is not going to be zero uh like you can you can you know cross some of those lines a little bit and yeah i i would just say don't don't be boxed into where you feel like your role is just because of the title and the work that you're definitely you know there's certain things that you're just going to be required to do but that that doesn't need to be a hundred percent of your time you could spend time asking questions being curious and and doing doing and asking things that are beyond you know whatever your title and role are i think too um one thing people might not know especially people that don't necessarily feel comfortable talking about themselves and talking strategically what are some good what is or what are some good tools or what's some good advice

[12:24] um on how to like what type of questions to ask if somebody feels that way if they're not if they're already not comfortable, but they're in, for example, this project meeting or want to talk about something that they're working on with the group. How would, how would someone go about doing that? What type of things could they talk about? Yeah. I mean, obviously I don't know the specifics, but the, the things that I would say, one, don't ever like check your ego, like the, there's no value in pretending to know stuff that you don't know. Uh, and, and one, I mean, people, people will know, like if you have more senior people in the room who have more experience, like with the business side of things, uh, like there's no reason to pretend that you don't know, or there's no reason to pretend that you know something if, uh, you know, other people are going to be more than aware that you don't know. I think that the, the willingness and vulnerability, like the willingness to show vulnerability that like, Hey, I'm just going to ask kind of this stupid question. It sounds a little silly, but I don't understand what we mean when we say X, Y, Z thing. I think the, you might that on the surface might

[13:39] seem like, oh man, they're going to know that I'm stupid or something. Um, but in reality, what that shows is, um, like, Hey, if, if I'm explaining something, they're either going to get it or they're going of stop me and ask me. And honestly, like as a, as a person who leads people that that's like the best possible outcome. I, I like, you know, to, to spend my time wisely and I don't want to be talking about a whole bunch of stuff that is over someone's head because they actually missed a point like 30 minutes ago. And more than likely, they're not the only one with that question. like there are other people in the room that may have that same question or might need a little more explanation of that thing yeah more than likely not always but it's probably there and um i just there's yeah so there's a ton of value in just um being willing to ask silly things yeah um the other thing i would say too uh is is specifically ask people about their work and learn about what they do in their day-to-day um first off everybody likes to talk about what they do um so that's a very easy way to like just build a relationship but two uh and this has been

[14:55] like if if i could like tell people like one of the superpowers of working in a company is being a person who can bridge the gap with other like areas or other verticals like if you're a person in marketing but you can speak a little bit of it stuff you're going to be like twice as valuable as someone who just knows the marketing stuff or you know if you're you know someone on product side or customer support side or whatever like if you can speak the language of one of the other areas or multiple other areas over time you like it's just so valuable yeah because nothing nothing in a business gets done alone uh nothing nothing big nothing important and so if you could be a person that can be that glue like that if you want to be a part of those strategy conversations that's a surefire way to do it yeah that's really good advice that's really good i remember when i a little bit of a story personal story but when I started back at work during COVID after staying home for a few years with the kids I remember getting put into some meetings and it was a it was marketing and growth driven and it

[16:12] was just so over my head and I didn't even know where to ask questions that it was but i think had i gone back and asked those questions it would have really helped me in the long run but i think again like i'm sure other people have felt this way i was too embarrassed to admit that i didn't know what they were talking about i didn't know what the acronyms were um what some of the things they were talking about even meant um but had i see and now it's so funny I'm much more comfortable asking questions and if there's genuinely something I have no idea about because we do look I with my company my job now we do a lot of med device regulatory things and that there's just a lot there to understand and um yeah it takes and I have and again I do think it's a little bit of the working relationship but I have no hesitance of asking questions and being able to grow in that space, um, and getting comfortable with that. And I do think it's something, the more you do, the more comfortable you become with it too. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt about it. And, and, you know, sometimes the time might not be right there in the moment, but I

