Share The Struggle
Share The Struggle
When You Don’t Have The Answer, Change The Question
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Ever feel like you’re doing everything “right” but one email, one comment, or one awkward moment wipes your motivation clean? We’ve been there. Today we flip the script with a simple, powerful playbook: change the question, choose meaning over motivation, and use the 10-10-10 rule to shrink regret and build momentum you can trust.
We start with a classic Roddy Piper line and turn it into a mindset tool: when you don’t have the answer, change the question. That shift moves you from rumination to learning. Instead of “Why did I fail?” we ask “What can I learn?” and “What’s the next best step?” From there we dig into why motivation fades under daily friction—emails, traffic, tense calls—and how a clear sense of meaning outlasts the noise. When your mission is written, specific, and personal, your energy flows where it matters and momentum finally sticks.
We get honest about mental replay loops that spotlight mistakes over wins, and we bring in the 10-10-10 rule to right-size fear and embarrassment. How will this matter in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years? That time lens cools hot emotions and clarifies action, whether you’re pitching a client, launching a product, or recovering from a cringey moment. Along the way we underline a hard truth: growth happens in the valleys. Failure leaves clues. Resilience is built by walking through the mess, not dodging it.
If you’re ready to redirect your focus, regain control, and move forward with practical tools you can use today, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs the nudge, and leave a review to tell us the one question you’re changing this week.
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Here on Share the Struggle Podcast, you never know the who, what, when, or where when it comes to the motivation and the inspiration for this year podcast. And today's episode shall be no different because today we draw inspiration from WWE Hall of Famer Hot Rod Roddy Piper. With the help of old Hot Rod himself, we're going to reframe our mindset. We're going to redirect and regain control. And we end the show by taking the pressure off some of those mistakes we've made, the failures along the way, the missteps, the embarrassing moments, the bad decisions. We render them powerless with a little help from the 101010 rule. Let me tell you something. Everybody's struggled. The difference is some people choose to go through it and some choose to grow through it. The choice is completely yours. Which one you choose will have a very profound effect on the way you live your life. Almighty, am I so excited to be back with you? Oh, it is true. It is damn true. Why? Because I love you. That's why. Welcome to this here podcast, brought to you by the fine folks over to Low Proud American. That's right. That company, the company, the one that provides you proudly made in USA merchandise. Because let us not forget of all the apparel bought and worn and owned in this country, only 2% of it is made in this country. Join the mission. Mission 2%. Get yourself something really nice. Head on over to loudproudamerican.shop and treat yourself to the American lifestyle brand. Loud Proud American. Loud Proud American is eager and happy to sponsor and host this year podcast, properly, precisely, beautifully named. Share the struggle. Because we say it week after week after week. Everybody struggles. And the truth is, boys and girls, chipmunks and squirrels, when you are bold enough, when you are courageous enough, when you are willing to be transparent and share yo shit, then everybody can learn from it. There is strength in your story. There is clues to success from me and you. How do you do, folks? Episode 290. That's 290 consecutive weeks of Share the Struggle Podcast. Find all things podcast related over to www.share the struggle podcast.com. Feel free to leave a review and say how do you do? Welcome to some new locations today. Let's see how many of these I can mess up. Joelette, Illinois, Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Daka Daka. D-H-A-K-A. Daka Daka? Is that how that's pronounced? And um herbal herbal. Is this some kind of I mean, are you guys setting me up here? What's going on here? E-R-B-I-L. Would it be herbal? Would that be how you pronounce it? I mean without the H and Herble. I don't know. That's just when people realize that you're a raging moron and they stop listening to your show. But the truth is, you can learn stuff from dumb people too. So take that. That was probably not the best way to build myself up. I hope y'all are safe out there. We have survived Snow Mageddon for those of our listeners that are here in the US of A that survived Snow Mageddon. I would list some geographical regions on the map, but it feels like pretty much everybody got something, right? It's crazy. I listen to a lot of Texas radio and uh they were getting ice storms and they were getting prepared for it. It's crazy to hear some of y'all that are down south getting prepared for things that we take for granted and uh the chaos that happens there. Also, for the the folks out in Tennessee, which is a place that we would really like to be, I know that uh there's a lot of folks out there still without power. So I hope that uh y'all, if you don't have your power back, I hope it's coming back. If you're listening in your car today with the heat going, then uh hopefully I can entertain you, make you smile, and drop some knowledge on you over the next 45, 50 minutes, whatever it's gonna be. I hope and pray all y'all made it through safely and we're getting that behind us. We definitely got, how shall they say, uh pounded by snow. That's right. We got a real main way