Completing Your Unfinished Business (Episode 158)

Have you ever stared down a mountain of goals, unsure of where to start? Join me, Dr. Jason Wiggins, as I guide you through the maze of unfinished business, sharing the celebration of my podcast's recognition as the 12th best Millennial podcast by Feedspot and teasing my guest spot on the Above the Bar podcast. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for young go-getters looking to nibble away at the elephant-sized tasks in their lives. Drawing on my own epic academic quest, I illuminate the path to victory, armed with a shield of positive thinking and a sword of steadfast habits. Whether it's a lingering side project or a dream gathering dust, prepare to march towards resolution and success with my battle-tested strategies.

Strap in for a journey through the tempest of managing time with an ever-growing list of commitments and personal endeavors. It's a balancing act I know all too well, juggling a full-time job, academic ambitions, and an active family life. But fear not, for I come bearing the blueprints to navigate this labyrinth. We'll explore how to prioritize effectively, ensuring your daily hustle aligns with your deepest desires while keeping Maslow's hierarchy in check. From modest beginnings to the proud pinnacle of a PhD, I stand testament to the fact that every misstep is a dance move towards success. This episode isn't just about reaching the finish line; it's about enjoying the race, every step of the way.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Well, hello friends, welcome to your Motivational Gen Z and Millennial Expert Podcast. My name is Dr Jason Wiggins and welcome, welcome, welcome. I hope everybody's having a great day, wherever you may be, or night. Well, let's get our heads right and get started. First and foremost, I'd like to thank all my valued listeners. I appreciate you listening and I think we have a great topic today that I think will really really resonate with myself as well as most of the listening audience. I just want to make mention that I will be a guest on an upcoming podcast called the Above the Bar podcast, and I think you'll truly find that podcast very good as well, and I look forward to speaking on it. And also some great news Feedspot has named your motivational Gen Z and Millennial Expert podcast the number 12 best viewed Millennial podcast in the world. So again, that's number 12 by Feedspot for best Millennial podcast in the world, and we do not take that lightly. We are Millenn, millennials and Gen Z focused. However, this can be applied to anyone who desires to have a little bit of motivation and a little bit of just knowing hey, times can be tough, but we have to prevail. How do we prevail? It's by taking one day at a time. And do you know how you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And that's the same way that we have to look at life.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Today's podcast is going to be based on reaching the finish line unfinished business. So what is it when you think of unfinished business? Well, it's things we have not started yet, or things that we have started and we have not finished the project. We have not finished the schooling, we've not completed the project at work, whatever it may be. But I want to really talk about what's important to Gen Z and what's important to millennials, because that's what this podcast is about. It's about how is this relative to Gen Z and millennials, professional and or personal life? And that's what we are talking about today is how are you going to reach the finish line on unfinished business?

Speaker 1: 3:16

And, first and foremost, let's break it down. I think that's really the best way to do. It is break it down. Breaking it down. It looks like this you have a task or you have a goal, or you have something, or you have a goal or you have something that resonates with you that it seems like you have to complete. Life will not be complete unless you complete this goal or this task, and so that's what I really want to talk about today. I really want to talk about today.

Speaker 1: 4:00

For example, for me, my goal was to reach the end goal of obtaining and earning my doctorate in management, my PhD, and it seemed like a monumental task. I remember looking at it right at the beginning, going look at all the requirements, look at all the things that are required to get all of the coursework done, then start the dissertation, go through the whole prospectus stage, then the research and then all of the literary review and literature review and all of that, and then you have to start getting parts approved by your dissertation committee, your chair, and then all of the issues that can happen within that. You lump all that together and you go, wow, this is huge. So that's where you start with unfinished business is. You don't look at it as a monumentous task. You look at it as, as we mentioned earlier, how do you eat an elephant? That is one bite at a time With my seven-year-old. Is he going to be the next Mickey Mantle, ted Williams, whoever it may be? Well, it can be a goal as a young baseball player, but you have to go one step at a time, you to learn how to hit, you have to learn how to field, throw the ball and then learn all the different aspects of baseball to get really good. And then maybe you are, you go to college and maybe you get drafted or maybe you become a minor league player and if you're that one percent of the 1%, then you make the major leagues. And then to make be a successful in the major leagues, then you're that other 1%. Does it seem like it's a monumentous task? Yes, it does, but unfinished business is about achieving a goal, achieving a task, and that's what we're going to look at today.

Speaker 1: 6:16

And how do you start? By creating a path that is going to lead you to the successful completion of whatever you want to do. Well, it starts with the mind frame, and the mind is a very tricky thing because we are not all wired the same. Some people are procrastinators, some people need to be motivated in different ways, some people can't finish, some people have roadblocks, mental roadblocks, people have personal lives that get in the way. All of these different types of scenarios it's really important to realize it is called life. Life throws everything at you and it's how you navigate, it's how you react to each turn and realize that it's not impossible to reach your goals. But sometimes it does take a lot of work, a lot of sacrifices, and you have to be willing to remove those barriers and make those sacrifices to get to the end project, to reach the end goal.