[17:27] think one skill that is super important to develop is the ability to write down questions and then follow up, like follow up with what you write down like in meeting for sure uh because you know yeah if if you're at a meeting of 30 people probably isn't the time to raise your hand and ask like what hey what does you'll be that guy what's no as mean uh or something i but if you're in a small group setting absolutely or if you know you're in that larger group setting then follow up with somebody who who knows clearly you know what what that stuff is about i guarantee people will be receptive to that more often than not Right, yeah, for sure. All right, I think we got that one. Yeah. That one now has a response. Okay, so can I try again to do this? All right, you want to handle roses are lead? Yes, so question comes from roses are lead. Can I just read what she said it? Summarize. Oh, summarize it. Okay, so it looks like- Like we don't need to do the top part about YouTube and bodybuilding and stuff. Comparison is the death of joy. So how do I stop? But this person was basically talking about they were seeing a YouTuber that was bodybuilding and then they...

[18:44] I said we didn't have to go into the specifics. I don't know how to not. The end. How do I stop comparing myself to other people in situations like this? Okay, so just so we could just be fair here, I read the question on the last one, but then it didn't make a lot of sense. But then on this one, the question did make sense. How about you let me read these since I actually know what they're about? That's probably a good idea. Instead of you trying to steal my thunder here. Okay, I really want, hand me the ball, I got this. And then you just immediately drop it. Shame on you, Katy. Okay, so back to the question. Such an embarrassment. Just kidding. But yeah, okay. Comparison is death and joy. How do I stop is Rosa's or Led's question. And there's a bunch of detail in there that doesn't make a ton of relevant – it's not super relevant to the actual root of it. But how do I stop comparing myself against other people in situations where it's not at all helpful or relevant even? And I would even ask, how do I stop comparing myself to other people? Hard stop. I don't like that. I have to be the first person to answer the question. Is that why you want to be the first person to ask? Okay. But – okay. I'll do my best here to answer this right

[20:00] off the bat. It's like a classic right now. You're looking at highlight reels all the time in people's lives and social media. Well, we've kind of talked about this. Our whole generation is defined by comparing yourself to others. So how do you not do that? Well, and what I would say is we kind of talked about this, but it's something I think I'm still, I mean, to be real, I work on this and I feel like I've gotten better. And I think it takes a, um, mental shift in a mental practice, just like anything is, you know, with, you know, meditation or starting something new. Um, when you find yourself getting into that loop, identifying it and reversing it just to be grateful for the things that you have um but it's it's so easy to do especially when you're looking around and you want like you think the grass is greener on that other side but yeah it really isn't a lot of the time but sometimes i mean sometimes it is but i think that you have to it has to be like a mental discipline to

[21:18] not there's like a big thunderstorm outside yeah we'll just i just want to pause for a second so like last week when we recorded we had a thunderstorm of children and to the extent that katy even had to leave at one point um and now we have an actual thunderstorm which is quite a much more peaceful relaxing vibe than having your children rumble up above you but i will say there's been a couple times where i thought we were hearing our kids or dogs or something but it was just the it's just the thunderstorm uh but yeah it's a lot more a lot more peaceful although you know knowing our luck we'll probably like lose power or something well no now you've summoned the children i think but that's fine anyways i don't know where i was but that's okay let me just being a mental practice i think is um a good thing but i actually think jeff you have like the best advice to do this because there was one situation where i was talking with you about something for our future and comparing it to somebody else and you hard stop me and said comparison is a thief of joy just we're not we're not even gonna go there and it was actually a really good indication like i just making me whoa i was going down a bad path and like there and i think just like a hard stop for me it was

[22:34] really helpful yeah i think i think for me the thing that i find with that like if you're in a situation with you know especially like let's say you're like in a work environment and somebody gets something that you wish that you could have gotten um to speak vaguely um the the fact of the matter is in the long run it's not a zero-sum game and if you can be genuinely happy for somebody without having the feelings of like, I'm bummed that I didn't get that whatever. I think in the long run, that gets recognized. And if there's a good thing that's happened to somebody around you, like to use this specific piece of it, they probably also feel a little imposter syndrome-y as well. And so if they have people around them that make them feel actually like celebrated, uh, I think that speaks volume to you and your character and that gets recognized. Um, I would say more so in general, like if you're, if you're comparing yourself to like someone who has the end outcome you want that you are striving for, but like, it just feels like a

