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Mastering Procrastination with Bestselling Author Scott Allen

October 29, 2024 • Episode 53

0:00 | 33:15

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Mastering Procrastination and Cultural Adaptation with Scott Allen

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📍 📍 📍 📍 when you label yourself as something, you just become more of that thing. So that was one of the things I had to break right away is like calling myself a procrastinator. I called myself an action taker. Right. 📍

📍 📍 📍 📍 I do it as a Pomodoro. And it's so silly, so stupid that I push this LCD and it puts 20 minutes and starts counting down, but it works

when I see that timer, I go, don't do anything else for 20 minutes, no social media, no internet, no email, just this 📍

Um, I have a, I don't know if it's an ability, but 📍 📍 📍 📍 I have an ability to assimilate myself into any culture that you put me in. So when I spent time in Vietnam and Thailand, I wasn't living there, but even just traveling, right, you know, I could be there for just a few days and I could start to assimilate myself towards how they did things there. 📍

um, but here's the thing, like 📍 📍 📍 📍 here's the thing about imposter syndrome is that it will always hold you back no matter where you're at on the path.

📍 📍 📍 📍 it wouldn't matter if you went to Mars and was by and were by yourself 100 percent of the time, the resistance will follow you there 📍

Um, I, 📍 📍 📍 📍

um, 📍 📍 📍 📍 when you have a running partner at the end of, uh, the run, you exchange running shoes so that if they don't show up tomorrow, you can't run. 📍

📍 📍 📍 📍 I wanna make myself so good that they can't ignore me. 📍

📍 📍 📍 📍 It's not that I'm, uh, naturally, uh, loaded with grit or resilience. I do those things because I know if I don't do those things, I immediately start to lose my edge in life. And the, 📍

Today we're being joined by international best selling author.

Scott Allen. And he has a great many titles you can check out that are very Kindle friendly. Uh, the book we're talking about today is do. The hard things first. And he gives a lot of tips about overcoming procrastination and things of that nature today. Lot of insights into really getting into how do I accomplish those things that I am avoiding today.

And today's podcast. We're going to talk a lot about meal planning and what a game changer it is to manage your willpower. So I want to encourage you to check out my invention, the sprout spout. The sprout spout.com is where you can go to place your order.

And we have a discount code for our listeners. It is in the show notes. And if you're watching this, you can see mine right here is currently growing a bunch of mung beans. This will last me, probably four or five days of adding those to my wraps and salads. I think it's one of the most underestimated seeds that we sell quite frankly. It's very affordable. And it's extremely easy to grow the mung bean seeds.

, they're very forgiving with any missing watering days and little bit of over or under soaking. They're very forgiving. So. Go to sprouts about.com to check out that I would love your feedback. Where we've been started, pushing for reviews here lately. Please be one of those people. And our newsletter is we are now sending out our newsletter on a weekly basis.

So please join the newsletter@sproutspout.com. With that. Enjoy your interview with Scott Allen.

📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍

Scott Allen, thank you for being on Tracing the Energy today.

Well, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.

You're an author, a content creator, and a global influencer. You've written a great many books, uh, with over half a million copies worldwide. The first one I want to talk to you about is do the hard thing, right? And, um, When I think about my, like, historic, uh, self dev, I think of eating the phrase eating the frog, right?

They say, if you have to eat a frog, do it first in the morning. So my first question for you is, how do you right size the hard thing in, in order to make it palatable, In this case, going back to the frog, but something that people are willing to, , not be necessarily deterred by.

Yeah. So I think that, uh, you know, the book has been compared to that other book a lot, uh, because that's really, I think when I, when I set out to write, do the hard things first, the first book in the series, and there's actually five books out now, we have a plan to do, or probably nine of them. because it turned into a series and a brand in itself.

But the first book was on how to overcome procrastination, which is really what eat the frog was about. Um, I did study a lot of other books on the topic and the reason I wrote a book on that is because of my own personal struggle with chronic procrastination. Right. So it was really like.

me searches is what it's often called. Yeah.

yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Um, how it, how it, uh, differentiates though is like, it's more than just, um, you know, do like, okay, so let's just go back to the concept of doing the hard things first. Um, When I first started this project, uh, I was, I was struggling with getting, you know, the, the priorities finished. Right. And I had like, I had projects all over the place, just stuff that I wasn't getting done.

