What up, though? Welcome back to. I'm Growing man. It's your man, john D, in the building. Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, wherever you are.

I'm in a growth mindset in my everyday life, but today I decided that I want to share it with you guys. I feel like time is important, but or wait for school to be out. It was like it just seemed like forever, and now that I'm closer to 50 than 40, I can see how I've been blessed because I'm still here to tell a story and to try to help anybody who's interested in navigating a little more smoother than the ride that they're on. I'm not saying that any of my information is the right way to do it, so all I'm doing is just recommending, suggesting that if you've come to some roadblocks, you're looking for some answers and maybe if you look in certain places, they'll be right there. But with the time that we've been given, you would think that it would be a blessing if somebody just gave you this book of life and you got to pick what you wanted to do, and I think that would have been easy, right, you got to pick what you wanted to do and I think that would have been easy, right. But in this life we live in. I think it was supposed to be difficult with the information we had. You know, I know a lot of people think that if they had this versus if they had that, that they would be in such a better place. But I think and this is just me thinking everybody has a shot to do whatever they want, but they have to put their own effort in to getting a result that they didn't know they could get. They said the human mind is so powerful and if you don't use it you'll lose it.

And I think people get messed up about what they think an educational system is supposed to do for our kids. It's not the educational system. The educational system is just a resource. Parents shouldn't send their kids to be raised by a bunch of strangers, and I think when they say that the educational system is failing our kids, no, our parents are failing our kids because we don't know how to do this. And if you don't know how to do it and you do it too early, you become a parent too early. There are a lot of things that one should learn before they start practicing having sex, let alone having a baby. So we have to think about how we're using our time and, like I said, I don't think it's the educational system. I do believe the educational system can improve in areas. Don't think it's the educational system. I do believe the educational system can improve in areas, but I think it's doing everything that it can and, at the end of the day, teachers are burnt out and they feel that they're underpaid.

This is where your time plays a role. You pretty much only have eight hours a day, unless you're a blessing where you get the work in your craft, but you only have eight hours a day, unless you're a blessing where you get the work in your craft, but you only have eight hours a day. You got eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work and the eight hours you do to get out of the whatever you're in or to change whatever you're in. You have to ask yourself what are you doing with your time? Are you scrolling? And if you're scrolling, there's nothing wrong with it, but are you learning from it? Are you getting feedback on how to improve something? Are you watching TV? Are you like constantly escaping your reality because you don't like it? And if that's the case, that means you're going to stay in that and you're going to complain a whole lot during this journey. But if you maximize that eight hours and, like I said, some of you lucky you could literally have 16 hours in the day to work on a skill set that could separate you from everybody around you. But you have to put the effort in, you have to maximize your time.

My wife and I are 17 years and we've known each other maybe 24 years 24 years, 25, something like a quarter of a century. The point of this whole whole this episode was just talk about time, because I was just thinking like if she and I are not on the right page, I don't want for her at any point to think that I don't love her and that I want us to figure it out Like a lot of us are learning to control our emotions and we allow our emotions to take time away from us because we just walk past the people we care about, thinking that we may not. We may get up tomorrow Like we. It's almost like we take it for granted and I wanted to get on here because I don't think people understand.

In order to truly be happy, you have to look at what you're doing with those eight hours, like if you're having a good time and you're not working on anything specifically, you're going to complain a lot. I mean a lot, because those eight hours let's, let's do an analogy. If this was sports, okay, eight hours is the off season. What are you doing in the off season? To perform the way you want, when it counts. And a lot of times we just meet lollygagging, chilling, like. Even if you drew, draw artists, you worked on that one to two hours a day and I'm like dang, that's a lot. But you can watch TV one to two hours and guess what? Watching TV is getting you no closer to a payday. If you're going to waste your time doing nothing, you might as well do something, and the more you do it, you'll eventually become so good where people will pay you for your services. But you have to like put the work in, and I think that people skip that part and that's the reason why they complain so much. I can't believe that I'm as blessed as I am to like be able to share with the world.

You could change your life through your own effort, and when I say your own effort, I mean like just waking up, like when I wake up, I'm looking at the time, seeing how close it is to the time I'm supposed to get up. My alarm is set to go off at 4 am. I'll say between an hour an hour, 10 minutes by 2. I'm probably just going to stay up. If I wake up at 250 or later, but early, I'll try to go back to sleep because I want to try to get as much sleep as possible. But when I get up, I have a routine where I'm working on communication every single day and, like some people, like, well, I don't want to do that. You don't have to do that. You can do whatever you want. But I'm trying to get you to buy into an idea that if you work on something it'll get better and eventually you'll get compensated for it. But you have to put in an effort that you haven't seen before, like nowhere, because if you've seen it before, you would be doing it. You would be practicing, practicing it.