[23:51] really long way away. I, I think for me, I think that I have to focus on is yeah, maybe that is the goal. Maybe I can never even get to that point but the or if i get to that point it's going to certainly look a little different than what this looks like for this person but for me it it refocuses not valuing the outcome so much and we've talked about this before but valuing the journey that you're in and and appreciating the steps that are like like okay maybe i want to run a marathon and i have that aspiration but today that's going to look like i'm going to run two miles and that that's not as glamorous not as sexy it's not as cool it doesn't look as cool on shrava uh to run two miles as it does 26 uh but to make that dream happen you have to be able to you know you have to step up to the plate time and time and time again and to have the the motivation and the willingness to do that to to make that happen to to get that dream that you're after, uh, you have to enjoy the journey.

[25:10] So I think that if you make the focus be less about the, the outcome and more on the journey, then it's a lot easier to not have that comparison thing. Cause, uh, spoiler, the, the actual journey part of running is very similar, regardless of whether you're like a, you know, marathon qualifier or you're someone who's just starting out. And what I mean by that, obviously the specifics of the workouts are going to be quite different. Uh, but it's just hard. Like it's just hard. It's hard. If you're slow, it's hard. If you're fast, it's hard. If you're new, it's hard. If you've been doing this for a long time, um, now certainly again, I'm using Peyton with a broad brush there, but the, the thing that you're comparing, then you feel that jealousy or that, that, that negative feeling is coming from comparing the outcomes. If you compare the journey, then it's a very similar path. Yeah, that's really good. do you have any advice for people that when they get on social media and see the highlight reels like what would you say for them to help

[26:28] with that feeling I mean I don't know do you how do you how do you like do you struggle with that that part of it like not as much as I used to but it used to be something that I definitely struggled with And I think I would just need to turn off social media when I started to feel those ways. I think part of it is you have to decide. I mean, and this is true just about anything. You have to decide, is the thing that I am consuming resulting in an outcome that I want? if you watch these things and you find it motivating and you feel like okay like i i'm trying to get my mind to think like the people that achieve these things and so you know i i consume this content and that makes me aspire to be a certain way then that's great sure you know uh yeah limit that probably the amount of time you do it because time spent on social media time actually doing the thing but uh if you're going to spend some time that's the that's a positive outcome if the outcome of the thing that you're consuming is like just depressing that is not so great or if you feel like

[27:46] you just feel lacking or less than or whatever then that probably needs to be eliminated or changed and it can be a slippery slope too because i know a lot of the time we have um you know people that are content creators that get you know brand deals and do a lot of advertising and then you go and buy the things and which it's good it's not a bad thing it just can if you're constantly comparing yourself and like oh i need that next chinese thing oh i need that next shiny thing it can just be a little bit of a slippery slope that's never gonna you're not gonna have joy in that it's a very temporary thing so you have to find something else a joy somewhere else rather than just that i really want to do this next question okay so you want to read that one off to us this is my favorite lot of the bunch okay so it is comes from lemonade 2250 zero. Is it too late to start working on your goals? Um, this person is 30 and

[29:02] wants to know if it's too late, 30 years old. Um, and just wondering if they're overthinking it or is it too late to change anything? Did I do that? Right. Uh, yeah, I kind of like told you to summarize the other ones. Uh, well then should I read a whole bunch of extra things with this person i feel like okay i'm gonna just read it from lemonade 2250 i turned 30 but um i don't know why it feels like it's too late to start doing anything just the thought of starting from scratch at 30 feels like pain and shame i know every day i have the choice to get up and do something or just sit there and overthink katy only has two modes completely like super high level like i'm going to give you no details and i'm just going to read the title and say a bunch of you know rambly things or literally read ums and stuff like verbatim there's no like katy doesn't know what skin well here's the thing duff i didn't i never said i was going to be the best interviewer or reader of questions but this is what you got um yeah well you know skills you can learn them it'll be okay we'll we'll get you through this okay so yeah this person they're 30