I would start one project, get halfway through it, start another one, start another one. And over time I just had hundreds of like unfinished

projects. So I made a list. I made a long list of all the things I went through. my computer. I went through my house. I made a list of everything. Everything and anything that was just something, if something was not in the right spot or if a room was, you know, if I had to declutter a room, whatever it was, it went on the list.

And there were some things on that list that were very hard to do that I didn't want to do. And this is the concept of the book is that you're always going to have resistance against the things that are hard to do because they are. hard and ideally like, you know, we want to do the easy stuff and, um, the hard stuff, uh, like if you're a procrastinator, which by the way, I don't recommend labeling yourself as a procrastinator.

I did for many years. And when you label yourself as something, you just become more of that thing. So that was one of the things I had to break right away is like calling myself a procrastinator. I called myself an action taker. Right.

And that was the first step. But,

Maybe,

maybe even have the term, uh, former procrastinator. I'm

Yeah, that's good too.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. But what it, what it really is about though, is building trust with yourself, right? Because what happens is when you get all these things piled up that you're not doing, you start to feel guilty. You start to,

you know, call yourself a loser and shame and all that. And so taking action, even if it's, so what I did with that list is I did.

I actually looked at the easiest things on the list and I just started doing those, something that was like a five minute phone call. You know, if it was an email, whatever it was, I would just do one thing on the list because every time you cross something off on that list, and I had a list of like, like 200 things on there, if not more, you start to build that confidence meter starts to move up and up and up and up and you're moving towards those harder things, right?

So I didn't just go for the hardest thing on the list because I probably would have just. I've gotten stuck again, but I started doing the easiest things and just building up to it like a muscle. You've got to work it. Right. Um,

but, but

here is that you, you target the tasks that are going to build inertia.

Mm. Hmm.

the flywheel starts to turn, it's much more easy to go ahead and go on to the next thing. I, for example, I keep this timer. It's, um, I do it as a Pomodoro. And it's so silly, so stupid that I push this LCD and it puts 20 minutes and starts counting down, but it works

when I see that timer, I go, don't do anything else for 20 minutes, no social media, no internet, no email, just this for

Mm hmm.

by the time you've reset it three times, you're in that zone of like, man, I'm getting so much done, but to your point, it takes sometimes, um, Silly things that that what would it take for me to be engaged in this task? I love that Thank you so much for sharing that scott.

Yeah. And I love the timer, by the way. I have my own because uh, and mine doesn't have a, I think mine has like a five, 10 and 30 minutes on it, but I mean, I'm probably going to get one where it has 15 or 20 minutes because I think that's the zone where if you can stick with something for that long,

so

check this out a shameless Plug here. You just move it to whatever you want and then

Oh, I like though. I like that. Yeah.

Amazon for like 15, 20 bucks

and it's a USB C recharge. So you never have to deal with batteries. So, uh, it, I don't even remember the last time I charged it. It's been at least a month or so,

but point

being it's completely adjustable to find your specific.

You don't have to set it for 20 minutes. set it to your specific zone of like, this is how long it takes me to get into flow. And then of course, by the, the idea there is not necessarily to be done, but engaged, right?

Mm-Hmm. . Well, I'm getting one of those. Yeah,

I'll, I'll, I'll send you a link or

sure, sure.

You're, are you, are you in Canada?

I'm from Canada, but I'm actually, I've been living in Japan for the last 26 or 27 years, so I'm

I, I love that. And then I'm going to ask you some questions about Japan. I knew you'd gone there, but I wasn't sure if you were still there. I can hear the Canadian part.

I get that a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a lovely accent. Um, so, um, I'll, I'll, I've got a couple of questions here. So I'll skip around since we're already talking about, uh, Japan,

Sounds good.

um, corporate business trainer in Japan and success strategist, the first question I want to ask you is what cultural differences did you incorporate into your mindset after you went or your approach or process

or process, as they say in Canada, um, what did you incorporate? After you were in Japan as part of that culture,

hmm. Yeah, so I mean, I came to Japan really not knowing. a lot about the country or the culture right? Um, I was hired by a company when I was still in Canada. I got hired when I was there. They brought us over, they brought like three people over to um, work in this, um, just like a business school or an English school.

