Worth Beyond Wealth | Ep 5: When the Hustle Stops Working

What happens when the same drive that built your career starts tearing apart your family? Adam Cruz knows. He grew a church from zero to 2,000 people, got featured as one of the fastest growing in America, and nobody had any idea what it was costing him behind closed doors.

Ryan and Shannon sit down with Adam, a 20-year product design veteran whose work has driven over $115 million in revenue at companies like Intuit and ZeeMee. But this conversation isn't about business wins. It's about what Adam calls "unregulated ambition," the pattern where driven people give everything to the mission and have nothing left for the people who matter most.

Adam walks through what finally forced him to stop, the lie he'd been telling himself since childhood, and how he built a framework called The Healed Hustle to help leaders stay ambitious without burning everything down. Ryan and Shannon connect the dots to their own LifeRaft work and why the entrepreneur's journey and the spouse's experience are two sides of the same problem.

If you've ever been told "you're so dedicated" while knowing the real cost of that dedication, this one's worth your time.

About Adam Cruz: Adam is the founder of The Healed Hustle, an 8-step program for driven leaders who want to keep building without losing their family or their health. He spent two decades in product design and startup leadership, including roles at Intuit and as co-founder of ZeeMee.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

You're working 90 hours a week and people are going, man, you're dedicated. You're amazing. Like, how do you do it? And you know, you can have the right what with the wrong why. And the wrong why is what will kit create an unsustainable how. You now have success and you have secrets. I'd give all this success away to have them.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

And it's not bad to be driven or have ambition. These are beautiful things that are gifts to ourselves and the world, but they're not meant to be something that kills us.

SPEAKER_05 0:30

That is a healed hustle. Welcome to the Worth Beyond Wealth Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Where net worth meets personal worth. I'm Shannon.

SPEAKER_05 0:37

I'm Ryan. We help families navigate the emotional, relational, and personal realities that money alone can't solve.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

If you've built wealth but still wonder what it all means, or how to keep your family grounded while protecting your legacy, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_05 0:52

We sit down with experts and with you to talk identity, purpose, and connection beyond the balance sheet.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Because true wealth isn't measured in dollars, it's measured in the impact we make and the relationships we nurture.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

So grab a seat, take a breath, and let's redefine what it means to be truly wealthy together. This is the Worth Beyond Wealth Podcast. I'm excited to uh have another episode here of the Worth Beyond Wealth podcast. We have a friend of ours today, Adam Cruz. Yeah. And uh I'm excited because Adam's working on some things uh that line up really well with uh the ideas and and philosophies that we're really talking a lot about uh in the Worth Beyond Wealth uh podcast, the the even the underlying idea of what is wealth, what is real wealth. Um, and then um we've introduced on uh some former sessions uh podcasts the project we're calling Life Raft. And and that's really where Adam and and I met. Uh we just had this aha.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Um I thought you met over at Breakfast Burritos.

SPEAKER_05 2:02

We we did, um, but it was uh then the connection was hey, what you're working on and and what I'm working on really are there's a lot of synergy here. And um, so just a quick intro uh for Adam. Uh he spent 20 years in product design. His work drives more than 115 million in in annual revenue at uh companies uh such as Intuit and ZMe. Adam, along the way, you've you've had a journey. He um is uh happy to share um this this part of his life, but his nonstop hustle almost ended his marriage. Um he did a lot of soul work after that. And through that is is where you really arrived at this idea of of the healed hustle. So you have a business called the healed hustle. You take uh executives and entrepreneurs uh through an eight-step plan that helps achievers keep their drive without losing their uh family or their health. Yeah. So um, Adam, with that, what uh tell us more about yourself and and what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

You want to add about me? I'm excited to have this conversation with you guys and with your audience. And um it's it's been a journey and and uh it was cool just to see how God was bringing us together and and the overlap in our journeys and our story and what we're you know really trying to figure out ourselves. Uh you know, and I love that point.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah, I I think we should drive that home. We don't we are not uh unique in this space, right? We don't have all fear, yeah. We're just being real and vulnerable, yeah, and hopefully in a humble space.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

Like yeah, yeah. Always, always learning, a kind of a natural curious person. That's a lot of my background, it's just been a natural curiosity of uh of things. And so here I am being curious about my own life and my own family and business and all of it in a new light. So um, yeah, happy to be with you guys.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

So take us on the on the journey. Um, were you always uh a striver? Were you always a driver? Uh and then you know, where did that lead you?