of putting it is uh we got dumped on, dude. We got dumped on, dude. Tons of snow. I will start the show by saying thank you, thank you, thank you to Matt and Sarah Perkins from Ledgeway Farm for selling us their old plow truck, their old farm truck that has become our farm truck, which I gotta tell you, with the amount of snow and the amount of plowing that took place over the past 24, 48 hours, it was so nice to fire up a Chevy pickup and turn the heat on and drop the plow of the remote, and versus me sitting out there freezing my ass off one bucket at a time, which I will say one bucket at a time is a long ways away from me shoveling the whole place by hand, all 300 plus yards of a driveway, whatever it is. So uh yeah, we've graduated, and I want to say thank you, Matt and Sarah Ledgebay Farm, for that. That made a big major difference. All that aside, I just wanted to say to each and every one of you, I hope you're doing good, I hope you're feeling good, I hope you're warm, and I hope you're safe. With that out the way, I teased you today by saying, we are gonna take a message from the man himself, Mr. Hot Rod Roddy Piper. Now, I'm not gonna go down some dark, lonesome road of me puffing my chest about how much of a wrestling fan I am and how I grew up addicted to this stuff, but I will just say, for those of you that don't know, uh Hot Rod Roddy Piper helped bridge the gap between uh wrestling and mainstream, right? He uh he brought the world of acting, the world of music, he brought it all together, and he was monumental for the rise and the popularity that you actually have today from wrestling. So uh Roddy Piper, also known as probably one of the best trash talkers in the history of wrestling. All right, let's have a little fun with me. Let's reminisce, let's turn the clocks back to 1985, and let's have a little fun. Right there, folks. Just when they think they got the answers, I change the questions. Y'all are listening, y'all are yelling at me right now, saying, What in the same hell is there for me to learn from that promo right there? Well, that's why you come here for a little fun. That's why we're gonna peel the onion. That's right, old son. This is how we reframe our mind. This is how we change our mindset. Just when they think they got the answers, I change the questions. Let's rework, old hot rod. When we don't have the answers, we change the questions. You see what I did there, folks? We are going to reframe our mindset. Just when we do not have the answers, we change the question. When you don't have the answer, you change the question. How many days and nights do we feel lost and confused? How many challenges are in front of you that you just don't have an answer to? What is holding you back? What is holding you down? What is pushing you around? You just don't have the answers. Let's reframe our mind and let's rework the question by changing the question. Together we will redirect and regain control. You see, I know there's one thing true about you and me. We are all working towards something. We are all dreaming of something. The bigger the dream, the bigger the challenge. And with that greater challenge, the more missteps, the more mix-ups, the more failures, the more F ups that happen. But we we know this and we encounter this, but we often find ourselves trying to dust ourselves off when this happens. And we ask ourselves, why did I fail? Instead of pounding ourselves into submission, agonizing over failure, why did I fail? Let's redirect, reframe, let's change the question: what can I learn from this experience? What can be gained from this effort? If we start to take lessons from our missteps, then we're going to change our direction. We might prevent further missteps. Let's paint another picture, let's show another example about changing the question. Let's find the biggest example instead of me wasting a ton of time over examples. Let's talk about David and Goliath. Because if David went against Goliath and the question that he had for himself was, How can I defeat Goliath? He is so damn big. He's just too big to defeat. How can I defeat somebody so massive? How can I defeat something so big and so strong? When instead the question should be, he's so big, how can I miss? Think about that. He's too big to defeat, how can I defeat him? He's so damn big, how can I miss him? When we don't have the answers, we need to change the question. Focusing on what is broken will never set you free. The more that we we agonize over the failures, the more that we focus on what is broken, we begin to dwell and swell, and that will never set you free. If you are like me, which I think many of you are, then you have big dreams, high hopes and aspirations. And if you're like me and you're chasing those dreams, those hopes, those aspirations, you're constantly falling on your face, you're constantly not attaining those things that you set for yourself. If you're like me, you're trying to fill yourself full of motivation, you're trying to seek out inspiration. I'm beginning to realize if I set my sails on motivation, if the wind in my sails is motivation, I will fall short of my dreams, of my goals. Because you can never live that high. You can never stay that high. You can never be motivated and inspired every single day because failure comes, because hurt happens, because difficulty happens. It's hard to stay motivated in the face of difficulty. I'm beginning to realize instead of just solely focusing on filling my lungs with motivation, I need to focus on meaning. I should be chasing meaning over motivation. What does this dream mean to me? What does this mission mean to me? Why is it so damn important? What is the root behind the reason? What is the meaning for this dream, for these hopes, for these aspirations? When that meaning is greater than the