So basically I went from becoming an electrical engineer and became a You know, an English teacher overnight. No training. I have no formal, formal education, in education or anything like that. Right. I was never a teacher, but that's the great thing about living here is like, they'll give you all the skills you need.

You just have to be able to speak the language. Um, I kind of had that down pat, so that was okay. But the, uh, the cultural differences, I mean, I think a lot of it was just around the mannerisms, you know, like you don't know what you don't know. So there's this, I mean, you hear it like, you know, when you walk into somebody's house, of course you take off your shoes and those things.

I think a lot of people know that stuff already. But, um, there are just some, uh, some things around like, you know, they would, um, they would, you know, we use a sign language for certain things, you know, like peace and this and that. And there are things that they would use for sign language that you just didn't understand what it meant.

Um, and because, I mean, if you can't understand, The spoken language, then the sign language doesn't make any sense either. So, so there was like some of that stuff to figure out. Um, driving was interesting driving on the left side of the road as opposed to the right. Uh, the only accident I've ever been in in my life was on my third day in here in Japan, where I ran, ran, ran.

I rear ended a car because I got lost and it was dark and I just happened to not see where I was going. So I ended up in the police station trying to explain why I had ran into this car in the middle of the night. Uh, so there was a lot of things that had happened, which were interesting experiences when I look back on it now.

But a lot of it was like, yeah, a lot of the cultural differences. Just there were so many, um, you know, just, uh, uh,

what I'm looking for is how, what cultural differences did you incorporate into your, to your approach towards preaching change? for example, I'm, my background is Lean Six Sigma and, you know, which is completely Japanese methodology of eliminating waste process, non value add, things like that. So when I look at. Any business or any particular, like prospect or process, I immediately, even regardless of whether I make a, uh, cognitive like effort, it immediately starts, I start looking for waste in these processes because of that training. So I was just kind of curious as to. When you're actually, I have zilch experience with being in the Japanese culture. I was just curious as to when you think about whether it's work ethic or transformation, what parts of that did you incorporate from your living experience there?

Yeah, certainly the work ethic because I've always had a strong work ethic and when I came here, that's probably the one reason I was able to adapt to the culture, especially the work culture, because, It can be really tough. You know, they expect you to work long hours. Of course, you have to be there on time.

You sometimes will stay a lot later, um, when you're working in the company. But for me, that was okay, right? I mean, um, other people didn't handle it as well, right? So, I mean, I was already used to the long hours, the law, the hard work and that kind of thing. So there's also the, the, um, you're familiar with the Kaizen, right?

Like making, making yourself 1 percent better all the time. That's a lot of my, I would say my lifestyle, my mindset is always based on that. Like, like yourself, having read a lot of books on self development, I'm always looking for ways to improve myself. So every time I was in a, you know, whether I was in a personal situation or in a corporate culture, I'm always looking for like that 1 percent like, how can I make myself 1 percent better for the next day?

So, and a lot of people are already familiar with that, uh, that, that process probably mostly through Toyota. I don't know if they invented it, but I don't think they invented it. But I mean, they certainly used it to build their, you know, trillion dollar empire. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of like,

the

origins of it are Deming, uh, Deming's 14 quality points that he preached to them shortly after World War II.

And he was renowned for change in quality and America didn't embrace that because we were already at the top of

the chain after World War II.

Yeah, I'm actually reading through that book now, The Toyota Way, and

Yeah. That's a great book.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I would say like,

and all that.

yeah, yeah, but no, I think like my, my overall, like my, my attitude, my mindset, um, some people jokingly said, uh, you act very Japanese and I don't think I wasn't intentionally trying to act Japanese.

I was just able to, um, I have a, I don't know if it's an ability, but I have an ability to assimilate myself into any culture that you put me in. So when I spent time in Vietnam and Thailand, I wasn't living there, but even just traveling, right, you know, I could be there for just a few days and I could start to assimilate myself towards how they did things there.