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Yeah, I mean, I I've always been a like a scrappy entrepreneur in that I've um, you know, for a decade of my life was spent in ministry and and as a pastor, and this anybody that's been in that world knows that you have no money and you are in and and we're also started from scratch. And so it's like you're you're building something from nothing, and I enjoy that process of taking an idea to something. And so um, you know, this started back in um in high school and starting little businesses and bands and things I did as a musician and traveling, and um, and then you know, catching a vision for building a uh community, a faith community. Um and you know, it it it worked until it didn't, but it it we grew from zero to two thousand in a couple of years, and you know, you learn a lot just through the process of building. And but I've I've always just had a a desire to make ideas real. And so I think that again, that curiosity uh was a perfect fit for startup life. And so I've been a part of a few startups and started in the church world.

SPEAKER_05 5:35

So over the a couple of years, was was that your first taste that what you thought of as success could actually be the worst outcome? Yeah. Because by all outward appearance, going from zero to two thousand people in a church in two years, yeah, was that highly successful financial career.

SPEAKER_04 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Yeah. I mean, we I remember being featured in Outreach Magazine as top 100 fastest growing churches in America, and going, nobody knows.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah. Nobody knows, like because the metrics that they were you using, oh, this is incredible. This is so successful. This is great. You must be doing so well. But inside, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 6:18

Yeah, and I think it is, you know, and it's not that it's not the church's fault. It wasn't, it's not the business's fault. It it was um you go through a journey in in in healing where you you unpack a lot and you kind of look for blame and look for things, yeah, kind of target. A hundred percent. Um you know, you can have the right uh what with the wrong why. And the wrong why is what will create an unsustainable how. And so that's what kills most of us is the what was was good to start a church and build a church, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Faith community.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Yeah, yeah. Um, but my why was unhealed.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

But your why.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

And the why is what was unsustainable. Um, it cre it creates a a how that that becomes unsustainable, how being the very practical rhythms and operations and what it takes to do something that's scales.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Do the what? Yeah, and in that time frame.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

What why would you say in that journey and what what was the why? Because it probably it started out probably really beautifully intentioned.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

But then what what do you think happened or what yeah, maybe I have no language for this till I was in my late 30s and started my healing process. But in the beginning, you know, uh for I guess at a snapshot, building a church for 10 years and then building a tech company for the last um six years and then joining into it, yeah. My my journey into it was in a healthier state. But the the startups we built were were similar in nature, in that you know you're you're striving for for this thing to work, you're you're willing to do whatever it takes. And I think mission-driven, if you're a mission-driven person, it's even harder because mission-driven people live for the mission, and the mission, it's it, the the mission. If we're not careful, the mission becomes a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

And when the mission becomes a mistake, you've lost. But when it's working, you just do whatever it takes to make the mission work. And you call that like grit or resilience, or I have what it takes. We applaud it.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

We applaud we do, we reward this.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

Yeah, I think it was interesting. You're working 90 hours a week, and people were going, Man, you're dedicated, you're amazing. Like, how do you do it? And yeah, um, you know, and obviously this is not about me, I had a whole team and we had sure great, great amount of people, but even in that, it's like some stayed healthy through it all and some didn't. So, why did some stay healthy and I and I suffered in in the journey? And it was because, you know, for me, years later, unpacking man, my why was to uh prove that I was lovable, that I was enough. And I had no language for that. When you're building something at 28, 32, 34 years old, you're just grinding. I've got what it takes, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make this work. And then you have success. And so then you just think this is how you like if you're successful, it's like this is what you just have to keep doing. Right. This is the cost of success.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

This is just the way it is, this is the way it is, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:36

So your reward was people patting you on the back saying, Oh, yeah, and and then I am lovable, I am, I am enough.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Well, for me, exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