[30:18] is my life over or is it too late to get started um and i can empathize with this one this is like a straight over the plate jeff type question yeah uh because you know i like if you went from age 30 to 33 it was probably my lowest point of like my life physically and mentally um i i was drinking way too much i didn't really know what i wanted to do pretty bummed depressed most of the time yeah uh we didn't uh because of a lot of that stuff you know our relationship was you know hit or miss on how we were doing uh it was also a really hard time kids wise got two little ones those are hard years uh i want to tell my funny story about the oh my gosh i forgot about that Google, Google occasionally will give us like cute pictures from the past of, uh, of our kids usually. And the, uh, one of them was a video and I'm like, oh, this is how, this is our two kids when they were so little. And our son, when he was little, let's click on that one and just hear their little voices and what they are. Um, and, uh, yeah, I was just like expecting like that nostalgia thing of like, oh man,

[31:34] these, these kids, they were so big. time flies it goes so fast and so i hit play on the video and immediately it's like our kid hitting an ipad like yeah like punching it and jumping on it like throw it on the ground and jumping on it like screaming it's like ah yes i remember what it was like it was hard it was so hard oh that made me laugh but yeah so like um and then like i i made some pretty significant life changes when i was 33 and 34 and um and now i'm 37 uh started a business at 36 that uh you know i i have a lot of you know when i think about when i think about things in the future that i'm you know excited about that's that's definitely one of the things and you know i it's funny these two questions paired together like sometimes i think back of like man if i could go back in time like here's all the things that i would do differently um and because you know 36 is a relatively old age if you're comparing yourself to like these you know other tech people who started coding in their like college dropouts and they've

[32:51] been working since they were 18 or 20 years old on their thing and you know they build these companies and um you know that's not going to be my story obviously and so there is an element you know kind of going back above the comparison being the thief of joy and uh is it too late to start working on your goals on this but here's what i would say is i i've learned a lot about who i am as a person and i've learned a lot of skills i've learned a lot about the world and business that change what it's like to start a business now than it would have been when I was, you know, 20 years old, I was an idiot. I didn't know what I wanted out of life. Uh, and so I, I'm, I'm a well-equipped person to, you know, do things. I'm going to learn a ton of stuff anyways. Uh, but the, I feel like I have a good starting point that's valuable. And so, yeah, and, and I'm, I'm 36, 37 years old now. Um, and I definitely don't feel like it's too late for me. Uh, but I, I would say, you know, as a point of encouragement to you, you're not going to get any younger. Um, and so like, do you want to look back at yourself as a 40 year old and say, um, you know, is the, you want to be asking

[34:07] the same question in 10 years? And the answer should be, no, you should not want to ask this question in 10 years. So what do you need to do today to, to take a step down the path so that when you look back as a 32 year old or a 33 year old, you're like, I can be proud of how I've, how my life trajectory is going. I don't feel this way. So before we actually went through and found these questions, I actually had written in a question that I think is a good, just kind of add on to this conversation. If people feel unsettled or driven to do something, but genuinely cannot figure out what it is what advice would you give them yeah definitely the and this is true both of that question and this question is start like start something yeah uh there's nothing more uh clarifying than starting down a path and then realizing like oh yeah this is for me or no this is not for me or like ah man i started on this road and i realized like ah there's a ton of skills that i'm going to have to learn in order to figure out how to do this now you know and so

[35:23] now you can start building those skills and start getting reps and getting at bats and having you know that that forward momentum i can assure you that whatever path that you're going down it's not going to look how you think it's going to look when you're at the beginning stages of it there's no amount of YouTube videos or shorts or reels or there's no amount of scrolling through TikTok of people doing stuff that's going to help you understand what it's really like to get down and do it. The way that you figure out what that's like is to actually go and do the thing. But the good news is, whether you're 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70, there's still time to figure it out. Uh, I was, um, at a thing and I, I got to listen to Molly Bloom, which we actually just watched, uh, Molly's game, her movie that's about her life, uh, yesterday as well. And, uh, the quote from her speech that I attended was, uh, you, your, your chances aren't limited. You're, You have as many opportunities as you're brave enough to take and you have as many

