When reflecting on 2023, I felt a sense of peace coming into the new year for the first time since I can remember. Normally my thoughts go something like, "I can't believe it's already the end of another calendar year. I didn't do this, or finish that, or accomplish all these goals..etc."
The reason I felt better than normal this year was because I chose to be happy about the progress I made even though my goals were incomplete.
It's easy to focus on all the things I want to do or all the things I didn't do, which is a recipe for guaranteed discontentment. So, for 2024 I am focussing on micro wins each day and enjoying the process. This podcast is riddled with metaphors and stories that drive that point home, hope you enjoy.
If you need help finding the perfect location or your ready to invest in commercial real estate, email us at podcast@leadersre.com.
When reflecting on 2023, I felt a sense of peace coming into the new year for the first time since I can remember. Normally my thoughts go something like, "I can't believe it's already the end of another calendar year. I didn't do this, or finish that, or accomplish all these goals..etc."
The reason I felt better than normal this year was because I chose to be happy about the progress I made even though my goals were incomplete.
It's easy to focus on all the things I want to do or all the things I didn't do, which is a recipe for guaranteed discontentment. So, for 2024 I am focussing on micro wins each day and enjoying the process. This podcast is riddled with metaphors and stories that drive that point home, hope you enjoy.
If you need help finding the perfect location or your ready to invest in commercial real estate, email us at podcast@leadersre.com.
The answer is Poverty is climbing, meaning that if you're at the top but you stop progressing, you're not going to find happiness or contentment. If you're at the bottom, you're working your way up, you're actually going to find happiness and contentment, and what I found to be true over and over again in my life is that progress towards my goals has made me so much more fulfilled than the achievement of my goals.
Speaker 2:
The goal of this show is to help health care organizations scale by leveraging real estate strategies and interviewing high level health care executives who are actively in the trenches in order to pull out lessons learned along the way. If you'd like a free site selection analysis from our team, or you'd like to learn more about how we're acquiring real estate through our fun on the blockchain, visit us at wwwreuniversityorg and drop us a line that's RE as in real estate universityorg.
Speaker 1:
So just finished listening to a podcast called Modern Wisdom with Chris and it just inspired me so much and so I had to get it out there. One of the questions is what is the best position to be in on the ladder the guy at the top, the guy at the bottom, the guy in the middle? The answer is Pevers climbing, meaning that if you're at the top but you stop progressing, you're not going to find happiness or contentment. If you're at the bottom, you're working your way up, you're actually going to find happiness and contentment. And what I found to be true over and over again in my life is that progress towards my goals has made me so much more fulfilled than the achievement of my goals. And so, as we come into 2024, just thinking a lot about what our goals, what are our goals, what are my goals? Do we have Q1, q2, any of your goals, et cetera? Yeah, I have all those. But what's important to me is going to be celebrating the micro wins, because there's this incessant feeling Always be looking over your shoulder. It's like you go on vacation. You go out the balcony, you look at the sunset and you think to yourself oh, we got to come back next year and you're already projecting forward into the future and taking yourself away from the present moment. So what do micro wins look like? I think there can be a lot of things. For instance, a goal could be for us to make two acquisitions in the first two quarters. Okay, that's a giant goal. Maybe you make it, maybe you exceed it, maybe you miss it. If that's your goal and that's all you focus on and you achieve it, you're actually missing out on the fulfillment which is the whole reason, that feeling of fulfillment, which is the whole reason you set the goal in the first place. So what do you do? How do you achieve, how do you focus on micro wins? It could be okay. What are the steps that I have to take in order to get that goal? What do what has to be done each month? What has to be done each week? What has to be done each day? And for me it could be reaching out to five podcast guests, it could be making one phone call. Each time you make a phone call, that's a micro win. Did they pick up the phone? I don't know. Did they answer? Did they agree to move forward to the next step, or did they in the conversation. What you have to celebrate is the act of doing, and that's what I, when I say we, I what I have to celebrate is the act of doing, is the act of making a phone call, even if the result of that phone call is negative, because then what happens is, if you can celebrate those victories number one, you're going to obviously enjoy the process a lot more, but number two, it actually increases your chance of hitting those goals. And so that's what I think is so fascinating about this whole progress.
Speaker 1:
I can't tell you how many times I have quote unquote reached my goal and it felt miserable. I remember when I was working on being a making it on the pro wakeboard tour and I wanted to buy a house and be a homeowner and invest in real estate. These were like major goals that I had, and what happened was I got signed on to work with a company that they ended up making me their flagship athlete. I got a pro model board, I got to get salary, I got pro model helmet, signature vest, everything that also allowed me to buy the house, invest in that real estate property that same year, and I accomplished both those goals. And then I let my foot off the gas and I was actually miserable. There was a sense of arrival I had since that I had arrived and I wasn't content at all. And as I reflect back on that, I remember when was I the most content? It was when I learned a new trick. Now, the new trick itself didn't make me any money, you didn't give me a pro model board, but it signified subconsciously that I was on my way to the goal and so that would be a micro win.