This is feeding that need, this deep need that I have.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Yeah, okay. I got to a point, you know, as a pastor, uh worship pastor, standing on stage, I would I would anticipate the thumbs up from an executive.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Like that's it got to a point where it's so toxic. You're just you're just looking for applause, you're looking for affirmation. Affirmation because I'm using this vehicle to be the vehicle that validates that I'm good. Because if my in my core identity, I was like, I'm bad. God made me bad. I had two situations in my childhood that came up later. One was um um an uh an authority figure uh when I was a child hit me in my face um as a lesson because I was being a punk and I was not being nice. So it was like a sort of or you might have deserved it. Yeah, I might have deserved was was not a shame thing from them, but or towards them, but no, but it was intellectual because internalized, like I really am. This is an authority figure telling me as a as a young person that um that I'm bad, and I took that as as I'm I'm bad. Um, ironically enough, about I don't know, six, seven years later, maybe even a little bit longer, uh, I was in high school and had a youth pastor hit me in my face. Wow, as because he didn't like the music I was listening to or something, which was Christian punk rock. So kind of weird now to think about that. They kind of laughed about that now, but at the time it was just a certain time and situation. But Two Authority figures kind of like hit me in my face and won in front of I was gonna ask. Was this in front of people in front of the whole youth group on a bus on a youth trip? Okay, okay, and so it's like it's just like it ingrained in me this okay, like I will always be, I will always have what it takes then. I will just always do what is asked and what makes me good because I'm bad. So I just you compensate that. So, anyways, you don't know all that when you're getting into doing what we're all doing and building and stuff. It's like you start building, you grind, and you have success, and then um you wake up and go, this isn't working, you know? And uh I didn't have language for any of that for years, but you remember oh go.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Oh no, sorry, so it's just that's a good segue into this next question about what what was that turning point or the aha moment where you realized the work pace that I am currently currently holding is not sustainable. What what was that moment? What was that like when you realized it's hurting me? Yeah, and not just you, your family.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Yeah. Well, unfortunately for me, um, and this is just I don't know if this is anybody else's journey. It was my journey. I I wake up every day and I read similar journeys. So I I bear to think this is not just me, but my journey was um my desire to prove that I was lovable created a work ethic that was driven. I was driven, I was motivated, I and and it worked. It created success. The problem is I couldn't sustain the habits that it required to work that hard, that intense. So you have to relieve, you have to numb.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Well, there's only a few ways you numb. For a lot of people, it's a series of things. It's drugs, it's alcohol, it's pornography. Um these are the things we don't talk about in business because they're private and they're secrets, and that's exactly what creates the havoc that comes downstream is is you you now have success and you have secrets. Yeah. And now you can't tell anybody. So because if anybody knew, I'm gonna lose the success I have, I'm gonna lose the platform I have. Um, and so we convince ourselves as driven people that we can manage it and we have what it takes because we've we've managed it this whole time. We've built what we've built.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

It's fine, I can do it.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

I can do it. I manage, I've managed to manage this. So you lie to yourself, you deceive yourself. And for me, the addictions eventually led to things that um uh decisions that that were ruining my marriage and my relationship with my family. And um, and eventually lead to the point where I I had uh done some things that I wasn't proud of and and literally said I will be 60 and still this way if I don't change. And I but I had no language, no idea even what to do. I didn't have like a plan. No, it was just like I can keep doing this and it will end here, and actually probably end worse than what I think it'll end.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Um so it was uh you knew there was this intuition, there was this I know this is going to kill me, yeah, eventually. Yeah, if I do not stop this train.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Yeah, and you have a spouse that is like, um, this isn't working, and I don't know how long I can I can sustain. So saying, and so you can keep having your super success over here. I'm gonna leave. And and change needs to happen. And we made the you know sad decision to resign and and um and you know, the the next things kind of took took on a life of their own, and we we built new things, but I had to clear the stage and it was the scariest without a plan for the next things, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

No plan for the next things, which that would have been for you because you were a doer and a planner and an achiever. What do you mean you're letting it all go and there's no plan?

SPEAKER_03 15:36

Yeah, because your identity is shaken. I remember night just laying in my um, I had a detached garage with a recording studio in it. I remember laying in there and just lost, you know, who am I? Like without this tenure career I built, this path I was on to plant more churches, to be a ministry, to do all this stuff. Who am I outside of any of that? And I can go apply for a bunch more jobs like that, but that's not at all what we're supposed to do. And so it was a very like, I it it was down to my core, who then who am I without without success in the lens that I'm looking at success through, whether it's wealth or whether it's just success in the in the entity that I'm building. Right. Um without it, who am I? I mean, it's terrifying.