[36:39] chances as you're willing to take brave enough to take. And the that really resonated like I there's, you know, using business as an example, I've tried I've had this like pull in me to like start something that we that I've acted on. i don't know like 20 30 times like really like if you really broke it down at the number of things that i've thought of at varying degrees and you know maybe uh 10 of those where i spent you know a fair amount of time thinking that this was going to be the thing of the future and then it ultimately turned into nothing and you and like that can that can feel defeating but those are now you know 10 things that you know aren't going to be the thing or maybe they are but it's just not right now and you're not at the point where that makes sense to pursue um but you'll know more about it if you start a podcast with your wife you'll have some things to to hearken back to or lessons learned from prior attempts at doing podcast stuff and and so this podcast itself is better for having done a podcast in the past and um i i think it it's just it's

[37:57] hard to have those perspectives in the moment but i mean to go back to the question you know is it too late to start working on your goals i mean i think anybody who writes that question knows what the answer that people will give is is of course not but um just you're gonna have to trust me that and i I think maybe this is a good perspective to have is if you look at yourself, you know, two years ago, do you feel like, oh, man, you know, I was a completely like I was just so much younger and better and like I'm just now old and decrepit like two years later. I would anticipate, especially if you're going from 28 to 30 or 30 to 32, the answer is you feel like pretty much more or less the same person. or you know with within a stone's throw you know obviously things can happen right but like like mentally like you're it's not like you've just like really fallen off a cliff here uh i could tell you that that holds true like if i look back at my 30 year old self compared to now i mean honestly i feel better physically mentally than i did at 30 um just because

[39:12] of living a healthier lifestyle um and and so when i look back at my 30 year old to 37 year old self i i like yeah i feel i feel good like i i obviously i wish that i could go back in time and just have infinite amount of time i think anybody would uh you know love the the opportunity to have that but when i look back at myself now when I am 44, I'm not going to think like, oh man, I was so old at 37. I can't believe I did that. I'm going to think like, oh yeah, that was a good time. If I could go back to then, I would go back to then. And you're always going to think like, oh yeah, if I could go back to 30, yeah, I'd go back to 30. If you're 30 years old, like, oh man, I wish I could go back to my twenties and I could, I could start that over. Um, but you're like mentally you're, you're no, you still have a lot of, a lot of gas in the tank. There's still a lot of life time. There's, there's a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, um, I think for someone like me, it might be hard if I, you know, if I had a drive or I want to do a thing, but I really couldn't

[40:27] put my finger on it. like I couldn't figure out what that thing is. I think the advice you said to just start, but also, um, which I also wrote about, um, is maybe finding a mentor to help you work through that and, um, really be diligent about that. If you really can't, if you don't have somebody in your life or you don't have a mentor, go look for one. They are out there and there are people that want to mentor people. Um, and I think that that is a really, really valuable thing. And when you have that relationship with somebody and you confide in them about that, that can be a really great driver to, to try to figure out what it is and then like start actually making actionable steps to getting it done and like really driving it forward. Um, but do you want to talk about mentorship or something, or maybe not topic for today, but, um, like what you have, have you experienced that before? Did that help you? I think, I, I think having someone who you can just talk to about your hopes and dreams and, and I think time spent on that is just so

[41:43] valuable. So yeah, I think in that sense, I think a mentor can be super helpful. Uh, you know, if they have relevant experience and whatever it is that you're wanting to pursue it's obviously extremely helpful right but but yeah truly i i think whether it's with a mentor or reading or you know how whatever you're filling your brain with if it is reflective of like direction and motivation and like just the the core parts of you i i think that's such valuable time uh you know the how you how you walk through life, each individual day is going to be dictated by some of those conversations and that path that you're walking down is going to be like, in summary, that's going to be your life. Like that is, that's it. That, you know, every, how you live every day is how you live your life and how you live those individual days is going to be, um, you know, dictated by some of those more um like the the subconscious motivators or subconscious um you know the the processes that you just go through on a day-to-day and if you can take time to speak about some

[42:59] of those subconscious processes like why am i wanting to do this thing or why am i going down this path or how would I, how should I be handling this challenge? Um, that, that, that makes those individual days, um, that much more valuable. And you sum that over a long period of time that can completely change the trajectory of, of your life and where you're going. Yeah. Well, that's really good. All right. Next question, Kate. I mean, you're like a pro now. Uh, I want you to like find i want you to try to find the middle ground on reading it literally every syllable verse what is the spirit of the thing okay so this question comes from important middle seven nine four nine yep um get it to us important middle what you got what's the fear you never actually say out loud to anyone i feel like that's a good yeah they got the advice to say it out loud it didn't fix anything didn't make it go go away but it did shrink down to normal size problems but like how um what what is a fear that you don't say out loud uh or what what's a

[44:16] fear that you that you have and how do you how do you manage some of that i think would be probably a good pass at this what's your fear i don't know i i was thinking about this i mean first off i would say i don't have any like i mean other than like big big fears of like life is temporary and stuff like that like and there's only so much time and etc which is kind of counter to what i just said like there's a lot of time um i i mean i would say there there's like some practical things of i i sometimes worry that i myself and and like probably this is just like a good example of like depending on where you're at in life like this you're just gonna have different perceptions of this thing i'm talking about but uh i think that there is a another level to how i can spend my time and working on the business and i'm not doing that thing which is probably sounds crazy because i i probably work like i don't know however many hours i'm awake minus a couple and but i i do think that there's just

[45:34] certain things i do that are just like not actually moving the ball forward and and kind of just working to make myself feel better or just like tinkering like just randomly bouncing place to place instead of intentionally focusing in on the thing that matters the most which is why i get we had a conversation about what are the three things and what are the things that we need to do to make those things happen um i feel like one disclaimer we should say too is this was in the small businesses thread i think there are sometimes if you have like a fear you should probably go to therapy um so uh just this was in like a small business uh reddit subreddit so i think it was more driven towards a business mindset than it is like like oh i have this deep fear that i'm gonna lose my family that's probably something you need to go talk to a therapist about so but as far as um or you know however you need to handle that but, uh, as far as like a business fear that I don't say out loud to anyone is definitely that it's just going to not, it's going to fail, um, that we're not going to be able to get this off the ground. And, um, that's a huge fear.

[46:49] Uh, but yeah. And, and where I don't have that fear, which is probably what makes me particularly well suited for this sort of thing is like, okay so what if the what if everything we're doing right now doesn't work yeah like is there any part of it that i can't that's your fear that's my fear yeah so which individual thing would you say like okay well if that doesn't work we just can't figure it out and because like to me like i don't know let's say we do this podcast for five years and there's four viewers yeah i feel like we're on a like if we had viewer count right now from these last past episodes but all 14 of you that have listened we appreciate you heart to you but the you know if we go down that road and like that's the road we're on like what does that matter or like if we start you know trying to do this app thing you know one particular app or whatever all the apps and they all fail like then we'll we'll know so much more on the other side of that that we'll make whatever the next thing is uh make a lot more sense like there's there's nothing that's like well and now and honestly to go back to the molly bloom uh quote like is we'll have as many

[48:04] chances as we're brave enough to take and i can assure you like i'm brave enough to keep taking the next thing hey got the hat quote yep um but yeah like i don't have that specific fear yeah um it's for me it's very much like black and white like we're putting all the you know putting money into this thing and that's not hopefully that's it is you can see the fear like coming to life right now straight to the furnace but we see it again obviously um but i don't know i think for as far as a small business this starting a thing that is my my fear yeah go to therapy therapy's good um all right is that enough about fear yeah i think so okay i don't like to talk about stuff like that it makes it feel too real i forgot so when i we had to like go fix all these um um and i put more than i've been to yeah there's like so many questions job you have wait wait wait i actually because we're actually kind of getting close to the end of the podcast so i actually my my katy brings a short