And I would start to, you know, Pick up on their mannerisms and their cultural, um, way of living. So I certainly did the same thing in Japan as well. And I continue to do that to this day. And I think, again, this maybe is why I was able to stay for as long as I could, you know, like I know some people who are here for like six months to a year and they were having a meltdown and they had to go back home, you know, but I mean.

let's take it. Um, let's be specific here. And because we started off by talking about procrastination,

Hmm,

the labeling that comes with that, what do you find in terms of the contrast between, say, Canadians or Americans in terms of procrastination versus Japan? What is sort of how is that? How common is that?

How prevalent is that? And how do they deal with it over there?

hmm, procrastination is not something that they take well to here because when you say you're going to do something, you have to get it done. Right? And when I was working in, whether it was the school system or a company, you couldn't just show up and say, Oh, I didn't get it done because they may not fire you.

But you will get put to the back of the stock room or somewhere where they don't want to see you ever again. Right.

You know, whereas like in Canada, if you did that, if you didn't do your work, you basically just didn't have a job the next day. Right. So, and here's the interesting thing too, like I would procrastinate in my personal life extensively.

Right. But you put me in a work situation and. I might do it for a little while until I couldn't actually get away with it any longer. And then like I would get it done, but in work I would almost always perform like I'll say like 95%. You know,

whereas in my personal life, if I'm not held accountable for something, I'm like, yeah, I'll just put that off until tomorrow.

And then the pattern starts. But when you're,

case, what you're saying is, is a lot of times our level of procrastination is directly correlated to the expectations that we've an accountability that we have for our, for our falling short. For example, nobody cares. Necessarily, if you're running behind on your house projects, but if you're running behind on your work projects, you know, there's a social pressure and expectation that comes with that.

So you don't want to don't want to let yourself or your peers down.

That's a great way of putting it. Exactly. So when I have those expectations, when I know that people expect me to show up at a certain time of day and deliver this presentation, it'll get done, right? Um, but surprisingly, like, I may not hold that same level for myself. So I think there's something to, there's definitely something to look into there,

I think it's actually quite rare that that we have people that hold themselves to a higher expectation. In their personal life than they do their work. Um, certainly something that I, I strive to do and have not been successful with.

Mm hmm. Mm

Um, all right, this is great. So let's talk a little bit about embracing imposter syndrome.

That is,

hmm.

know that's something you, you like to talk about and the imposter syndrome obviously is a double edged sword, right? Because if you're even using that term. You're having the opportunity to stretch yourself in some way. So, um, I'd like you to talk a little bit about your take on imposter syndrome and the benefits and potentially consequences that come from that.

Yeah, the imposter syndrome is, uh, when I first started writing, actually I, um, I had the goal to publish a book, but to be honest with you, it took me three or four years to finish it. I didn't really believe when I actually looked deep down into my soul, I didn't really believe I was going to publish the book.

I was just telling myself that I was going to, and when it got close to the end, I was I put it off for as long as I can because I was telling myself, well, who am I to publish a book? No one's going to read it. I'm not a writer. These kinds of things that go through, through your head, you know, but, um, but here's the thing, like here's the thing about imposter syndrome is that it will always hold you back no matter where you're at on the path.

Right. And the only way to get through it is to just put yourself out there. Like that's it. Like imposter syndrome is only, Like it's only going to stick around for the first little while until you actually practice the thing long enough to, you know, like, okay, if you want to put a book out there, put it out there.

If you still feel like you're, you're not worthy, put another one out there, put another one out there. Same thing with, uh, doing public speaking, right? When I started doing, um, public speaking, I was like, well, nobody's going to want to listen to me. I'm not very good at it. I had all these excuses and I just started doing a bunch of them and I got better at it.

And eventually the imposter syndrome, it still lingers a little bit depending on, I don't know, like the day or the week, whatever it is or my attitude that day. But, um, the more that I worked at something like the less of that, that I experienced. Right. So really like taking action will get you through that.

I like, um, Though the term Steven Pressfield uses, which is the resistance, right? And

one of in, uh, in his book, the war on art, he talks about, um, no matter, this was one of my favorite phrases from that book. And it was, it wouldn't matter if you went to Mars and was by and were by yourself 100 percent of the time, the resistance will follow you there

Mm hmm.

where you always hear that nagging voice saying you don't have to do this.