SPEAKER_05 16:26

And so, Adam, you move. I mean, I think it's it's important to double click on this this idea. I mean, you took a big bold step because you saw a need to change. Like we're on a devastating path, yeah, we're gonna make a change. I mean, I think that's important for people to hear that sometimes there are hard decisions have to be made. Um, from that point, then you you didn't know what was next, but you got a call to California for a tech startup. Yeah. And did the did the cycle continue or did it immediately get like, hey, I've learned now.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

And yeah. It's a good question. And and it's it's a weird one to talk about because it's um I my friend called me out of the blue, my um a whole side story to how that even happened. That's pretty remarkable. But regardless, got a phone call. We decided to go into business together, start this company. Um, and it was like not my wheelhouse. And so it's like my curiosity again is like, I could if I can build this, I can build this. So let's build it, you know. And so we like, I'm in. And so we worked for sold our house on Facebook in two days, moved to Boise, Idaho. Stop it, and I lived off my savings. I said, I'll give you one year, and um, and we built, you know, Zimi into what it is today. And obviously, I haven't been a part of it last few years, but um raised uh seed round in series A and all that. But what was interesting is it's like I was I didn't have any language for what I had just come out of. I knew my marriage was about wouldn't it was weird to there were two things happening, which is probably most of us in life is like two things are happening at the same time, good things and terrible things. Yes. While we're while my wife and I are wondering if we should stay married and even continue, we're also like leaning into this new idea. We moved to Boise just as a place to land and heal. And um, and I didn't have language for uh any of our life at that time, just knew knowing that our marriage was about to end. And I was about to lose everything that mattered. We had a one-year-old, and um I whatever this new venture was going to become, I did not want to do it the same way. Uh, the problem is that there was a lot I had not unpacked with the Amber and I had not yet healed from.

SPEAKER_04 18:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

So we went into that season over the last five or the next five years of that journey, um, pretty cautious and just intentional and trying to protect uh some things. But it was interesting because I'm walking into so we moved we only stayed here in Boise for about a year and then moved to San Francisco. Oh, okay. And built the company out in San Francisco for the for a few years. And um, I mean you're walking into the you're walking to the epicenter of this, of what I just came out of, which is growth, build, success, wealth, drive. And it was it was hard because it was like there's so much tension with what I had walked out of and didn't want to continue to faster. And yet I'm in a startup again, building from scratch. 90 hour weeks a lot, but different um, you know, it is a little bit of a different cadence, but yeah, 3 a.m. meetings. Jeez. Um, just because of east coast, west coast time zones and just trying to move things forward and and um and found myself, Amber and I found ourselves uh yet again just unsustainable uh in the direction that the company was going and some of the leadership, and not to talk ill about some of my partners, but just all of us trying to figure this out. How do you build something? How do you how do you build something mission-driven from scratch, hustle, build and grind, right? And it and it works. You raise us six million dollar series A, you raise a series B, you it's working. You've got 100,000 users, like this is just the cost of what it takes to build. So you just do it. And um, if you want to tour.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

So you said something that was interesting. Um, and we we talk about it in in Life Rapt, but you said what mattered most.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

And it was my wife, and I had a one-year-old child, and so this is what matters most. Do you think that your actions, your lifestyle, your work pace, everything else?

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Oh, not at all in the beginning, especially. Um I would say that that's what mattered most. But my my uh my lifestyle, my my passion um was for this to work.

unknown 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Like at the end of the day, this just has to work.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

And for me to be okay, for me to have the identity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:24

And probably, I think what we what we see also is is that we tell ourselves, and and it may be true, I'm doing it for them.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:34

Like it's yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

There's going to be fighting.

SPEAKER_05 21:37

There's going to be this result, and and then everything will be okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

So I think that's also I would get frustrated because I would think my wife wasn't on board with what it took to build.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

You don't appreciate what I'm doing for our family, or yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

You're looking at greatness here. Bro, you just raised five million dollars.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah. Yeah. And and and she's got, I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Yeah, I don't care. I don't care.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

I don't it's interesting. I think, you know, and if she were here, we we could ask her, but I would venture to say if you had just thought outside, well, what matters most to you, that this or this, she'd say, I chose you. Yeah. I still choose you. I don't care about the money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:22

And to interject maybe some life raffling, which we we've talked about a little bit, but it's what you're saying is I'm saying my family, and you believe it, is the most important thing in the world. Yeah. But all of my actions, all of my time, all of my energy, everything about me, my identity is invested in this other thing. Yeah. And that's the inconsistency that we often see, which creates drift in relationship. And I think that's what you were experiencing.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Because you can, we would say, are you on, do you have mission and purpose together? Are you dreaming together? Are you visioning together? And at that point, no.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