Speaker 1: 7:36

So that's what I want to ask you what is that? One or two unfinished business things that you would like to have completed in your lifetime or within this year, or whatever it may be? Do you want to start a business? Do you want to finish school? Do you want to be an entrepreneur? Do you want to be the CEO of your organization? Do you want to be the best parent? You can be the best grandparent?

Speaker 1: 8:06

Whatever it may be, it's the number one aspect is you have to have the right mental mind frame. And how do you do that? Well, it's part of the stepping process. You have to eat well, you have to get a good night's sleep, you have to be able to focus, you have to be able to compartmentalize certain aspects of your life. Sometimes it means getting rid of bad habits and then determining how can I remove these bad habits in order to preserve the right mental attitude, the right mental makeup, and it first starts with just getting out of bed. Getting out of bed is the very first thing that you have to do to be successful. When that alarm goes off ding, ding, and it's really annoying and piercing the first thing you do is you hit it. Don't snooze, get up right away, because imagine, for every time you snooze that's five or 10 minutes or 15 minutes every single day Over the course of a week. That adds up to an hour and a half to two hours of progressive action that could be taken throughout the week in order to get things done.

Speaker 1: 9:36

I would like to take a moment to realize that time is precious, so let's view that Time is precious. Time is something that, no matter how much money you have, we cannot buy more of it. So therefore we have to maximize the amount of time. So if you have a goal and you have minimal time, then look at where your time is going. That means time management. So the first step you talked about was getting your mental mind frame right, getting the sleep, eating nutritious foods, and then the next thing is making sure you have good time management. I know it's easier said than done.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Time is something that everybody seems to not have enough time to get what we want to get done. We have families, we have growing kids, we have growing careers, we have spouses All of these things, along with, maybe, extracurricular activities, take part in most of our time during the day. And not forgetting that most of us work 40, 50 plus hours a day, and if you're like a lot of Americans, you don't work just one job. You also have side hustles. I reside in California and here it is very normal to work a full-time job and have certain other things you do Besides being a regional manager and being a speaker and doing all these other things. I'm also a professor at two universities. I have a young son, I have a wife, I go to all his games, I'm part of, I'm an active part of his life. And how do I do that? Very simple Time management. Yes, you cannot do everything, everything cannot be done, but prioritizing what's important, so what is important?

Speaker 1: 11:45

So we talked about time management. Is it family? Is it religion? Is it extracurricular activities? Is it your family, friends, career, growth, all of these different things? They have one thing in common. Do you know what that is? They're fighting for your time. They're fighting for your everything, all those spaces that in your life that are that are void. They're fighting to fill all those voids. That's what happens when you get so busy and, yes, most of us are very busy and some of us strive on being busy and if that's you, then more power to you. Fortunately, I'm just like that. I love being busy. When I'm busy, when I have a million things going on at one time, then I am more productive. If I don't have anything going on and I'm sitting around doing nothing, I'm less productive. Therefore, we talked about making sure that you have a good mental attitude, you have Good time management. And then what does it take? It takes planning, planning. You can't just go from zero to 100 overnight. You can't run a successful business overnight. You can't be the CEO of a large organization overnight. You can't graduate with an MBA before you obtain a bachelor's degree. You can't do it overnight. You can't graduate with an MBA before you obtain a bachelor's degree. You can't do it overnight. Therefore, you have to take steps.

Speaker 1: 13:36

If you're in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, whatever it may be, it's not too late to react, to be proactive, to getting what you want out of your unfinished business. Let's say right now, for example, you want to start a new career. You're in your 30s, you're in your 40s Guess what? Then it's time to put the hard work into it. What Then? It's time to put the hard work into it. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. For any of you Rocky fans out there, I know this was probably going prior to Millennials and Gen Z's, but Rocky is a motivating movie about the ability to be a boxer and be a world champion, and it showed a lot of the rigorous, physical, pounding beating that Rocky in this movie, this character, played. And that's the same thing.

Speaker 1: 14:43

You can feel like you're a punching bag sometimes when it comes to trying to get things done, trying to get those proactive steps One step, two, step, three, step four and to get complete each of those steps to get where you want. This goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs states first thing you need, you need safety, you need to understand that. You need to be safe, you need to be able to eat. So therefore, if you're looking to be CEO before you have the basic necessities of life, then maybe your priorities are not correct. So if you're struggling right now and you don't even have the basic necessities to live. I feel it, I get it, I understand. First and foremost, get those things right. If you have an addiction that's preventing you from reaching your goals, then attack that addiction, attack it hard. Realize that it's okay to be weak but it's okay to ask for help, but it's not okay to not ask for help when you need it. So that is part of that mental makeup that we talked about. If you're not in a situation to be successful, again, unfinished business is about creating a path of being successful from zero to 100.

Speaker 1: 16:23

For example, I struggled early in life trying, trying to find where I stood in the world. I did a lot of different jobs. Starting out, I did things that you would be shocked to hear now that I have a PhD, now that I'm a doctor in management. I started out by doing some crazy, crazy sort of jobs and then I did pretty much everything, from being a busboy I started out with a newspaper route. I was a cook. I did all sorts of different jobs delivery jobs, logistics, transportation, logistics, transportation all of that was now I'm in management, and every single thing, every single job. I learned from it. I took away something. I made a lot of mistakes. I really shot myself in the foot sometimes, but guess what? It's okay if you learn from it and you suffer the consequences of it. It ultimately makes you a better person, a better and more productive employee, and it helps you get to the point where you can be successful in reaching your goals.

Speaker 1: 17:42

As we talked about, you've got to have the basic necessity of life, you have to have shelter, you have to have love, you have to have the basic necessity of life, you have to have shelter, you have to have love, you have to have the feeling of belongingness. These are part of the important aspects of reaching to the level of where you finally made it, where you finally got over the top and you feel like I've reached the goal, I've reached my successful nature that I wanted and that, right there, part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is known as self-actualization. Self-actualization is where, all of a sudden, you go, wow, I did it. And for me, it took me 42 years to reach that aspect. And I did it where a time where everything was it happened at the same time in my life.

Speaker 1: 18:40

That year was 2016. My degree, my doctorate degree, was conferred about one and a half months after my son was born. So the two out of the three most happiest things in my life happened within two months. And then the other happy moment was when I was married and those things right there was part of what helped me realize that there's not a lot of great things after that that I'm going to look forward to, that are going to top that.

Speaker 1: 19:15

But here's the important part as we talk about reaching our goals, when you do reach that unfinished goal that you want so bad and you take that deep breath and go I did it. I made it. I couldn't be happier. Don't let yourself get complacent. There's other unfinished business that needs to be done. You just may not know what it is yet. That needs to be done. You just may not know what it is yet.

Speaker 1: 19:46

And one of the things they say to living a long, prosperous, healthy life those that have reached 100 years of age, besides having great genes. One of the things they say is don't stop working, don't let your mind stop wanting to improve and you think about that. You might hear a lot of stories where people have retired and they didn't live much longer and it's really sad, but part of that can be due to not getting to where they continue to work, they retired, they didn't do anything and guess what? Just like physical exercise is important, so is mental exercise is part of the process of getting to the part where we can finish the goals that we set out for ourselves. And that leads to the other part. We've already talked about making sure you have the mental makeup having the right sleep, having the right food, having the ability to be in a safe place, addiction free and ability to move forward in your life. If the timing is not right, that's okay. Take care of those other things that are holding you back, but when the time does get right, make sure you keep set on the goals that you want.

Speaker 1: 21:29

And we talked about unfinished business today. I want everybody to think about that for a second. You mentioned earlier what maybe one or two of the unfinished goals that you would like to meet, either this year, next year or within your lifetime. Think about those. We have one life to live. When our day of calling comes, are you going to have one regret in your life that you didn't do something? My one regret for sure would have been not finishing my PhD and not having a family. Those are the two things that I would have really kicked myself not having, before my day comes, to answer the bell, whatever yours may be.

Speaker 1: 22:24

Some you have control of, some you don't, as I always like to say, control the controllables. If there is something that you cannot do as a Gen Z and millennials, don't focus on it. We do have limitations in life. So don't get me wrong, we do have limitations. We all cannot be rocket scientists. Why? Because our minds don't work like that. We have to take the skill sets that each and every single one of us has and maximize that tool set with the ability that we have to match the skill set, the desire, the focus, the motivation. The skill set, the desire, the focus, the motivation.

Speaker 1: 23:17

If you need a motivating type of individual to motivate you, I want to be that person. If it's music that motivates you, then listen to some music that really gets you going. Maybe it's the Rocky type of theme music Eye of the Tiger. Where is the Eye of the Tiger in you that wants you to get to the finish line? Well, listen to that calling, listen to that motivation. And we've talked before. The one thing I want you to focus on is removing the barriers. If there are people in your life that say you can't do it, you're not good enough. I need you to look long and hard at those people in your life and either have a talk with them and say this is what I want, are you going to support me? Because, if you're not to support me, because if you're not, then I'm going to find people and surround myself with those people that have similar goals to help me reach my unfinished business goal.

Speaker 1: 24:25

Again, this motivational podcast is for Gen Z and Millennial expert. Excuse me, gen Z and Millennials podcast is for Gen Z and millennial expert. Excuse me, gen Z and millennials. I am Dr Jason Wiggins. I am your Gen Z and millennial expert and I am here to help you any way I can. So I want to thank everybody again. If you haven't had a chance, please look up and look out for the next podcast, and I will also be a guest on the Above the Bar podcast, along with. I'd like to thank Feedspot for making us the number 12 most listened to millennial podcast in the world. So I want to thank everybody and I appreciate your continued listenership. Please continue to promote the world. So I want to thank everybody and I appreciate your continued listenership. Please continue to promote the podcast so we can continue to spread the word about the importance of Gen Z and Millennials and how we can help you in your personal and professional life. So, thank you, take care and can't wait to talk to you later. Bye, bye.