difficulties, then you don't need to rely on motivation because here is the truth about you and I. We are not always motivated, we are easily derailed from motivation. Let's slow this down a little bit because I'm getting kind of heated. But I try to start my day off with something positive. If I'm gonna be in my Bible or if I'm gonna be in my motivation, if I'm gonna be in my inspiration, whether it's a book, it's a sermon, it's a video, it's a passage, whatever it is, I try to start motivated. But here's the thing, folks. We all have the best of intentions. We all start today with the best of intentions. You don't roll out of bed and say, I'm gonna do my best to make this suck today. I'm gonna do my best to get even further away from my goals today. No, we put our feet down on the floor saying today is the day. Am I right? That's how I feel. I get up and I start the day, but what happens? How long before your motivation begins to be chipped away? Even on the best of days, even on the most motivated of days, you start the day inspired and productive. How long before there's one email that chip aways at your emotion? How long before that bad email you open chips away on that positive motivation you built this morning? What about that phone call when the phone rings and it's that negative call and that starts to tink, tink, tink on your armor a little bit? What if that coworker, that companion, that boss, that colleague, what if they're in an absolute just down in the dumps type of mood? What if they didn't start their day on their Wheaties and inspiration? What if they just woke up eating assholes in frustration? Okay, I'm focusing on Wheaties motivation. This Joker over here is eating freaking assholes and frustration, and he's gonna come in and he's gonna rub that that nonsense all over me. These distractions, these these these just demotivating distractions, these obstacles, they're wearing away on our motivation. What if on the way to work today you got cut off in traffic? Maybe you jammed on the brakes and you spilled your coffee? Or if you got a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts and it just happened to taste like shit, and you always ask yourself, why do I keep going back to Dunkin' Donuts at$300 a month when they make two coffees a month that actually tastes good? Wow. Hut button for you. What if your kids frustrate you? What if you argue with your spouse? What if you have a disagreement with a sibling? How high is your motivation? What if you do the best you can to deflect all these distractions? You're doing your best. Bing, deflect. Whoo, Heisman, bing. See you later. Hmm, deflect. I feel like he's kind of like Mario. I haven't played video games since I was a kid, so. Is it like Mario when you have a little power level and he's running around and just keeps going down because something falls on his head, you bump into the wrong brick and you see a little power go down a little bit, you run over the wrong mushroom or some shit. I don't know. But you see his little lights go down a little bit. That's us. We wake up motivated, right? We're fueling up on positivity. We start our day and then we run into the wrong mushroom, man. We bounce our head off the wrong brick wall, and then boom, boom, boom. Our little our little light meter keeps going down and down and down. Now, what if your little motivation light meter is starting to fade? But you say to yourself, You're that little train that could. I'm just gonna keep on chugging, chugging, chugging, chugging, chwt, chute, I can do it. I can chase my dreams, watch me do it. You can put the caboose to it, I'm gonna do it. And you try something, maybe you're a little distracted, but you're putting your your your your all your intentions, your heart, your focus, everything into this project, and it doesn't work. What if you spend two weeks designing a logo for somebody only to put that pitch on paper and to get it denied? What if you build that quote that has so many line items on it that by the time they say yes, it's a third of what you plan for? What happens then? What happens when the the new thing you took on that's gonna put you closer to your dream fails? Are you gonna be able to get back up? Are you gonna sit around and keep asking yourself, why did I fail? Or are you gonna change the question, hot rod? Because you don't have the answer. I want to change the question. What can I learn? We're gonna redirect the situation and we're gonna regain control. But how hard is it to do all this when you no longer have the motivation? Let me tell you something, baby girl. This world it takes motivation. This world robs you of motivation. You turn the TV on, you scroll through social media too long, it'll rob your motivation. You need to find meaning. Meaning over motivation. Motivation is great. Positive in, positive out. I've been saying that since day one. But we can't rely only on motivation. We have episodes in here on the Simon Cynic Golden Circle, establishing our why, why we're doing this, find the reason, and hang on to that why. But I think this year we should start to really examine the meaning. What is it in your mind and your heart that you want so bad? Take out that pen and paper and start writing those things out and begin to establish the meaning. What does this mean to you? What does this mean for you? Why are we chasing this so hard? And when we find that meaning and we begin to understand the feeling that's going to come from it, then those things will strengthen our armor. We need to focus on giving our energy to our direction, not to doubting ourselves. When we are fueling up on motivation and we are getting derailed all along the way. We spend too much time analyzing the failures, we spend too much time self sabotaging ourselves. We need to give energy to direction. Not to our