You're not good enough. No, you don't need to. Um,

embracing that is part of like, um, I, I sometimes when I hear it, I go, that's, that's, uh, you can use that as a compass and say, what am I? Um, the, the phrase that I use in my day to day life, Scott is, uh, I find myself going, what are you avoiding? And I said that out loud to myself.

I go,

what are you avoiding right now? For example, I reach for my phone and open up a social media app and I'll start scrolling and I go, What is it that you're avoiding right at this moment? Why are you doing this? What caused you? What uncomfortable thought or task or project that you need to start on and should be working on caused you to say this will be a good Deterrent from that.

This will stall, this will stall me from dwelling on the shame that should probably come from not working.

Yeah, I frequently find myself scrolling through TikTok multiple times per day.

It's, uh, it's, yeah, it's funny because, um, I actually have a product, the, uh, the, the invention that I have sells on Tik TOK and I had to get on Tik TOK and all those things,

Mm.

Um, it is a love hate relationship with that thing. I don't like opening it. Um, I, I heard the term one time fentanyl for the brain and I was like, wow, this really is like beyond any social media thing I've ever.

It is immediate dopamine release, uh, as fast as you can take it. So it's a, it's a slippery slope to say the least. I'm

for sure.

We tell ourself when it comes to things like television and things, you know, there's stuff out there that you can grow from, but I will say on Tik Tok, you have to seek it out.

Like you have to, if you're going to find something that's going to help you grow, you're going to actually have to seek it out on Tik Tok. And you know, whether it's, um, some of Robert Greene's content is really

Mm hmm. Mm

hmm.

uh, Steven, uh, start with why Simon Sinek, Simon Sinek. He

Mm hmm. Mm

information as well, but, um, it's hard to be diligent on those platforms.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Um, I want to add one note on procrastination and that is, um, I, I procrastinate, I, I, I do struggle with procrastination like, like most people. And I have one little trick I do.

Um, so for example, I'll give you two quick examples. Um, If you've ever made sourdough, the worst part is, is getting started. I

mean, getting the, the, the, everything ready the night before.

So you can start mixing it the next day. Uh, I'm going to have to get that starter out, drain it, feed it, get, measure it, get everything ready to go. Uh, and then the other one is, um, uh, with, uh, I mopped the house yesterday, which I was, I hate getting the idea of having clean floors is fantastic, but the idea of getting that mop out.

But so with both of those, what I do to overcome the, my struggle with procrastination is just say, all you have to do is in the example of the former. Just set it out on the counter. Just take the sourdough starter, just set it on the counter. You don't have to do anything. Just sit on the counter. And with the, the cleaning the floors, all I have to do is put the mop in the hallway.

I don't have to mop. I just set it in the hallway and my brain within an hour or two will be like, we can't let this thing just sit here. We have to take action. So I almost create an itch. For myself that I have to scratch and just use that logic against myself. So that's one little tidbit I do to go. Don't think about the whole task,

just make it so uncomfortable that you'd almost have to start. Right.

And, uh, another tip I heard, uh, for people who we talked about accountability earlier, right. How we often

rise when there's accountability or expectations you were talking about in your professional life versus your personal life. I heard this tidbit for people who struggle with fitness and commitment. Um, when you have a running partner at the end of, uh, the run, you exchange running shoes so that if they don't show up tomorrow, you can't run. I like

I like that.

Yeah,

there's plenty of, uh, in my, especially in my endurance athlete years.

There's plenty of times I would have definitely skipped the run. If I didn't know, if I had not already told somebody. I'll be there tomorrow. If you want to do this thing tomorrow, I'll do this thing. So,

Yeah. What I'll do is so that I make sure that I remind myself to go to the gym is like I'll pack my bag and leave it in the in the front like near the front door just so I was a reminder with my shoes next to it like, oh yeah, I'm going to the gym today because my bag is waiting there for me. So,

uh, it it's one of those kind of going back to the pomodoro timer.