Speaker 1:
And those moments, the days where you learn a new trick, you do something that progresses you like, you do Something that progresses you like subconsciously, deep down, that is what is bringing you happiness and contentment. But it's so hard to live into that moment, it's so hard to stay there because, for those of us who are extremely driven and goal oriented type A personalities, you feel like it's a moral sin to celebrate a victory that you have, or a micro win, if you haven't accomplished your goal yet. I remember thinking like oh, I don't deserve to go to the movies this Friday, I don't deserve to go out with friends and have a good time because I didn't learn this many tricks, or I didn't perform this well this contest, or I wasn't making this amount of money and going out and celebrating and have fun. I was for other people who were more successful or people who were, I thought, just losers, and that's how they lived their life. I realize now that the ego, physical thought, and they just were better at balancing their life than they. And moving forward.
Speaker 1:
Micro wins for me are going to be a lot of different things. It's going to be making the email, sending out an email to a potential guest or potential client, whether or not they respond, that's a microwave. It's going to be did I eat well today? Did I keep half of my food intake in protein, calories, or about 40% of? We're getting technical, but did I do that Then? If yes, that's a great day. That is a accomplishment of my goal. The other thing is that I work out today. There's a lot of days where you get busy and it's easy to just not work out. If I worked out, guess what? That's a micro win. I don't have to achieve a personal best, I just have to do the act, and it's the act of becoming that person that is going to bring more fulfillment. And so I think, as I move into 20, I'm focused on these goals and the micro wins, and each and every day, I can have a micro win multiple times a day, multiple times throughout the day. Did I have breakfast with my family Micro win. Did I do my devotional in the morning? That's a micro win. Did I stay off Instagram most of the day today, or all of the day? That in and of itself is a micro win. And so, anyways, I hope that this is spurring some thoughts in your mind to where you can think about okay, what are micro wins? What are micro wins in my life and how can I orient my thoughts to focus on them instead of focusing on the outcome?
Speaker 1:
Elon Musk is somebody that I've read his biography, I've listened to, tried to listen to every single one of his interviews, and I think that a lot of people see him and envy him and want to be him. But if you talk to him about that, he says that he's the last person that you want to envy because his mind is just total chaos. Now, I personally know that by reading his bio and his biography and getting a deep insight into his mind, but I'm still. I still find myself guilty of thinking oh, I just, I wish I could be more like him. I wish I could have these things.
Speaker 1:
And so the truth is, envying somebody is so pointless because we only see the highlight reel. We want to pick and choose the best points in somebody else's life. We want to take those and leave the rest right, but you can't do that, and envy is a wasted emotion. It's the only one of the seven sins that actually invokes an immediate negative emotion, and I find myself in being often, and you, coming to that realization A you feel negative right away. When you have that emotion is very helpful, and then B it's it.
Speaker 1:
It doesn't make any sense logically, because if you truly envy that person and you want to be them, then you're going to have to take everything that comes along with it, and most of the people that we celebrate do not have well-balanced lives. I would go, in fact, to say the hands down. Majority of people that we celebrate, the people that we look at as successful in the media or on Instagram or social media or whatever they do not actually live successful lives. We can look at a guy like Elon Musk and see all his business dealings, but he has yet to have a successful marriage. He did have a very successful family life and there's a lot of guys like that.
Speaker 1:
There's a lot of people who talk about family life and are very, very focused on a family life, and then you might be have a tendency to be jealous of them, but their careers might not be that great, and so jealousy is just a total wasted emotion, because if you would have become one of that person that you're envying, you automatically have all their problems, and so it's better to just appreciate the person that you are as you celebrate the micro witness, because you're exactly where you need to be, and I think all the time I'm constantly plagued with the thought that I should be further along.
Speaker 1:
I shouldn't be here by now, I should have this by now, I should have done X, y and Z by now, and the problem is that feeling is subjective. The arbitrary goals that I set for myself are just that they're arbitrary, and so when you, so many people, sacrifice the goal, which is happiness, for the end result, which is success, by working too hard on success to ever really be able to enjoy the happiness, and as if you get to the end of your life, do you really want to say that you had foregone happiness and contentment your entire life while you were in pursuit of achievement and success. And consciously, I can tell you, the answer for me is no, but subconsciously, the answer oftentimes is yes, because it's a struggle that I have over and over again, and I can tell you that it's exhausting to have this feeling, the back of your mind, to always be saying you should do more, you could have done more, you got distracted here, you didn't make this phone call, you weren't more aggressive, you didn't finish this, of course, you didn't apply what you learned when you finished the course. You didn't apply what you learned when you finished the course. Well, enough to close a transaction.
Speaker 1:
There's always a feeling of coming up short if you let it, and so what it leaves me with is the epiphany. And it's not an epiphany because I already know this, but I haven't done it. So it's the reminder that in 2024, as we go into the new year, celebrate the micro ways. So each day, I'm going to break it down and reflect at the end of the day. Okay, it might feel like I didn't get as much as I wanted to, which happens, honestly, pretty much every day, almost every day. It's due to this that I have compared to what actually gets done. They never meet up, but I think that an understanding that, as long as progress is being made, it won't matter as much. And that's going to be something that's difficult, and I'm putting it out there and recording it. I'm putting it online because it's going to be a little bit more difficult to get online, because it's a form of building myself accountable.
Speaker 3:
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