adults, because energy builds momentum. There's a lot of M's today. We love motivation, but we got to define and find our meaning. And we're going to give energy to our direction. Because that energy is going to build momentum. And before you know it, if you're putting energy towards your direction and you're clear on what that meaning is for you, you're going to build some momentum. You're going to get that ball rolling downhill for you. And remember this because we know it to be true. The more you walk through failure, the more resilient you become. We are going to fail many, many times along the way as we try to attain the things that we believe we deserve each and every day. But the more you walk through failure, the more you become resilient. And when you begin to become resilient, as you get those calluses on your feet by walking through failures, you're embracing rather than avoiding. When you're embracing those failures, you are changing the questions over those failures. You are beginning to turn setbacks into progress. Because the truth is, even if we fail, we are one step closer to our goal. Because before we failed, we had the wide world of the unknown. We could sit on our couch for the next six months, crap in your pants, thinking about if I just got off the couch and I just did this, if I just did this, if I just asked her to the dance, if I just applied for the job, if I just took the interview, if I just tried the new event, if I just put the money in the new product, whatever it is. If you do that, that whatever that is in your mind, if you do that and it doesn't work, if you don't reframe your mind, you're gonna sit back and say, I failed and now I'm further away. But that's not the case. Because you know more today than you did yesterday. You've now learned a lesson about what worked and what didn't work. And I'm sure in that lesson there is some clues. Because success leaves clues, and even in failure, there's clues towards success. So even when we fail, we are getting closer. The more you walk through failure, the more resilient you become. Embracing rather than avoiding turns setbacks into progress. Growth doesn't happen at the mountaintop. It happens in the valleys. Let me say that again for the ones in the back. Growth doesn't happen on the mountaintop. It happens in the valleys. When you reach the top of the mountain, you are who you are. Your story has been written. Now all that's left is for it to be told. The real lesson. The real growth happens in the valleys. It happens in the lows. Now let me go ahead and take that Camilla's catalog right here. It's a big one this month. Let me take my my left hand and place it on that catalog. I'm gonna take my big little eyes and point them towards the sky and give the truth from this guy. I spend way more time in my life thinking about all that I've messed up. I spend too much time in my life wondering why I messed up. I spend too much time, shall I say, I waste too much time in my life ruminating over my life's choices and decisions. Oftentimes just embarrassing moments. Are you like me? I've gotten to the point when I was younger, let's just say this. I could remember everything. I was an elephant. I remembered everything. When I was a kid, I could dream and wake up and wake up, I would think about this great dream I had that was a great memory that I achieved. I could sit around my friends and share stories about all the awesome things that we did. As I get older, I forget a lot of those awesome things that we did. But I'll often sit with myself and think to myself about the mistakes that I made. I can keep this full frontal confessional going by saying I often agonize over why I wasn't mature enough to do certain things, why I made certain mistakes, why I had why I made so many bad choices. I'll give you a quick example. These are just random things. When I was in high school, I had a real future playing playing football. My football coach sat me down at the end of my sophomore year and said, if you do this, this, and this, I see Division I football for you. And I screwed it all up. I was injured, and that was the first thing that happened. But then I took up drinking and I started a downward spile. I began cheating in school on tests and exams. I was in one class bragging about the fact that I was cheating my way through my Latin class when that teacher heard me and then shared that story with the other teacher, so that teacher could set me up to catch me, to kick me out of that class, and then as a personal endeavor, she took it upon herself to teach me a lesson. So when I turned in, my final project, my final exam, she claimed I didn't. And she lowered my score, my grade, enough to make me academically ineligible for sports. That final exam was a group project. My partner, his paper made it in, and he passed. We're partners, our papers go in together. How did he pass? And I didn't. It was their personal project to derail me. I didn't play a down of football, meaningful football my whole senior year. I practiced every week, but I couldn't play in any game. You know what's stupid? I graduated high school 25 years ago. Why would a grown ass man find himself on his couch wondering what would have been different had I played? What would have been different if I didn't cheat? Why? It's 25 years ago, bro. You weren't going pro. But when you sometimes find yourself watching watching football games, you start thinking about what you missed out on. You start to dwell and swell on that. And when you dwell and swell, you fill up like a tick full of negativity. This is just one example. That's a 25 years ago. Are you like me? Do you spend too much time thinking about what doesn't matter? Have you become someone that remembers the mistakes you made more than the accomplishments you achieved? I think