The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
I'M READY NOW! PODCAST
The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
EP 17: Transformative Journeys: From Comfort to Growth (Sew Up Your Buttonholes)
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Ever wondered how stepping out of your comfort zone could transform your life? Join me as I share a heartfelt story about my unexpected journey of self-discovery. We dive into the concept of automaticity—those mindless routines we often find ourselves stuck in—and explore how shaking things up can lead to personal growth and renewed vitality. Drawing inspiration from Dan Miller, I invite you to challenge your daily habits, much like sewing up buttonholes, and embrace the potential for change that lies within each of us.
From battling the anxiety of unfamiliar commutes on Metrolink to expanding my literary world with new genres introduced by my children, I recount how these small acts of change have enriched my life in unexpected ways. Consider what changes you can make today to rejuvenate your mind and spark new opportunities. Whether it's breaking free from routine or experiencing the emotional rewards of volunteering, let's journey together towards embracing change and the endless possibilities it offers.
Introduction
Speaker 1Welcome to the I'm Ready Now podcast ideas to help you when you're ready for change . I'm your host , isaac Sanchez , here . I share my musings on whatever it is I am reading at the moment , as well as any other ideas that I believe will help you break free from a standstill in your thinking in order to get you dreaming again . Thank you for joining me today . Well , I'm ready now . How about you ? Excellent , so let's get started .
Welcome
Speaker 1Welcome back to the I'm Ready Now podcast . Thank you for joining me . I'm your host , isaac Sanchez , and , as always , I'm excited that we're together again . I always look forward to spending this time together . I hope you do too , and , judging by the fact that there are still downloads , you're enjoying the time as well . So thank you so much . As usual , here are my standard reminders I like to share right at the top . First , there are chapter markers on this podcast , so if you want to get straight to the content , use those markers . Skip right ahead . No harm , no foul . I understand . Also , remember that in the description of this episode , there is a link you can tap to text me there . You can leave your feedback on the topics we're addressing as well . You can always email me at IsaacSanchez at Maccom . I look forward to hearing from you .
What's up in your world? Volunteering!
Speaker 1What's up in your world Well , in mine , volunteering At the place that we worship , they have a Thanksgiving service opportunity and it's really cool . It's all day on Thanksgiving , most of the early morning to late afternoon , and what they do is they bring in busloads throughout the day of people who are experiencing homelessness . Last year , I believe they said there was 800 people and these are all folks from local shelters . We're new to this place of worship so we're just kind of learning this , but they were showing video about this and whatnot and we knew we wanted to volunteer and this is a really cool thing . It's called BlessFest and one of the cool things that we learned is because it starts early in the morning , but throughout the day too this is still good news that Starbucks offers to serve coffee to these folks for free and the regional manager of this local Starbucks pays the employees to attend to the stand on the campus . Now that's really great . These folks are getting some wonderful coffee and Starbucks is paying to have their employees there . So that was just really cool to learn . There's so many other folks that are coming together to make this happen , but that was really neat to learn about that . The guy that's running this thing at the church mentioned that . This regional person said that . I guess a manager said that this is the event that he or she , I don't recall looks forward to every year , and so they make sure that they have it staffed .
Speaker 1So my wife and I want to make you know service and volunteering a part of our new life together . When we got married , even before we got married , when we were talking about what we want our marriage to look like , and so giving back is such an important part of your emotional health and even emotional healing , and so we wanted to do something like this . So we just believe that it's better to give than to receive . We attended the orientation the other day and are just more excited to serve than ever . So we'll look for other opportunities during the season and use this as a way to propel us into the new year , trying to make it a regular , monthly , whatever works out , monthly , weekly , whatever works out but some opportunity to be able to serve . So I encourage you to find a way and a place to serve . Give to others without anything in return , and just find a way to make this happen as your schedule allows . So volunteering , it's a wonderful thing .
Speaker 1Well , let's move into this week's talk . I told you I was going to upset you a bit , and if I did upset you you would still like me for it . Week's talk I told you I was going to upset you a bit , and if I did upset you you would still like me for it . That's right , I'd upset you , but you'd like me for it . So Dan Miller is going to keep us friends this week as we sew up your buttonholes , those ones on your vest or overcoat you're starting to wear in this cooler weather , at least here in Southern California . So let's get to this ,
Podcast Content: Transformative Journeys: From Comfort to Growth
Speaker 1all right . So what is all this sewing up buttonholes all about ?
Speaker 1Well , dan Miller throws back to a story he recalls of a young girl sewing up a few of the buttonholes of her father's vest . Now he was a professor , and so one morning , as his fingers just kind of thoughtlessly went down the vest ready to button up those holes , as he always has , his fingers ran into some difficulty For the first time in a long time . Suddenly he had to do something differently . He had to look down at what he was doing . So the professor took this experience and began pranking his students , forcing them out of their mindless routines . He'd do different things , you know , hide their books and just all kinds of things , just change things up , that they'd have to force them to do things differently . Well , what was confirmed for this professor is what Dan Miller is highlighting for us today . And to quote Dan Miller , he says as long as these students could keep on doing the things they had always done , their minds wouldn't work . It was only when he figuratively sewed up their buttonholes , stole their notebooks , locked the doors , upset their routine that any thinking was done .
Speaker 1Now , isn't that a fascinating reality . You've probably experienced this idea for yourself . So basically , that's automaticity . The brain tries to automate as much as possible . Only when the typical order of these things does not work does the brain begin to think . Dan has this strong line . Concluding this thought . Quote keeping things the same way may be keeping you stupid , close quote . Ouch , but true . So he's got some advice for us .
Speaker 1Dan moves on to give us some great advice based on this reality . Quote , quote sew up some buttonholes in your life , close quote . So how can you and I do that ? Well , you can drive home by a different route . You can read a book whose genre you typically would not consider reading . Volunteer at some community project , you get the idea , break things up in a way you typically would not and see what amazing experiences and opportunities come about just because you took time to do something differently . Well , this really resonated with me and I want to share just a couple experiences from me about this topic .
Speaker 1One was when I was living about an hour and 15 minutes from work . I commuted for a year in Southern California traffic Awful , by the way . Well , my daughter then in high school was with me every other week and she told me that she knows people who take the Metrolink , the train . Well , my first reluctance had to do with the idea that if okay , if I took the train , I'd be giving up some autonomy . I would not be able to stop and go about as I please . Well , that went by the wayside when I realized that once I got back in my car on the way home from work , I can go wherever the heck I wanted to . I was simply using the train to get me straight to work , just as I did when I was sitting on the jam-packed freeway . That's all I was doing . I was just substituting the vehicle , so I gave up that notion , the idea that I'd be losing my autonomy , and I decided I'd try the Metrolink . So there I go , sewing up buttonholes .
Speaker 1I remember clearly the morning I tried . I tried their app and it confused the heck out of me . So I decided just go ahead and drive over to the station it's only 15 to 20 minutes from my house and purchase a ticket from the kiosk there . So I arrived that morning , found the kiosk and then tried to get a ticket , to no avail . I just could not figure that thing out . Moreover , it said that no more trains were running the route I needed that morning . Now I knew that was not true , but I just could not get past figuring out the kiosk . So guess what I did ? I got back in my car and drove to work , so frustrated I was certain that the train was not for me and just kind of happy to go right along with the way I was normally doing things , mindlessly stuck in that traffic , cursing it all the way through . However , I gave it a chance and looked at the app more calmly over the next few days and gave it another try and lo and behold , I was on that dang train and I kept riding those rails . It was wonderful . I was able to get some work done a little bit and just relax when I wanted to , because someone else was behind the wheel getting us out to work .
Speaker 1Here's where that decision benefited me the best in the long run . Now , I could not have predicted this , but when my wife and I married two summers ago , the plan was that I would move out where she lived because she was buying her home . I was renting at the time . Well , she lived two hours away from my employment and the traffic for a massive chunk of the commute was just sitting around in traffic . Well , she lived two hours away from my employment and for most of that commute it was just sitting in a massive line of traffic and just doing what I hated to do sit around there and lose time in my life that I couldn't get back . So the good news was that my experience with the trains in other words , my willingness to tie up some buttonholes earlier , gave me the experience and the outright excitement actually to take the train , allowing me to rest when needed and to get some much needed work done while on the commute . So when we got married and I was out there , that was one of the first things I did is started setting up my commute . I knew the app well now , so I started working that out and figuring things out and it worked . It was great , still brutal . I was just a tough time getting up early in the morning and getting home late in the evening only to kind of have a bite to eat , share a little bit of time together , go back to sleep for not enough sleep and get up and do it again . But the fact that I was thoroughly okay commuting by train was because of a decision I allowed myself to take earlier , a few years before that .
Speaker 1There is another experience . A more brief example is my reading habits . I tend to read books in the self-help , business , marketing and coaching space . However , my kids , both young adults , 124 , 119 , they read a good amount of fiction and they read genres that I typically have not been drawn to . Good amount of fiction and they read genres that I typically have not been drawn to . However , a few years ago , my son asked me to try out one of the books he enjoyed and I finished it and I truly enjoyed it . There was a fair amount I did not understand , but that wasn't enough to derail me , it was a good experience sewing up those literary buttonholes . Now , this was different for my daughter , though . She too made suggestions , and I started but did not finish the book suggestions she made . Those books are on my desk and I'm officially here saying that I'm going to try again . She'll love that , and so will I .
Speaker 1There's one last point I want to make about the brain . There's one last point I want to make about the brain , and it's counter to what we're doing . So a brief bit about the brain . So Don Miller not Dan Miller , but Don Miller , who owns a business called Business Made Simple , and he talks about marketing and he says you want to go the opposite way in how you use the brain for marketing . We do not want it to work too hard . So that makes the marketing message simple . We want it to be simple . We don't want the brain working hard or being confused and having to rethink something . It just fascinates me that in the context of our talk here , we want to exert the brain , but in the context of marketing , we do not want the brain to work too hard on a message . You can actually lose a sale that way . So that just kind of interests me .
Speaker 1For today , though , just to be clear , let's get our brains working .
Wrap-up/Application
Speaker 1All right , you know what time it is . Let's wrap up with an application the most important part of our time together . So get your digital notepad or your pen to paper and let's apply what we've learned here . Okay , for our application .
Speaker 1Dan Miller asks us a question what could you do today to wake up your mind Today ? So we don't want to delay this . Let's jump on this and practice this today . So Dan did give us some ideas earlier . Drive home by different route . Read a book whose genre you typically would not consider reading . Okay , volunteer at some community project . So you know some ideas that are more tailor-made for you .
Speaker 1The key is to make a decision on something that you can shake up a bit , to challenge yourself in a big or small way . I hope that when you do , some new and wonderful experience shows up that makes you so glad that you tried something different . Let's go out there and sew up our button .
Next Week's Topic
Speaker 1What's happening next week ? Well , when was the last time you read a book ? How do you stack up with national statistics , at least here in the US ? Next week , we'll see how you stack up . If you think you're below average , you've got one week to go grab some books and get a speed reading course and get busy . Go on , go get that library card
Closing Quote
Speaker 1.
Speaker 1Okay , let me send you away with the quote . Life is like riding a bicycle To keep your balance , you must keep moving . That is from Albert Einstein . That's it . That's the quote . Think about it , act on it . Have an amazing week , friends , and thanks for hanging out . Let's do this again next week . Thank you for listening . If you found this time together useful , please consider following this podcast and leaving an excellent rating . If you feel you can't do that yet , please reach out to me and let me know what I can do to get you to leave a top rating . If you are already excited about what you've heard , please consider sharing this podcast with a friend . I really would appreciate it . Also , I'd love your feedback , both on today's topic as well as what you'd like to hear me address in the future . I would really appreciate that input . Again , I'm your host , isaac Sanchez . I hope today's thought serves you the way it has served me . Remember your next move is just one inside away . Have an amazing rest of your day . I'll see you next time .