It's so good what you're saying because I just think back like the life vision becomes the thing I'm building. It's the only thing that matters. It's like, and I think when you look at just life in general, we are um not one thing. No, I am not one thing. I'm I mean, even in just like a successful life, it's not just finances, it's your health and it's your family and it's your um fun. And like, I think there's a five F relationship with your friends, yeah, creativity. Yeah, so we're like multidimensional humans, absolutely, but for whatever reason, entrepreneurs do not think that way. They think they don't they don't have language for that. I didn't have language for it, but it's like I just live one-dimensional. This this is the only thing that matters.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

That's really powerful.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

And uh, because because my identity is tied to it, like who I am is wrapped up into it, until you can like kind of start to disconnect that. Why would I live for anything else? Because success is only found in like, I think we're all what is um strength to strength. I think we both read that book. They talk about like we're all in pursuit of money, power, honor, and title, you know, and so it's like as long as those are in the driving seat, like then that's what matters. And so for me, it was I didn't have a vision, and my wife often felt that. I mean, that's exactly how she she's like, You uh I had a counselor told tell me, like, you have no reserves for your family. And she's like, and he was like, What would it feel like to give you know less energy, like 75% of you at your job and have 25 for your wife? What would it look like to give 65%? What comes up? What do you start to feel? Just like angst, yeah. You're just like, I'm not I'm not enough. Wow, I'm not um, I don't have what it takes to be to be successful or whatever. So it just starts to bring up things when you start to allow yourself to kind of think about that.

SPEAKER_05 25:07

And so I mean, I think a couple things. One, uh, a story was told recently. Um, they called it the J curve fallacy. So I I don't know how well we can get this to show up. So we've got an equilibrium, and and we're going, look, Amber, I it's just gonna take being below equilibrium for a while, and then we're going to get out of it, and then things are gonna be good. Yes. But what happens is as we walk along this path, the next, hey Adam, you know what? We need to introduce a new feature. Okay, hey, Amber, I just need look, it's only a few more months, but okay, but now we start a new J curve. And then we start a new one, right? And and and this, so it's the fallacy because this never happens, right? It never becomes as great as it was supposed to become. Yeah, right. And it's just one thing after the other. Even when there's like, I mean, we've seen situations. It's the sale comes, the exit comes. Wait a second, 30 million dollars or whatever the number is, that didn't change my life. I I don't, I don't know who I am the day after the sale. Yeah. Right. Now, now I'm laying in the garage. No, yours wasn't after an exit, but yeah, and so this was your journey to that point. Yeah. At some point you got healing, but you also throughout time have continued to see this pattern. Yeah. Right? Is that yeah? So so you, I mean, you said you're reading about these uh stories. Yeah, you're reading about people hitting the wall. Yeah. Um, do you want to tell us about some of that?

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Yeah, and what would you how would you take that at now and say, what does success mean to me now? And what would I warn against for for you so that you're not the next story that I read in the morning?

SPEAKER_03 26:59

So I I went through this weird phase when we moved. We could started ZME, we're building this tech company, and then I joined a startup here in Boise called T-Sheets. We got acquired by Intuit and spit the last separate years into it. But I remember a lot of nights over the last 10 years sitting in the hot tub going, ambition, I guess ambition. I just need to let go of ambition, which is the scariest thing for a type three, I'm an Enneagram three, and which is all about achievement, wired for achievement. In fact, I didn't think I was an Enneagram three, so I took the test three times, and it was like Enneagram three, Enneagram three, and I'd be like, what is an Enneagram three? You know, everybody's talking about Enneagram.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

So it's so interesting. I'm gonna throw you under the bus. It was so when we don't realize, and I'm included in this too, but we don't realize how we're wired and we don't see it. Yeah, and then somebody points it out, or you take a personality assessment or some sort of a screening, and you go, No, I the the day that you we were with some friends, and well, you're and you're like, no, I'm not saying are you serious right now? No, I'm so not type A. And I my friend, hey, guess what? He doesn't think he's a type A. And she started laughing out loud. Like, you have to be kidding me. Yeah, you know, but I think that's a really good point, is I you're just living.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

I don't know, I don't want to type anything out.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

I'm gonna type anything. This is just what I do.

SPEAKER_05 28:24

This is driven.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

I just want to build, I want to build things, and and it's not bad to be driven or have ambition. These are beautiful things that are gifts to ourselves and the world, but they're not meant to be something that that kills us.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

That's so well said, Shannon, because I think that's the so that's the mystery I started to lean into is like, okay, I'm an Enneagram three, I can't do anything about that. I'm wired to achieve, I want to build things. That's it. So I on on this like swing the other way, I was like, well, then just let go of ambition. Ambition's bad, and I just have to figure out how to enjoy my life outside of this. Well, that just creates depression because you're just now it's like, well, now I'm not living out of that. So I used to think about ambition like a spectrum, and it's a on one end of the spectrum is sustainability, and on the other end of the spectrum is is ambition, and you get to pick do I want to be ambitious or do I want to be sustainable? And it would drive me nuts because it was like there's like it, you can't have one or the other. And I started that. I believed that you believed that. So I started to unpack a different view of this, and it was four quadrants, a two by two. And the two by two was on the left side was um uh sustainability or ambition. And on the on the I don't remember my axis is on the bottom, it was uh uh ambition. So in the bottom left quadrant, I started to look at what does it look like to have low ambition and low sustainability? And that just looked like um uh like directionless. It's just like sort of uh not clear on where you're going. On the high degree of sustainability, and the low degree of ambition is just comfort. You know, you're pursuing comfort. Most of us that are probably listening to this podcast and they're in this room are in the upper left quadrant, which is a high degree of ambition and a low degree of sustainability, which is um where most of us live. It's a recipe for burnout. What do you call that? I call it, yeah, a recipe for burnout. Is that what we call it? Unregulated ambition. Unregulated I call it unregulated innovation.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Okay. I call that.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Then I was like, is there a world where that what is the fourth quadrant? What is a high degree of ambition and a high degree of sustainability?

SPEAKER_04 30:46

Love it.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

And that's where I started to go, that is a healed hustle. And the reason that a healed hustle, I didn't eliminate the word hustle is because it's like to talk to anybody that's driven, you cannot eliminate that. And it's important to understand that we are wired and designed to make and do. Uh, but what does it look like to do out of a place of an intentionality in sustainability? So how I I want to help leaders launch and last. So that's what became the kind of essence for my journey. And and again, this only came because I started um well, one, it started with confession, and that was the scariest. That's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life is uh to admit uh this isn't working. I don't have what it to yourself starts with myself, okay, okay, which then allows me the permission to go to my wife and say, um, most of us, it's actually more tragic than that. Actually, most of us like we have an affair, we uh have a drug overdose, we have an alcoholic situation, something happens because most of us don't change until there's enough pain.

SPEAKER_04 32:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

When there's enough pain, they change. So I would say that I had enough pain. I mean, there was my marriage was falling apart.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Um, I I couldn't sustain the the hustle, the requirement of building these things at the in the way that I was doing it. And so I wanted to understand that. And it's just started honestly with just admitting that I didn't have what it took to uh to do this, um, which then allowed me to confess to my wife things I had never confessed to her, which took us on a long healing journey of just taking inventory.

SPEAKER_04 32:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Um, you know, like where are we right now? Are we okay?

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Um we asked that question a lot in owner book. That's that's the question that families ask all the time. Are we going to be okay? So I think I think that it's really important to pause and just right and and and to say to anybody listening, it's okay to ask that question.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Yeah. Terrifying, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

It's so scary, but it's I think also very freeing.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Giving permission to not be okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Yeah. It's interesting because the first time I had confessed some things I had never confessed to anybody, the power of the addictions broke. It was all gone. The thing that I thought I would be 60 and and never overcoming was now had no weight and no power.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

There was light that was tread on the darkness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

And I think it's the scariest thing for a lot of us because we're just driving. You're just building. I don't have time to deal with this. I'm just driving. But you have to numb the pace and the unsustainability when we choose our habits of numbing, which is interesting because we a lot of times focus on the behavior, which is the wrong thing to focus on. It's like it doesn't matter about how you numb, those things have consequences, unfortunately, serious ones. But it's not even about the behavior, it's about why. And that's what I started to realize like, no, there's something deeper in me that's driving this insane need to be validated and enough to have what it takes.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Because pain, pain is something that is actually very useful.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

About because my background is in healthcare. And so, you know, as a nurse, what is your pain? Because the pain, although very unpleasant, is really helpful because it lets us know where what, how much, and then it can it, okay. So why? And then the next question, how do we address it?