Mm hmm.

it's shockingly simple how effective these type of things are to

where you go. It's already done. Uh, one of my favorite studies recently with people who maintain health over multiple years, the most common habit they Was to pre make their meals for the week. And you, you think to yourself, that's such a silly thing, you know, planning out your meals Monday through Friday for lunch,

mm-Hmm. .

but it works. And I, I I've been doing it for 15 years where I, I would go into my, when I, when I was in a corporate employee, I would on Monday, I would bring in all my lunch for the week and then just mix it and make it as, as the week went by, I was never tempted to eat out.

It

was always, this is what I eat. This is here. And. And so it took the willpower and allowed me to use that willpower towards the workouts and things like that instead of having to go out to eat and try to find something on the menu that hit my macros and micros for that. I love your example though. Put that gym bag by the door. Uh,

Mm-Hmm.

keep it in motion. Um, tell me what it's like when it comes to the health culture over there.

Yeah. I mean, they do eat a lot of, I think sushi as you know. I don't know if sushi is that healthy. I think it's, there's a lot of rice as well. Um, over the last, uh, I don't know, a few decades, like they certainly have a lot of McDonald's here. Like there's thousands of them actually. And there's probably, it's been a

I, I never would have thought about that. That's, that's

Yeah, it's the one, like, I mean, you can only find Burger King in Tokyo, but, uh, there's like a few Subways here and there, well, Subway's not bad, but I mean, like the fast food, fast food restaurants, there's certainly a lot more than there used to be, but only about a quarter as many as we still have in Canada and the U.

S., right? But I'm going to say though, I mean, for the most part, like, okay, the kids at school, for example, they, what they call a Kyushoku, which is like the school lunch. And when I worked in the school system, I used to eat the lunch with the kids. And it's very, it's like fish soup and rice. I mean, you can, it's very well balanced and really healthy.

So everybody eats the same thing, right. Um, in the school system. And, and, but here's the thing. I think it falls apart when they get into the corporate culture, because once they get into the companies, a lot of the companies have these, um. cafeterias, right? So that, uh, you know, they don't want people like actually leaving the company and going to, you know, I mean, where are they going to go?

Like a convenience store or something like that. Convenience store, by the way, food is really good, right? But in the company of the corporate culture, these cafeteria food, it's just like, um, it's almost like feeding cattle. The food is not very, the quality is really bad. It's very cheap. So a lot of the employees will say, yeah, there's lunch here is only like three or 4, you know, and, but it's like really bad quality and it's really just designed to keep them working for the rest of the day, I think.

So, yeah. And a lot of people, once they get into the working life and everything like that, they actually stop exercising, they stop doing a lot of things, they just end up working, working, working and eating really bad food, so.

I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, that's. Pretty traumatic. I've, I've been in some, uh, I've been in different cultures, but I will tell you the one that I always thought, uh, was burning the candle at both ends was, uh, sales cultures where

Hmm.

sell, sell, and man, you talk about Red Bulls and chicken tenders to whatever it took to get through that day and get through a hundred cold calls.

They would do it. Um, because I mean, Celsius was real popular. That caffeinated drink, uh,

Yeah. Yeah.

So what is your, when you think about the things that you're most excited, which you shared some goals with me before we got on the air about, you know, what you're looking to accomplish this year, tell

me what you're most excited about, uh, doing with the remainder of this year.

Yeah. It's, um, getting, um, I wanna make myself, um, really, really, like, like how do, okay, how do I put this? As Cal Newport would've said it, I wanna make myself so good that they can't ignore me. Right.

And I don't mean that from a, like

coined that quote, by the way.

a Diddy. I didn't know that.

Yeah. That's where, that's where Cal got it from. He,

I didn't know that.

Yeah. So when you think of that, remember Steve Martin,

I will.

I will. Yeah. But yeah, I kind of got away a little while for like, I was getting really focused into, and I'm still focused on, I love business. I love building the business and that, but in, in making, you know, like, okay, you know, making money and everything, but when that just became the goal, it really wasn't like, it didn't stimulate me.

Right. Um, I realized like, Why am I not getting ahead? Oh, because I'm not, not actually to quote Jim Rohn, you've got to work harder on yourself and in your business. Right. I think Jim said that, but, and he's right. Cause when I wasn't working, when I stopped kind of stopped working on myself as much and working on the business more, I just didn't, I felt way out of whack, like really out of balance, you know, and I'm still kind of like getting over that and getting back into reading and learning and meditating again.