[49:21] to short corner but it's not really like i brought a short to short corner but i want to know your take on it so there's this new trend on i don't know the reels the grams the tiktoks i don't know just the shorts of women or wives or whoever partners walking into the bathroom while their husband or boyfriend is you literally on the toilet and they're showing like a renovation or talking about what they want to change in their bathroom um at this shock of the poor person on the toilet i want to know what you would do or how would you react if i were to do that to you because i find them funny but then again i find them kind of horrifying and like i think i'm like oh my gosh this poor person all i can think the entire time because yes you have shown me some of these i just think they are literally the dumbest things i've ever seen so i don't know that i have well i think that they would agree with you too i think that there's better ways to spend your social media time than watching those

[50:37] videos but i like to laugh i feel like i am definitely the typical person to cackle laugh at reels we have a different definition of what funny is it's true i would just close well we now we have the benefit i would just close the little little door yeah but what if you were in that bathroom and i walked in how would you react i would probably tell you to leave but what if i didn't leave then i would probably just sit there would you like trying because i know that sometimes that they do they would just grab stuff and cover themselves up would you be one like that but or you would just wave yeah i mean if you've decided that that's going to be the type of relationship that we're going to have with the outside world, I'm in. Okay, well, you're in. You've made this choice. And I'm going to own it for you. Yeah, that's quite a tonal shift, Katy. Sorry. I would like you to now remedy that by picking one of these other questions. Okay. Because you just had to get that in. And I, man, boy, you're lucky this is not an edited podcast because I'm not so sure that would have made the cut. I'm just like reading through these and trying to okay here we go so this

[51:54] comes from bright club three nine eight five okay how do you know if you're being consistent or just climbing the wrong ladder like if you're yeah on the right path or not yeah their point is uh you know if you're going down the long the wrong ladder it doesn't always feel obviously wrong there in the moment sometimes you only know that in hindsight yeah so how do you know if you're just like doing the thing because you're committed to doing the thing versus uh just you know do i need to make a shift uh humans are a weirdly consistent lot uh like if we feel like we are the type of people who fill in the blank it is very likely that we're going to follow through on that thing. There was a study done by like, there's, there's a number of them, but like environmental studies where people make commitments on like being asked like in a survey, if they would, uh, save money on their electricity bill or something. Um,

[53:09] and there, I'm probably going to butcher the whole premise of how the study worked and all that. But the result is basically if you got people to say that, yeah, I'm going to do this thing, a lot of people just follow through with that thing. They've said that, okay, I'm going to save money on electricity. I'm going to help the environment. Um, and I think I can do this much or whatever. Um, but the funny thing is, is like that also had a carryover in non, like not specific to that domain, but like things that would be consistent with that type of person that also had an increase, uh, for those people as well. So like, if it was like, okay, I'm also going to not litter as much. And like the littering rates of those people uh were also uh higher but uh with with control groups of people that like were doing things prior to that point because you have electricity usage data so like they were no more or less like doing things before but then like they had commitments versus just people who saw ads for you know being using less electricity so it's a

[54:25] valid question to ask you know am i just going down a path or is this actually the right thing to be spending my time on i i think the important part about this is and i recommend writing them down but writing down goals like what do you want out of life um you know i think that at a baseline you should you should know like you should be able to if someone asks you you know what do you what do you want to achieve in the next five years i feel like you should be able to give people an answer i don't think a lot of people could, I think they would struggle. Katy, what do you want in the next five years? Uh, you don't have to do this. Yeah. I don't know. But I think most people probably don't have like a, an answer that they could just rattle off. Um, but I, I think you should be able to, uh, whether or not you would like to in front of a camera on a podcast that your husband asks you right away, um, it could be another answer, but I, I think, I think you should be able to. And so I'd encourage you to write down those goals and then, and then see what actions in your life are taking you closer to those things and which things are not going to result in those things. And then have, uh, the, the willingness to make hard changes. If the