When I wake up, I'm studying language. I'm studying chess, different strategies on how to recognize better moves before I make a move. I'm meditating, I'm trying to utilize my time. Remember this episode is about time. I'm telling you how I'm using it, where I can develop something later. This is something that's like I don't want to do that. You don't have to do anything that I'm doing because I actually enjoy doing what I do. You have to find something that I'm doing because I actually enjoy doing what I do. You have to find something that you enjoy doing and just keep sharpening it Every single day. Keep sharpening it Every single day. Over the course of time it's going to be super sharp. It's going to open up doors for you because you kept working on it. It's going to separate you from people who do it and who get paid to do it. And you don't even have to go to school for it, you just have to put the work in. I'll tell you this I'm in education. Most of you guys already know that I'm working on the art of communication every single day.

Any and everybody could work on communication and it will change the results in their life. Communication no lie. If you intentionally learn how to communicate better, you find a happiness that you wish you knew when you were younger. Because just because somebody speaks the same language as you does not mean that they're good communicators. Speaks the same language as you does not mean that they're good communicators. You know like you have to talk to somebody to know where they are, and a lot of times we assume the worst in people. But if you worked on your communication, you will give people the grace that they needed so that you don't ruin your day. But not only that, that's just interaction with people. But if you work on your communication, you learn to set boundaries with everything, like with people.

Some people were like they don't like people who set boundaries. That sounds crazy, don't it? Everybody should have boundaries and the problem is is if you don't set a boundary, you're not a good communicator, because a good communicator when I say good, I mean the person on the other end receives the message, just because you said I told them what the boundary was. If it didn't work, they didn't receive it. And if they're not receiving the message, you probably shouldn't be interacting with this person, especially if it's physical, mental, verbal. Any type of abuse is unacceptable, so please keep that in mind as we learn how to use our time and be productive.

The best communicators in the world have the least amount of arguments, unless they want to argue on purpose. I've done my best to learn not to argue, because nobody's really right. We're just sharing information and something might be better than the other, but no one's really right and unless you do it you don't know if it's right. Misunderstandings, the disputes, the loud, the hands moving around, the obnoxious interactions would reduce and check this out. I know sometimes we can have fun with that, but a lot of the times it comes from having fun but it crosses somebody's boundary, somebody feels offended, somebody's gone too far and they didn't even know that they went too far, but now we're in a confrontation, all because we didn't know how to communicate effectively. So any and everybody, whatever field you're in, if you worked on communication, it would improve and probably put you in an elite class of your field within five to 10 years, depending and this is look, this is depending on how serious you take working on communication.

I was telling my students today communication is by far one of the most effective tools I mean one of the most important tools that you have to have in life If you're going to to enjoy it. If you're not a good communicator, you're probably fighting a whole lot, probably arguing a whole lot. You probably write a whole lot. Great communicators, they don't really have time to go back and forth. And that's what I want to become, because I know that I'm still immature in that area. I still find myself going back and forth with kids and that just shows you that there's parts of me that never developed and I'm acknowledging that and totally understand my shortcomings. But it's not going to stop me because I know it's there.

But at some point, like students will be able to be, they'll receive the message. We're like oh, mr Lewis is here to give me this, and then you know what I want to do. I want to become so cold. This is the reason why I use my eight hours to work on me and my craft, the art of communication. No lie, that's my eight hours, like even my downtime. Let me get back. So I want to become so good at communicating where students will want to become teachers, because I've been thinking like a lot of times we want to go in the fields that make money.

If you come from a financially poor environment, you only want to go to college to get a job to make money. Like if you hear a kid that says nothing about money. No matter if you hear any kids say that that they grew up in a safe place, because when you get distracted by the idea of money, you end up going into a field that you don't even want to practice and, by the grace of God, I found education, because I definitely didn't go into education, but I can see the impact that I'm making and I can see that I'm trying to be the teacher that I thought I needed. I want somebody to be able to like, see me and say, hey, man, you shouldn't do that, you should do this, you should consider doing that. Be a safe place and say, hey, like I know you come from a tough background, but if you do this, this and this, this will happen, and I want to be that resource to these students. But by doing that, this and this, this will happen. And I want to be that resource to these students. But by doing that, I want to convince them that if they can receive my message, just guess how many could receive their message and I know that they're kids right now.

But as a teacher, the object is to help students learn as much information during the time you have them so they can make better decisions for tomorrow. Some of these students could philosophically change the world if they believe that they could do it, but just imagine if they started now. I didn't even get on this path until, like, I, was like 41. I've been in education, but my idea of trying to help students was just. It was a different view. My idea of trying to help students was just. It was a different view. The view now if I can convince students to believe they're that important, they'll work. They'll do more for themselves. It's not for me, it's not for their parents, it's for them. They have to believe that they're that important.

So, with my time, I focus on communication, because if you can come up with words where students believe in themselves, no matter what environment they come from, nothing can stop them. And I'm so energized to get better because, as long as I'm around, I'm going to keep working on my craft, appreciating the time that I have, but I do want to pass that message on. You know what? It's so crazy. That's why I love my podcast, because I just now realized I did want to talk about this, but I wanted to stay on the time part because we are immature in our emotions, where we will eat up a lot of our time with people that we care about.