far too much about the embarrassing things I said and did, the hurtful things I said and did then the amazing positive things that I said and did. Why? Why do we do that? Maybe you're not like me. Maybe you're not. Maybe I'm just a loony bin. I don't know. But if you're not exactly like me, then I feel like you might have a little touch in me. Now I'm not encouraging you to touch me. Don't take this. I'm not going to HR with this. But I'm willing to bet that if throughout the day today, let's have five examples throughout the day today. You had four amazing things happen in your life. You had four things where you made a difference. You left an impact. Somebody came up to you and said, Thank you, man. That was so amazing what you did. You had all these accomplishments throughout the day. Four great things were achieved today, but you had one major embarrassing moment. Which one are you gonna think about? Which one do you find yourself thinking about tonight on the couch? I think I know the answer. In effort to continue on this path of reframing our mind, of redirecting and regaining control of our mind. I learned a little something today called day and a decade. Day and a decade. Whatever mistake you made, whatever failure happened today, ask yourself day and a decade. What difference will a day make? What difference will a decade make? The day and a decade thought process is often referred to as the ten ten ten rule. It's a cognitive tool for overcoming fear by shifting focus from immediate emotional reactions to long-term rational outcomes. It helps to diminish the fear by asking how a decision or a situation will matter in ten minutes, ten months, or ten years. This technique, this 10-10-10, reduces anxiety by shrinking the perceived severity of a fear, making it easier to take small action-oriented steps to confront it. Whatever that failure is, whatever that embarrassing moment is of the day, 101010. What effect will this have in 10 minutes? What effect will it have in 10 months and 10 years? Maybe you said something embarrassing. Maybe you walked out of the bathroom with poop press toilet paper tied to your high heels and you came out into the boardroom dragging some frickin' Charmin Ultrasoft with I don't know, stuck to your heels. Okay? That's gonna be embarrassing. And as we talked about, if you had these five instances of today, these four tremendous triumphs of today, and the fifth one happens to be you and some shaman ultrasoft hooked onto your stilettos, walking into a boardroom, that's probably the one you're gonna think about. You're not gonna think about the amazing ones. You're gonna think about the one when, oh great, I stormed into the bathroom with my fly out of the bathroom on my fly down and pooped paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe. You're gonna think about that one. And maybe in 10 minutes, that one's still gonna be funny. In 10 months, are people still gonna remember it? Maybe. Are they gonna make fun of you for it every day? Probably not. In 10 years, will they? Are you gonna be friends with any of them in 10 years? Is it gonna make a damn bit of difference in 10 years? This is just one example. But oftentimes we let small, stupid, ridiculous things derail our day because we give too much power to the problem. We put too much emphasis on the mistake, on the failure, on the embarrassing moment. Ask yourself, will it make a difference in ten minutes? Will it make a difference in ten months? And we will we at all be thinking about this in ten years. A day and a decade. My failure, if I give it the day, is it going to affect me tomorrow? Is it gonna affect me in a decade? I like it. I like it. I like a whole new way of looking at our decisions, our failures, our mistakes. I like all of it. And I also like the great advice from the man himself, Hot Rod Roddy Piper. Just when they think they got the answers, I change the questions. Together we can redirect and regain control. And speaking of gaining control, I'm about to lose all control because my wife and my baby just came home from a store mission. They're unloading dessert, and little Baisley's over there firing up her bluey friggin' motion activated touch screen talking figurines. I don't know what you call them. So it's about to get crazy in here. Dogs are starting to muscle and hustle about. The baby's currently got a binky in her mouth, but that's gonna pop out at any minute, and she's gonna start hooting and hollering. And uh, did I mention there's dessert involved? So it's gonna be a quick, hitting, hard-hitting episode today, but we were inspired today by the man Hot Rod Roddy Piper. We established some rules, some boundaries, and some laws. Decade and a day, 10, 10, 10 for the win. I appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for tuning in for listening each and every week. 290 consecutive weeks. Here's my little baby girl. Come on over, honey. 290 consecutive weeks. Remember to find all things podcast related. You want to say hi at www.share the struggle podcast.com. What are you gonna say? You love microphones. What are you gonna say? I love you. When I want you to not talk, you talk.
SPEAKER_01:Can you say thank you for supporting our American dream? Now go wash your dirty hands. You filthy scavage.
SPEAKER_00:Aw, good girl.
SPEAKER_01:Say thank you, everybody. See ya next week. I'm gonna have dessert. Love you. Say bye. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:That's it, and that's all, Biggie Smalls. If you're allowed out American, or find me on YouTube, Facebook, Proud American, Facebook, if you're on the green, wanna find me on Instagram, Rob, tickety topics on the tickety talking. Find me on all of those underscore underscore. I truly thank you for supporting my hilarious dreams. Never lost your fucking hands, you filthy savage.