And it's a practice. I mean, you really have to, really have to. Hold yourself to the torch for that one, right? Because it's easy just to jump on the computer, go, okay, I'm gonna like finish off this, like build this product, do this,

Plus you get immediate results when you jump on a computer versus

right? Right. Yeah. It's really hard to track the results when you're because you can't, you know, even if you are getting better, it's like if nobody else is like watching you going, wow, you really got good at that thing, then if there's no feedback, then you're just like, you're going to go for the one thing where you can actually see the result, which may be like, Oh, I got more money this week, or I got like whatever it might be, right?

Like you can actually See that, you know,

James Clear. I think James Clear refers to that as what's called a lagging indicator. So you're

lagging indicators are the ones that people have a hard time saying because you put in the discipline for two years. Now you're starting to get those results.

right.

a sign of a good process.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I love that process. I mean, and I think like, again, I just have to make it a daily reprieve, reprieve where I'm, you know, waking up, putting in the, call it the morning routine. I mean, for me, it's like, you know, deep breathing, meditation, a bit of reading before I start work. So I usually start pretty early.

I like to start at like around seven o'clock or eight o'clock. So, you know, but, uh, but you always have to come back to, you know, the self, like, and again, like not, uh, It's not an ego thing if we're not working on ourselves, and I feel like you know just like the rest of it's not going to matter anyway.

And if you're not taking care of your health and you get sick, well, you can't do the work anyway. So you've got to take care of like, you're like the pre the making the meals ahead of time. That's perfect. You know, like you've got your meals stacked up in your fridge. I love that idea. I haven't actually done that before.

I'm more like, okay, I know what I'm going to eat, but it's like, I have to go and prepare and stuff like that. And you know, but um, there's just having that, um, having everything laid out ahead of time. Of your schedule makes perfect sense. 'cause now you're just eliminating the, uh, risk of procrastinating and, you know, eating junk food, for example.

So,

Yeah, never try to make big decisions first thing in the morning and remove

mm

barriers to entry as you like. Literally, I don't like to choose what I'm going to wear for the day on

the more in the morning. I'd rather just lay it out. So it's, it's all move, move, move, uh, uh, bow Meister who does the willpower theory. Uh, we'll tell you that you start your day off with a bucket

and with each passing hour, that bucket of willpower gets lower, which, by the way, is the theories as to why people do really stupid things with their life in the evening, like

make big mistakes in their life. We'll leave it at that. But, um, I always look at that and go conserve that bucket. To where

that, to where that by the time you're it's eight or nine in the evening and you're detaching, it's, it's near the end. Uh, you don't want it full at the end because you haven't done anything, but I try to be cognizant of that. And I love your approach to, I mean, the, the, the, the thing I'm hearing, like the Lexus, uh, mantra is the relentless pursuit of perfection, right. And focusing on the self, uh, in terms of not sharpening your own sword, you know, it is. Especially, um, uh, when you've made it past what, uh, David Brooks would call the first mountain, you're in the second mountain of your life. I would assume you're in the second mountain as well, which is you've made it past the first three levels of Maslow's hierarchy. you're kind of like, what do I do now? That's going to bring me fulfillment. You've gotten past the money. You've gotten past the food and shelter. You've got family or whatever. What am I going to do with this? And what I have found is, is kind of like what you just said, which is. You have to, you have to kind of, whether it's. love or hate day with yourself. You have to respect the self development angle of, uh, you said the deep breathing, right. and for me, it's, uh, I do like the cold plunge and all that in the morning to

start my day. And. It's not that I'm, uh, naturally, uh, loaded with grit or resilience. I do those things because I know if I don't do those things, I immediately start to lose my edge in life. And the, the caveat there is no one cares, right? Except for us. But. It's important that we care. People can sense that you care about it. I sense it.

I sense that.

you're stepping up to the next level here. I'm glad I get to be a part of it.