And I know people that stop talking to people for years, as if tomorrow is promised, and I've seen people become different people. When they weren't able to apologize or just something, they feel like it was out of their control. And through this process I went to hug my wife and told her I said I love you. You're going to die one day. I'm going to die one day, but I don't want her to ever believe or feel like she's not the reason why I become the man that I became, because without her I can't be me. It's almost like she helped groom an immature boy who was dressed like a man. You know, and I know she wasn't ready for that experience, but I wanted her to know that I love her. I'm always going to try to do my best to protect her in any and every way.

You know, sometimes, like I said, we didn't get the book of life and the relationship thing. I learned that through time too. You know you can't have a great relationship with your person if you don't spend time with them, like I think a lot of times people get to that point where we just spend time around holidays or like special occasions. But the interaction on a day-to-day basis is necessary to be happy and healthy, a fulfilled relationship Like I'm saying this to be fulfilled in a relationship where you would want to promote it. You have to interact with your partner intentionally every single day, and when I say that, this is what happens when you do this. And look, this is still dealing with my time. This is the intentional part of my eight hours.

She and I create a relationship that I didn't know we could create. Honestly, I was just like trying to get to know her and then, as I was getting to know her, I realized I enjoyed being around her more than I thought. Like I said, we were married 10, 11 years before I started taking this journey, but we spent time together but it wasn't like I was looking for her. Now I'd be looking for her where I just expect her to be, somewhere where we can get together and enjoy each other's company. But you have to do that on purpose.

The men who actually do that on purpose and the women who are on that same page, their relationship changes. It's some process where it's magnetic and you know I know a lot of people like really put this idea that sex is really important in a relationship and I've turned people off on my views, but I know my views are probably correct because to all the other views, the women get the short end of the stick and I feel like if men keep controlling this narrative of how important that is in a relationship, it won't ever get there, because sex is to make kids and to have beautiful moments with the person you care for. It does not mean you're supposed to have these beautiful moments that way every single day, or whenever the wind blow and you excited Like we learned that part of the message is wrong and that's the reason why relationships don't work because the men and women have this idea of what they think it's supposed to look like and to fulfill the requirements of a man's libido. And sometimes the women who claim that they have this libido but I didn't mean to sound like that but women don't understand the libido practice of a man and I'm not saying all women, but majority of men. They start out with a high libido.

You know, and you know growing up as a kid you think that if you do get married, you guys are going to be able to do that all the time. But that is a false and terrible idea about marriage. Like I'm telling you, me and my wife have had so many moments that I can't even like. Just in the last four or five years we've had more moments than we did in the previous 12. And we did a lot of things, but now it's like every day, every day could be a moment. That's why that time is so important.

If you don't put that time in, life is going to pass you by, and the goal of this podcast is to help people focus on how good they can become so that at least they can scratch that Work on your craft every single day. You will separate yourself and eventually somebody will pay you for it. You keep working on it, but that's why you got to do something you love too. You have to do something you love because then it becomes a job. At least, if it's something you love, turn it off, you know. But if it's something that you don't love, you're not going to be happy doing it to complete the process and you won't utilize your time the way it needs to to sharpen that sword. You have to put in that effort, because I'm telling you, if you don't put that effort in, you're hoping your kid is going to save you.

I'm about to end this. I just wanted. I want to say thank you to those of you that actually get in here and check me out, because you don't have to come up in here and although I know this information is beneficial, I know sometimes trying to get my thoughts out is kind of tough. I'm glad I get to edit some of this because I'm telling you I'll be having some long pauses and I'm just glad I got that because it would be really tough to listen to. Easy this is to listen to, but I do know the information I'm trying to give will only make you better.

It can't hurt you and it starts with that day. There's got to be a day where you're at the bottom. I don't know what your bottom look like, but you know what's so cold. If you don't have to ever get to your bottom before you turn it around, because some people let their time pass and they hit rock bottom before they can turn it around and sometimes there's no time left. So I'm telling you, put that work in and if you figure it out before hitting rock bottom, you're going to. You're like, you're going to be like an exception Because, like I said, a lot of people got to hit rock bottom before they turn it around. Just imagine you can separate yourself in life with people like dang, I ain't have to hit rock bottom and I still turned it on.

Because I'm telling you, life is limitless and you can go get any and everything you want if you have the right information, the effort and consistency. You got to do it for the rest of your life. I'm so happy that everything that I want to be good in outside of me playing the piano, it's just like me thinking and being able to articulate, and I believe, god willing, I don't lose my voice or anything like that or you know any type of functions that could make this a not so good investment. But I'm investing in myself to become a better communicator so that I can help people at least enjoy life that much more. Because I'm telling you, the key is communication.

Because if you can tell somebody what you want and they understand it and they got it, they're going to give it to you and vice versa. It works both ways. If somebody's compelling enough to tell you to give them something and you got it, you'll do it. You know. I know some people aren't in that situation, but that's what life's about. Y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G-a-t-a Get after that action or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose.