Have You Lost Focus?

Why do talented people still miss their moment?

In this episode, Gregory Vetter breaks down a hard truth: it usually isn’t lack of talent. It’s lack of focus.

When pressure hits, people don’t rise to their hopes. They fall to their preparation. And preparation is built by where your attention has been living long before the 

moment arrived.

This episode explores the connection between focus, discipline, honesty, and daily habits. Greg talks about why most people avoid telling themselves the truth, why comfort weakens character, and why grounding yourself every morning matters more than most people realize.

Writing out your goals, why they matter, what you need to do that day, and what weaknesses are getting in your way sounds simple.

That’s because it is.

Simple doesn’t mean easy.
It means effective.

This is a conversation about blinders, discipline, preparation, and learning how to keep the mission bigger than the distractions.

Because in the moments that matter most, a divided mind breaks.

Visit My Website: https://www.gregoryvetter.com/

Podcast: https://youtube.com/@gregoryvetter?si=pMLS8CMW_tqaBFGi

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glvetter?igsh=MW5rN2tqeWdreXJ1cA==

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gregorylvetter?_r=1&_t=ZP-917lH2Ah5Tz

Youtube Shorts: https://youtube.com/@gregoryvettershorts?si=Qg4bRQL4xmRl8cwQ

Purchase My Books Here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Gregory-L.-Vetter/author/B0DSJRHJQS?ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=a24a52fb-666f-43a2-9eeb-40b8266ae702

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Every morning you write out your goals, why they are your goals, what you're gonna do that day to work towards your goals, why it matters, what weaknesses you currently have that are preventing you from accomplishing your goals. Maybe you're distracted, maybe you're sleeping in. But if you use that moment for gratitude, reflection, grounding, you will be prepared. It is the habitual dedication to grounding yourself in wire. Greg Venner Podcast, I'm here with GoGoMo. We are gonna be talking about my Substack article on Focus.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Just tell me what you're feeling right now. Even in your wildest dreams, did you dream it up this way?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Um, I don't know. I mean, I'm just proud that we won. I'm so happy that this group of guys can win, can win and win the gold medalists. So happy the USA hockey's on top.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

I mean, I'm only having that as a reminder to me again. It's a reminder too. Did I just shovel about this game?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Just I'm I'm lucky I'm from the best country in the world. And we got a great dentist there too. So I'm I'm lucky I'm American and they're gonna fix me right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Stand in the middle and listen to the anthem and what's going through your hand.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Just so proud. I'm so proud of the American. I'm so proud of this group. I'm so happy that we could win. You know, we have so many people here supporting us. We have so many people back home supporting us. And you know, we're just we're we're so thrilled with how this whole tournament played in, you know, just an unbelievable moment for USA hockey. You know, so many of these guys have been like with USA Hockey for so long. We have so many ex-players, ex-Olympians. All the guys we looked up to reached out to us. We got their notes on the wall in the locker room, and they sent some unbelievable messages. Stuff that, you know, puts tears in your eyes, honestly, because it means so much to them. It means so much to us. And the next batch of kids in the next 20 years, it's gonna mean so much to them. So that's why we do this. The USA Brother Hockey Brotherhood is so strong. We're so proud that we could do it for them. We're so proud we could do it for everyone back home.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Blood on his lip, gap and a smile, gold medal around his neck. We'll be replayed for the next 50 years. This is all about our country right now. I love the USA. I love my teammates. The USA Hockey Brotherhood is so strong. You know what he didn't talk about? His brand, his platform, his political opinions, his personal identity, his social media strategy, his feelings about anything other than the team, the mission, the country on his chest. He talked about the mission because that's all he'd been talking about. And there's a concept in psychology called attentional narrowing and the phenomenon where high-pressure situations compress your field of focus to whatever you've trained your brain to treat as primary. Under extreme stress, you don't rise to the level of your aspirations, you fall to the level of your preparation. And your preparation is determined by where your attention has been living in the weeks and months before the moment. Hughes' attention had been living in one place, win this game. When the stick hit his face and the teeth came out and the blood started flowing, his nervous system didn't spiral into self-concerned, it narrowed into the mission. Now compare that to Amber Glenn. Glenn is a world-class athlete, three consecutive U.S. national championships. The first woman to do that since Michelle Kwan won eight straight. She landed a triple axle at the Olympics, a jump so difficult only one other woman in the entire competition even attempted it. Her talent is not in question. Her talent is extraordinary. But in the days before the biggest competition of her life, her attention was not narrowed to the mission. It was scattered across press conferences about the political climate, social media battles, about the LGBTQ plus rights and death threats she was receiving online and the emotional weight of being a public symbol for a community under pressure. She had to step away from social media for her mental health. She wore an LGBTQ plus pin during the team medal ceremony. She told reporters she had hoped to use her platform through the games to encourage people of that community to stay strong. And then she stepped onto the ice for the short program, the most important four minutes of her athletic career. And she under-rotated the triple loop. A jump she'd landed thousands of times, a jump virtually every other skater in the competition completed without incident. And she got a zero for the element. And she dropped to 13th place. Okay, she was picked to win the goal. Afterwards, through tears, she said something that should haunt every ambitious person reading this. I just lost focus. Four words and they explain everything. I don't think Amber Glenn is wrong to care about her community. I don't think she's wrong to have political convictions. I don't think she's wrong to use her platform. Those are real things that matter to a real person, and I respect that. But the Olympics happen once, maybe twice if you're lucky. In the window where everything has to come together, your body, your mind, your preparation, your nerve is measured in minutes, not days, not weeks, minutes. And in those minutes, the only question that matters is where has your attention been living? If it's been living in the mission, you have a chance. If it's been living in anything else, anything, no matter how valid, no matter how important, you're walking onto the ice with a divided mind. And a divided mind under Olympic pressure breaks. Now, here's what makes the hockey story even more remarkable. It wasn't just Hughes, it was the entire team. Connor Hellebuck made 41 saves, including a breakaway save on Connor McDavid and a desperation stick save that should be physically impossible. Canada outshot the U.S. 41 to 27. They had all the momentum in the second period and most of the third. By every statistical measure, Canada should have won the game. But after the game, when the gold medals were around their necks and the celebration was underway, the team didn't scatter to their individual brand moments. They skated over to the boards and grabbed a jersey, Johnny Goudreau's jersey. Goodreaux and his brother were killed by a drunk driver in August 2024. The team had hung his jersey in the locker room for the entire tournament. And after winning the biggest game of their lives, Dylan Larkin and Zach Worensky carried Goudreau's young children onto the ice so that they could be part of the celebration. That's not a group of individuals chasing personal glory on a shared stage. That's a team. One mission, one purpose. Even their grief was shared. Werensky had shared before the game, it's on us to make them proud. Not, it's on me to make my brand bigger. Not, it's on me to use this platform. It's on us to make them proud. That distinction us, them versus me, my it's the whole game. I don't think it's a coincidence that Netflix released Miracle, the boys of 80, three weeks before this gold medal game. I don't believe in coincidences. That documentary tells the same story with different names in a different decade. Her Brooks took a group of college college kids who half hated each other and forged them into something singular. He was, by all accounts, a son of a bitch to play for. Micah Rusioni called him worse than that in the documentary. But Brooks understood something that most coaches and most people never figure out. The mission has to be bigger than the individual. And the individual has to sacrifice individual identity to serve the mission. Not forever, not in every area of life, but in the arena. During the window when performance is the only thing that matters. The self has to shrink so the team can expand. That's not suppression, that's focus. Those are different things. In 1980, the 1980 team did it against the Soviets, the 2026 team did it against Canada. Both times on February 22nd. Both times against opponents who were supposed to win. Both times through a kind of collective narrowing that turned 20-something individuals into one organism with one heartbeat aimed at one outcome. There's something to be learned from these Olympics that goes way beyond sports. Everyone in that competition was capable. Everyone was elite. The gap between gold and 13th place wasn't talent. Amber Glenn can do things on the ice that maybe 30 people on the planet can do. Jack Hughes plays in the NHL against the best players alive every single night. The talent is not the variable. The variable is focus. What you allow into the frame, what you let live in your head during the window that matters, whether you can put on the blinders like a race horse wears, blocking out everything in the peripheral, in the peripheral vision that isn't the track directly ahead and run. Race horses wear blinders for a reason. Not because the world outside the track doesn't exist, not because the other horses don't matter, not because the crowd is irrelevant, but because in the moment of the race, the only thing that can help you is the track. Everything else is noise. And noise absorbed at full speed will make you drift. This is true in sports, it's true in business, it's true in marriage, in parenting, and building anything that requires sustained, undivided attention over time. The people who pull off miracles aren't the ones with the most talent. They're the ones who refuse to let anything, valid or not, important or not, fracture their focus during the window that mattered. If you have the capacity to put on your blinders, to focus every ounce of energy and soul you have on the mission in front of you with true intentions, with the kind of singular devotion that leaves nothing in reserve, you can pull off miracles, missing teeth, and all. Or not. That's the other option. You can arrive at the biggest moment of your life with a divided mind, a scattered focus, and a hundred valid reasons why your attention was somewhere else, and the moment will pass. And you'll say what everyone who missed their moment says. The question isn't whether you have distractions. Everyone does. The question is whether you have the discipline to set them down. Not abandon them, set them down during the window when everything is on the line. Pick them back up after. Fight your fights after. Use your platform after. But during the race, put blinders on. Teeth optional. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

And you came to write that just after you seen the um seen what went down with with the hockey team. Yeah. I mean so when when did you catch it? Was it scrolling or was it on the news? Or probably not the news for you, but what? The game? Oh, you watched the game. Fuck yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Oh, okay. And the the thing that got me was they were losing. Like they looked good in the first period. I thought, man, they're gonna win. The second period, I'm like, oh shit. The third period, I'm like, there's no, there's no way. There's no way they're gonna win this. They're just getting dominated. And the goalie stood on his head. I mean, he was blessed. He was blessed by God. It was it will go down as the greatest goalie performance in hockey in the history of the world. It was it was unbelievable, man. It was unbelievable. And his story is beautiful, too. This goalie.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

What's the goalie's name?

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Um, Hellibuck. His older brother, his parents didn't have a lot of money. And his older brother was on like a travel team, they're traveling all over the place. And his dad was like, yo, dogg, we can't swing it. You're just gonna have to kind of stay local and figure it out. So he did a great job. Then there was like an open tryout for kind of a higher team. He walked on, made it. Even dominating that league, which was an elite league, no colleges really wanted him. So he went to the only college that recruited him and then kind of dominated there too. But he had this just kind of like he had this life of proving himself right against all odds, which obviously is character development at its yeah, at its finest. So I'm watching all of this, and I'm just like, I couldn't believe it. I mean, I watched the golden goal 500 times because even the goal, Canada was dominating them in overtime, and Jack just kind of like barely got a stick on it, nailed it to a guy. Canada's swarming them, they get it to him, he skates out, and just it's in. And I it was unbelievable, but it reminded me of so much focus in the interviewers. They interviewed them, everybody was happy. There was no drama, nobody deviated from the mission. They went and got the kids and brought them over for pictures, and Gaudreaux's parents are in the stands. They went to the Olympics, they were crying, everybody's celebrating. But then there's also a lot of letdowns during the Olympics. People that are supposed to win everything that don't. And what actually got me really thinking about it was like this comparison with, and I bring it up all the time, but look, but Cam Newton is the greatest example, and then Tom Brady. Cam Newton at the end of his career was just like distractions galore. Just how many more distractions can you have, man? Custom suit before every game. The Taylor sends the custom suit to a custom hat maker in LA who surprises Cam right before the game, ships him this custom hat to match the custom suit. That's what he's gonna wear as he enters into the NFL game. He's got, you know, a restaurant and a bar, and he's you know, he's in there wearing all his flashy shit. That's not focus.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

You gotta do that in the off-season, huh?

SPEAKER_02 16:11

That's off-season stuff. It may not even be that's when you're retired stuff. Because you think about Tom Brady then, in his entire career, he was never in any commercials, he was never sponsored by anything. The only ad I think he ever did was like Uggs when it first came out, and he did like a print ad that I'm sure his wife made him do at the time. And it was always interesting, like, why don't you do any of this stuff? Like, why aren't you in state farm commercials like Patrick Mahomes and everybody else? Why aren't you cashing in on the moment? And he was always like, I'll do that after my career's done. He didn't have any time for anything other than focus. And his career speaks for itself, and now he's retired and he's doing everything, right? Like he's doing all the shit he never did in his career. Yeah. Right? He's on every fucking ad, he's doing ninja creamies or this or that, or a fucking uh some type of air fryer. He's on Fox, he's doing the roast of Tom Brady, he's on every fucking podcast imaginable. We're not we need to get him here.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Yeah, I'm gonna inbox him.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Let's go, bro. Come on through. Your mustache doppelganger wants to race you in a 40.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Oh, dude, he'll dust that motherfucker. We say, Tom, you should come on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

What's he run? Like a five-he runs like a 5040. I guess. I got that. You faster than that?

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

They t they clocked me when I was trying out um for indoor. They had like a combine. Scoot that mic over a little bit. Four or five. That's what I run. Or that's what I used to. That's pretty fast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

I'm not that fast. That's fast for a white. I'm not that fast. I don't know how fast I am, but I was pretty slow even in high school. Do you remember Mouse? That motherfucker was fast. He was, man, we had fast people. So I'm gonna tell you. What was he? He ran like a 4-2 or something. But he wasn't faster than Mike Brown. Mike Brown was fast as fuck. So it was like, I think it was Ravon, Mike Brown, and then I say Mouse. Ravon was the was probably Ravon was so fast.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

He was the fastest. That's I I try and explain that to people. We had how good athletes our running backs were. All of them bomb. I mean, every single one. I mean, for like five years, we had a different running back, and each one broke the Maryland State rushing record every year. Who were that good? And now they are not good.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

Not yet.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

We gotta get back to glory.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

We're coming back. We're coming back. Hunt is holding it down. What's up, Hunt? He's building the program. I mean, he's built the program more elite than what we were there. We had good players.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

But the program now is by far way better.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Well, he's a great coach and he cares and he's doing all the right stuff.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Maybe having sign-in days now. So he got people, he got with the one dude in Villanova. Right. We never had anybody go anywhere. Yeah. Not not through the coaches. It's probably, and that's probably over why we never had anybody go there. Because outside of us going to practice and then going to the game Friday. Yep. And practice, that's all we were doing. We wouldn't have study halls. We would watch film on Mondays. That's just to see what we did. But I think we just had that natural ability. It was just like raw talent. Dude. And that's where they kept it at. We just had the raw talent. And that goes all the way back, probably to when Mr. Al Lermo was there. That's when the last time they won States, Annapolis won states was like, I believe, 1979, and all three of my uncles were on that team.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Dude, do you remember when we lost the state championship?

SPEAKER_03 20:30

I was there. I was on the team, man.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Remember fucking Eric took his fucking helmet off and sat on the sidelines for the game? Yeah, man.

unknown 20:40

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Jesus. I was in the stands. I'm like, what is happening? Oh, man. You know what? That was a fun ride, though. I was, I don't know where I was. I was doing some type of like strength program. And one of the strength coaches there was the QB of that team.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Calvary, Calvert, Calvert Hall. No, it wasn't Calvert Hall. That was who we played. I remember in the championship? Yeah, they were like red and yellow or something like that. Or orange and yellow. Calvert Hall. Which championship are you talking about? Football state championship at University of Maryland. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

That was like Calvert Hall.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

I remember. He was the QB. And I was like, dude, you were airing them out. He was launching them. I was like, these guys are not ready for this type of football. They were pretty good. Um, but yeah, just going back to focus, and when you look at all of these elite athletes, and I see it all the time too, and it happens in every sport. MMA and boxing is probably the most polarizing because it's not a team, it's just like one guy, and they start making money been polarizing. Poor forever. And then they just lose the city. They think they can take days off of private. Yeah, dude. They they just lose focus. That's actually when you're supposed to turn it up. What do you think? If you have the discipline, yeah. And I think that's the issue. And again, I think Dana White said at the head of the MMA, he goes, It's real hard to wake up at 4 a.m. in silk sheets. And I think about that because it's true. Like when you're sleeping on a fucking mattress with no blanket, 4 a.m. hits, you're up and you're running like Rocky Balbone. Anyway. Right. You're fucking drinking raw egg yolks, going into a freezer, beating up cow meat, right? Like you're getting it. And it's hard to wake up at 4 a.m. with silk sheets.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

When you work that hard, I was listening to a was it affirmation thing where I did the gym this morning. Nice. And it was like uh, you know what I'm saying? Once you get comfortable, you you talk yourself out. Oh, I don't, I don't need to get up at 4:30. I'm gonna give myself a break. I'm gonna give myself a break today. Like, you can't give yourself no breaks. I mean, you can earn breaks. I mean, not saying kill yourself, but the earn breaks need to be strategic. Yeah. You need to say, okay, I'm gonna wake up 4 a.m. for a month, and then I'll give myself a 6 a.m. wake up. Or I'm gonna do that on Sunday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

My schedule's, I got nothing going on on Sunday. I'm gonna do it on Sunday. Sunday's gonna be my rest day. Yeah. Whatever. But and it happens, and there was a couple windows when we were doing Tessie Mays where it happened for sure. Were you comfortable? Not comfortable, but distracted. You know, you start, you're on a press tour, people are telling you how smart you are. You win entrepreneur of the year, people want to make a reality TV show of you. You justify the distraction that maybe it will help. Uh, which I I honestly like it would have helped, right? And the reason we decided to attempt to move forward with it was at the time the top four products in Walmart were all Duck Dynasty, and that wasn't because they were good, it's because everybody loved that show. Yeah, you've seen them on TV, but we didn't do the show, and there were other moments where, you know, I always compare it, you're walking on a dirty ass boat ramp, you know, concrete covered in algae, smells like fucking fish, slippery as hell. That's the journey. You can get into the sand eventually, but that's a slippery fucking slope. And the minute you lose focus on walking on that nasty shit, you are laying on your back, probably injured because concrete hurts, you smell like fucking shit, you're wet, you're dirty, and you're thinking to yourself, how did I just fall and embarrass myself like that?

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yeah, them sea rocks slippery, they're so slippery, very slippery.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

But then again, you look at, and this is another part of finishing the play, and I'm putting together an article right now about it. And my dad always used to say, it's not how you enter a relationship or a business venture, it's how you exit it.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

I just started hearing about we'll continue now.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

How do you exit it with grace? How do you leave the stage with grace? How do you end a career correctly versus being carted out on a stretcher and that being the moment that you remember the most? And it is interesting, I th you do have to reduce yourself to put the mission first and just win and then finish the play. Because I feel like people just don't finish the play. You know, like they win and then they use that moment to talk about whatever fucking nonsensical bullshit they want to talk about instead of like just finish the play. You can talk about that shit next month. Right, the game not even over yet. Don't ruin this moment. Like, you got everybody, they're all on your side across the political divide. They're here for Team USA. Just finish the play.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

Right. That's like dancing before you get into the end zone. Yeah. Do you remember showing off?

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Um, were you a Cub Scout? Yeah, for a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

I was a Weeblo.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Oh, what's up, Weeblo? Weeblo. Uh if you were a Cub Scout or a Weeblo or a Boy Scout or whatever, you got the magazine that they sent every month. It was like I think it was called Boys Life or something. Yeah, I can't remember. I don't think I ever looked at the magazine. But they always had these cartoons and them of learning lessons. And I'll never forget. It was about, I think he was a Dallas cowboy or something, and he recovered a fumble, and he's running down the field, and the crowd's roaring, and he puts his hand out right before he crosses into the touchdown. Someone comes up, swipes it out of his hand, takes the ball, runs it back. He doesn't get the touchdown. They get the ball, they end up losing the game. And it was talking, and the lesson of that, and I'll never forget it, I must have been in fifth grade because it it hurt my soul. I was thinking about it. It hurt my fucking soul. And I'm like, run through the finish line. Don't ever pull up, keep running. And then when you're in the end zone or you cross the finish line, that's when you can fucking do your dance. That's when you can celebrate. And it happens all the time.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

Yeah, people don't run through the finish line and they celebrate too fast and they wind up losing.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

And it happened, I I again, I don't understand it. It's like that momentary loss of focus. It's the boat ramp, dude. Fucking slip, laying an algae, smell like fish, broken fucking hip.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Yeah, loss of focus. So, how can a person maintain and stay in focus, but either with all the distractions that's going on? Long-term focus. Short-term focus is pretty easy, but long-term focus, five-year focus, ten-year focus, twenty-year focus.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

It is the habitual dedication to grounding yourself in why you're doing it. So every morning, I'm gonna say this until I'm not on this planet anymore. You fucking wake up, you write out your goals, why they are your goals, what you're gonna do that day to work towards your goals, why it why it matters, what weaknesses you currently have that are preventing you from accomplishing your goals. Maybe you're distracted, maybe you're sleeping in. I don't care what it is, but if you use that moment for gratitude, reflection, grounding, you will be prepared to take a step in the right direction. And if you can do that every day, then obviously you can stay focused every day.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

So with people who are trying to do that, you think they need to be brutally honest with themselves. Do you believe people are brutally honest with their self? No. And why is that?

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Because they don't want to do the work to fix it. And they probably don't have people around them that they truly trust that will give them the honest insights required. You know, with my kids with athletics, I'm honest with them with everything in life. So then when they ask me what they need to do to be successful in a sport or whatever else, I'm still honest. I think that consistency and honesty is so important. Because when you speak, people listen. If all you do is give someone negative feedback, they're they're not gonna be able to hear you anymore. But if you're always honest, of like, what an amazing game.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

What you know, and then this is what I've seen. You did this great, but you probably can work on this a little bit. Well, I ask.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

I go, what do you think you did great? What do you think you did not great? What would you rank yourself out of 10, with 10 being perfection? Why? And I want them to have the process of thinking, you know what? Like my feet actually weren't as quick as I wanted them to be today. I gotta work a little bit on that. And then it's well, this is what's required to do that. And again, with and this is just true with people, but especially true with kids, it's caught. It's not taught.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

So if you sleep in, if you don't write your goals, if you don't work out, if you don't eat right, if you don't take an ice bath, if you don't run in the morning or do another workout in the evening or any of this shit, and you tell your kids to do it, I've got bad news, they're not gonna fucking do it. Right. Because you don't do it. And they're gonna be like, well, what the hell do you know? Unless you're Tom Brady or Emmett Smith or somebody. I already did it. Right. Like Yeah, I've done my shit. Shut the fuck up, and this is how you do it.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yeah, so um getting back to writing that morning goals. I'm gonna have to get my daughter on that. I haven't got her on the morning goal writing yet. It's important. I'm gonna have to get her at least, I'm gonna start to get her a little book and say, just write one thing that you'll like to accomplish. I'm gonna get her on that. Just take her a couple minutes while she eats breakfast so she can do that. I think that's a good thingy. It's the best. So my kids. Always see all the books in your in your study office. I always see all the books on the floor when I when I walk in there.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

That's the morning routine with the kids, dude. I make them write and read. Like get everything out, what are your goals, and then read something interesting. And then we go get in an ice bath, go do something hard. Right. And I'll tell you, their morning is dramatically better when they do that. So you've seen days when they didn't do it versus when they do do it? Yeah. And other some people handle it better than others. Right. But I have a couple kids out of my four. When they do it, polar opposite humans. Right. They feel better. Feel better, energy's up, focus is up, they're dialed in, they're organized, there's no bullshit, no one's arguing, they're in the car on time. Ready to roll. The days they sleep in, those are those are not good days. Yelling at their siblings, can't find anything.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Because you wake up, you wake up in the midst of it. Once you wake up, you gotta get going. Like, dude, think about it. And I can see that too, because sometimes when I sleep until my wife and daughter wake up, and I'd be like, okay, I'm just getting up. As soon as I get up, put two feet on the ground. I gotta go wake my daughter up, start to get her clothes on and everything, and then go down and make the lunch. So when I wake up earlier, I can do my little writing. I might go on my little walk or whatever I need to do, or at least do my writing. Then I can start to make a lunch before they even get up. So that's already ready by the time they get up, and she just needs to get dressed and eat breakfast.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

And life is good. Yeah. I'm now working on they have to do everything. I'm not at that point yet. Yeah, no. Well, she's young. Yeah. But I'm at the point of make your breakfast, make your lunch. Is this the lunch you need to then go have a practice after school? Do you have the right food? Is everything aligned? Are you organized? Because it's not my fault if you're not. I told you the night before to set everything out. If you don't do it, that's your problem.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

And you just let them roll. I'm gonna see how you I let them roll until until they start messing up, and then you chew them like, what's going on? 100%. I think I'm I'm in the same path of teaching. There's no way to do it. Like my wife always, she's only seven. I'm like, I know. I mean, I give her some grace for being seven, but I'm I'm like, I'm gonna see what she can do. I'm gonna I'ma see. And you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 36:13

I just I always use historical context and other places in the world today and other places in the country today. If you were on a farm and you had to go milk some fucking cows and get the eggs and move this and move that, is anybody going, well, she's only seven? No, she's getting her fucking boots on and she's going out. She's gonna go pick the eggs, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:38

That is a very, I think, manable manageable job for for a seven-year-old. Especially if the chicken's in not too far from the house. Right. Go get it. Kids wake up early.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

But it again, it's one of those things where we have made everything too easy and comfortable for our kids. I knew you were gonna say comfortable again. Yeah. Dude, it's character is not built in comfort.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

It's not. That was again, they was talking about being comfortable on the affirmation video I was watching this morning or listening to. They talked about comfort. Comfort. Comfort is where most dreams go to die, which is true. That was that was what they said.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Everything you want. I heard some guy talking about this the other day. He just said, everything you want, it's uphill. Everything's uphill. It's not easy. It's uphill. Yeah, it's not easy. You gotta keep going. And again, you're gonna get stronger with each step. And I think that's the part that scares people. They go, Well, I can't go all the way up there and get my goal. Well, you're gonna get stronger if you eat right and sleep right and you do all the right stuff, you're gonna get better. All of this is gonna work in your favor, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And that's the thing, you also have to let people fall on their face. And so they get back up and they keep walking some more. Like, oh, okay. Well, and eventually they're gonna get tired of falling on their face. They're gonna set the alarm and they're gonna lay their socks out, and they're gonna put their bag in the car the night before.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Right. I think I just started doing that like just in general, not really, I didn't hear it anywhere, but now when I go back, I'm like, oh, oh, I started doing that. Like, I put my workout clothes this morning up in front of TV on top of the dresser.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

I got up at like 4:45. I went to the bathroom. I came back, I sat on the corner of the bed. And you lucked at that bed. I got back in the bed. Did you? But then I got back out. That's the worst, dude. You get back in. That's the end. But then I got back out and I just put put my clothes on and I had a drink of water. But by the time I walked downstairs, I was kind of like, okay. My eyes kind of got less heavier. Yeah. You know. You got to get away from the bed. Had a drink of water, and then I walked downstairs and I put my little light on and I and I wrote. So I was like, okay, that was a that was a good winter day. Then I went to the gym and did whatever I had to do. And by the time I got back, my wife got my daughter up and I was like, okay, I was feeling good. Yeah. I I took a quick shower before I even took her to school. So I was like, yeah. Because if I didn't do that workout in the morning, I already knew I had a podcast today on Monday. And by the time we got done the podcast, I'm going back up, I'm picking up my daughter. Yeah. So either it's me and her gonna walk outside or me and her gonna go to the gym because I would have had to get it done. So, but now all I gotta do is like a little bit of lifting, so which I can probably do, go over my homeboy house, and he has daughters, so they can play together while me and him lift weights. There you go. And that's two workouts. Try to do about 10,000 steps a day. So I'm gonna get the six-pack. Six pack sixties. That's what you know. That's my name that I like to call myself. Really? Yeah, six-pack sixties. Why? Because uh one of my friends believed I was born back in the 60s because of my music choices and my old soul. So he always called me 60s.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

You know what's funny is my dad said I was born in the 50s.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

I feel the 50s was a good time. I think that was my grandma's in her teenage years in the 50s. I always think about my grandmother or my grandfather, and when I listened to music back then, I was like, I wonder what my grandfather was doing when this song was out. Well, I wonder what my grandma was doing with this song. Sometimes I ask my grandma say, Grant, what'd you do when this song was out? She was like, Well, I don't remember that song. And one point of the song she just don't remember, like from the 60s. I said, Grand, what'd you do on this song? She said, when that song came out, I said, 1962. I was raising kids. I wasn't really, I ain't know nothing on the radio. Yeah. But yeah, man, so getting back to focus, let's let's wrap it up.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Yeah, focus and discipline are brother and sister. Right? You can't have focus without discipline.

SPEAKER_03 41:32

I feel as though we talk about this every podcast on there. That's all we we all want to do.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

There's nothing else. And Mike Tyson said it best discipline is doing what you hate to do, but acting like you love it.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

And then another one I just heard this morning was discipline beats motivation all the time. Motivation is fleeting, yeah, it's temporary.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Motivation runs out. Yeah. But if you can just focus, and again, I I'll use this like all everybody wants to use their platform for something else other than excellence. Just be excellent. Just focus on that until it's over. You don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring. Don't waste your energy and your gifts on focusing on other bullshit because the window of opportunity that you have to be excellent or great or elite at something is very limited. Don't worry about everything else. You can get to it eventually. Just focus and fucking grind. And like let that be the example to the youth. Wow, that dude was just locked in. And then when it's over, whenever that day comes, then you can get to all the other bullshit. Right. You can get to all the political stuff, you can get to all the world events, you can get to all the drama and gossip bullshit. Up until that point, unless it has to do with your craft and what you're doing, shut the fuck up.

SPEAKER_03 43:32

Right, just focus on whip. That's how you're gonna get to, I guess, your personal happiness. And everything else is just a distraction. So focus, habit, discipline, and that's how you get there.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Happiness, the full use of your powers along lines of excellence. That is the ancient Greek definition of happiness. Greg Vetter Podcast, thank you for coming. We'll see you again soon.