You sense, right? Yeah. I mean, that's interesting because you know, today was one of these days where like I Did a bunch of zoom calls in the morning. And my bucket, by the way, is depleted by 12 o'clock. And I just like, I says, I had a bunch of other stuff that I wanted to do. And I was just like, I didn't have a lot left.

And I thought, but I felt guilty just kind of sitting around thinking, you know, not really working. You're kind of like between where, well, it should be working, but I'm just going to watch some more Netflix. And I realized like, okay, if I'm not going to work, I'm going to go outside and just do it. Get out there and do something.

Right. Um, went to the gym yesterday, so I'm not going to do that today. I'm gonna kind of take a day off, but I just went for a long walk and just, um, enjoyed feeling guilty about not working for the rest of the day. But maybe like we need more of that. So I needed more of that. I think, you know, where it's like,

yeah,

the transition space. Uh,

the transition

learned, uh, when, when I was in my twenties and thirties, um, I didn't need much transition. I could, I could,

hop out of one thing and go in there. I could, I could leave the television and go straight to bed and go to

Mm-Hmm. .

days are over. Um, I now have to respect that there's like a, a gap depending on what I just went through, but for me, uh, obviously not feasible for everybody, but for me, uh, my number one hack for the last year has been doing an hour or, or going out to the barrel sauna an hour before bed, no phone, just a book, and by the time I've sweated out in there, I'm like, you know what?

I don't need any more stimulation today. I'm ready to call it, but it took that trend. It forces me into a space where I have to transition, right? Cause you don't really want to take technology and things like that in there and respecting that. I just can't turn off the monkey in the back of my head that's hitting the symbols.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I love that. Uh, the transition space, but that's exactly what it was. Just like, okay, I've accepted the fact that I'm just gonna. You know, think today, I'm just going to think about like, what is the next level? What am I really working towards? You know, what is, um, what am I working on?

That's actually not beneficial to my life and my business and my family and all this right. And kind of starting to question these things. And I realized like, wow, so there's a lot more to it than just like, cause I'm just like, you know, put me in front of the computer and I might stay here for like three or four hours just working on a bunch of random stuff, you know, and.

That's just, um, well, it's not good for the bucket because you'll deplete yourself very quickly and you'll get, uh, you'll put in a day's work and realize you got nothing done.

Absolutely. Absolutely. These are wise words here. You remind me a lot of how I feel if I don't journal for the day. If I journal for like

Yeah.

10 minutes, I usually have some type of structure. If I kid myself, which I do on a regular basis, I kid myself, I don't really need it today because I kind of know what I want to do. I almost always regret not doing that.

So where can people find out more about you and when your next book is, or, or I should say, you're not really targeting books right now, so maybe your existing book collection.

yeah, well, to be honest, I'm always, um, I've got multiple books in the pipeline all the time. We've got one coming out in October, but they can find more about me at scottallenbooks. com. We have the Shopify store set up there. We're still building a lot of things out, but, uh, yeah, I put a lot of work into it so they can go there.

Um, I also have a newsletter that I put out, uh, Like once or twice a week. And so, uh, they can join the newsletter as well. And, um, yeah, we can put the links in the show for the, like the link tree. They can find, um, I've got a link tree. Um,

Yeah. I've got it pulled up. Yeah. It's very, it's

very thorough.

and they go there, they can pretty much find everything. I love link tree cause everything's just like lined up right there.

All the interviews I've done and stuff like that. Uh, so. Yeah, I just point them in that direction. And, and, Hey, you can always go to Google and just plug in Scott Allen books or Scott Allen interviews, and they can find a lot of interviews on there, too. Yeah, I've, um, I just love, um, connecting with people doing, you know, talking about the

things that really matter.

Well, I think it's just because, um, I wanted to get really, you know, better at the public speaking thing, but also just being able to, um, talk about these things. Like a lot of people were saying, well, you've written a lot of books, but haven't seen much of you out in like, haven't seen much of you on social media or where are your interviews?

And I've done quite a few of them in the past, but it was only if people came to me and said, Hey, uh, would you mind doing like, if they asked me, I'd be like, okay, sure. I'll do an interview, but I'm really enjoying, uh, you know, like the, uh,

I'm enjoying the journey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing and making us part of your journey today.

It's been great. Thanks for having me on the show.