[55:40] thing that you say that you want, um, it isn't going to be achieved by the path that you're going down, then you are going to either have to change your goals or change what you do it's really the only only two paths there yeah that can feel really hard especially if you like this person used a ladder but when you have to put that ladder down and get on a whole new ladder that can be that can feel really hard and really overwhelming but i do think sitting down and identifying what it is that you want to do in five years i think that that's a really good exercise well and i think what the benefit is, is like, if you do have to get on a new ladder, you're not getting on the new ladder with the same skills and the same like knowledge that you did when you got on the other ladder. Yeah. When you, when you switch ladders, like you're doing that with an intentionality and a momentum that you didn't have when you were just picking a ladder kind of just because this was the one that I was going down. And so I'm doing the things because I do the things because I do the things so i i think the and honestly being able to switch those ladders to be able to switch those focus and really refine how you spend your time and what you do on your day-to-day i think that's a massively beneficial skill yeah

[56:57] and not every bladder change has to be this big massive shift in how you live your life or like your big change of goals it can be something like hey you know what i'm spending an hour and a half every day on my phone i want that to be closer to an hour uh and so i'm going to take that 30 minutes and instead i'm going to read or whatever uh or i'm going to go to bed earlier heck that that alone taking your screen time down from an hour and a half to an hour and using that 30 minutes to just go to bed earlier could have a massive change that that is the latter it takes intentionality and that's going down a shift um or that is a shift in what you're going down um but man that can have a massive impact and probably frees up mental capacity and time and that like you know you you realize like okay i can figure out how to do like i i can i can say that i want to do a thing and i can do it so what else does that mean that i can do that with um i think that starts you down roads that can dramatically change how things out what the outcomes are yeah and i think to try not to overthink it too much um because then that can be it can prevent you from wanting to even do anything about it now one thing i'll

[58:13] say that's like kind of counter to all the other things that i've said is there is going to be no shortage of interesting things shiny objects that can distract you from what you actually want to achieve. And so that's why I go back to, you know, the, the goal, writing things down and knowing what your goals are, because sometimes the answer is, I have this like thing that seems cool and sexy and exciting. But when I look at my goals, I'm like, I actually need to stay on this ladder. And depending on your personality type, that might be the more often thing that you need to do is say, hey, you know, I have these goals and if I want to achieve those, I know that I need to spend my time doing X, Y, Z thing. And so because of that, even though that ladder is really exciting, I need to stay down this path and I need to be consistent. Sometimes it's not as exciting, that answer, but I think it's still important in clarifying. And while I still stand by all the other

[59:29] things I said, too, about, you know, the value and the switching and all that and, like, figuring out and refining what that is, I think there's also a real good benefit of, like, delaying gratification or, like, I'm going to forego this particular thing that I, you know, I know I'd like in the moment that isn't going to. result in what I'm, what I should be laser focused in on. So there's, there's definitely, you know, making shifts and refining, but there's also, um, addition through subtraction and making sure you're narrowing what you spend your time on. Cause you do have limited time. Like you can't just do all the things you can't decide like, okay, I'm going to read a thousand books this year. I'm going to run 15 marathons and I'm going to start a business and I'm going to lose weight and fill in the blank like it's just not how it works you can only do so many things and so figuring out like okay this is my focus um that that might be something that's additive uh and change and refine but that also might be like okay i see this shiny other thing and i need to decide now i shouldn't even spend any time on that because like the it's just going to draw me in more and more and that's not actually the goal that's not taking me

[1:00:44] closer to my goal and i know i need to spend more time on this thing to make it happen so i'm gonna double down on my focus not add new shiny objects to go chase no i think that's a really really solid point all right i think we've done it we've answered some of the questions um that was kind of fun i liked it uh so um first and foremost thank you so much for listening i appreciate y'all uh like we said at the top hit subscribe if you do have any questions you can email us at build horizons.com if you have other questions maybe other reddit posts that you feel like need answered uh topics to cover or just want to say hi uh we would love to hear from you uh with that i'm gonna hand it over to you sign us off yep thank you for building with us and we are cheering you on you want to push the button i feel like it's a you button this week