SPEAKER_04 34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

What's at the core of the pain? Because we need to fix that. I can give you something to numb it, that's not curative.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

So you're talking about okay, if we take away and we peel back that numbing agent, whatever it happens to be that we've chosen to self-medicate with, now we have to address there's pain, and now I have to deal with why.

unknown 35:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

That's exactly what you were.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Yeah. And so as I started to kind of look at, like, you know, through the help of a lot of people in my life. Just being honest, I got I pulled counselors into my life, I pulled coaches into my life, I pulled other people that I had seen be successful and sustaining. I was like, what are they doing? I started to study, like, not every CEO that runs a multi-million dollar company is going to fall in a tragic way.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Um, were they living in the fourth quadrant?

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yes. And so just like, what are the what is the fourth quadrant? But what is it? What how what is the how and that and what have they learned? And and you know, by no means do I understand it all or have it perfected, but my journey led me through first being honest about where I was and having that confession, and then that led me to um uh honestly just um naming the lies that were driving me. How do I name the lies that are driving my ambition? And that becomes the work. And that's probably the hardest. And uh, you know, I don't know, it's it's weird because I'm not a counselor. I don't know how to pretend to be a counselor, but it's like this is like for business people and and and driven entrepreneurs, we just don't let ourselves go into these like parts of our life because I just don't have the time, they don't feel important right now, uh, because this is this is the only thing that matters. And they're not comfortable, and it's extremely humiliating, you know, to some degree. It's like, okay, like this is what's driving me. But to name the lies and realize, like, no, I'm being my my ambition is actually to put language to it. It's like my ambition is to prove that I have what it takes. That is my ambition. My ambition is to um, you know, for some, I heard a uh a girl one time talk about I'm writing a book to prove to my dad that he was wrong about me. I'm like, what a burden to write a book.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

What a burden.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

Yeah, you know, like that ambition.

SPEAKER_05 37:08

There's a recent book that that talks about the pain that entrepreneurs experience is often so so whether that started in childhood or or whatever, it could be I have to prove to my dad, it could be I have to prove to this boss or to a mentor like you. They said I couldn't do it, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. But that is what animates so many entrepreneurs. Yeah. Um, and of course, you're saying that was animating you, and then you're seeing it over and over and over. Um, so I don't know if there's anything that sticks out. I I do remember a story you told about a gentleman you ran into in San Francisco. Yeah. I don't know if that uh perfectly relates here, but if it does, um yeah, I can show that story.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

I was we would just we were just starting Zimi. We had just raised our six million dollars Series A. We were, you know, excited about the opportunity to build this thing and make it real, and we were scaling our team. And so we all moved out to the Bay Area. There were five of or four of us, five, five or six of us actually, moved out to the Bay Area, and I was one of our first places we stopped. We went to this coffee shop in Minlo Park and um and ran into this gentleman in his you know late 60s and uh was a very successful individual and had I think four or five exits and multimillionaire. And and I was just like, hey, we're 32, you know, 34, we're just getting started. What advice do you have? And um, and he just said, Adam, just enjoy the journey. And I was like, you know, what does that mean? You know, enjoy the journey. He said, Well, I'm on my on my uh fourth marriage and my kids all hate me. And he said, uh, I'd give all this success away to have them uh and I remember I distinctively remember saying to him, you should write a book because I'm on the hunt for that book. At that time in my life, I was coming out of an ending marriage and and and my detrimental end of of that season. And I was like, where's that book? Because all the other books that are available are how to 10x your sales team and 10x your efficiencies and 10x this and 10x that, and it was just growth at all costs. Nobody's writing your story. And and he looked at me and he said, Nobody would read that book. Wow, and I just remember feeling sad.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

I don't think he's wrong, but it's interesting is once you hit the inevitable wall, everybody wants to read that book.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

And I think what you're trying to do is prevent them from hitting the wall in the first place. Yeah, how do I help you not smash your face into a brick wall?

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Yeah, and you don't have to look very far, it'll it happens all around us, and we think we're immune. We think we're like that would be my story.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Like it's so easy for it to be our story.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

It's a couple decisions away from being your story.

SPEAKER_05 40:09

So Adam, maybe maybe the the answer to this is in the continuation of just telling the the process that you developed. But yeah, when you compare the um experience of of those CEOs, leaders, pastors, whatever it may be, those people that are thriving with ambition and sustainability, um what what choices have they made? What have have they is is it more intuitive to them to say, look, wealth is beyond money, it's beyond power and achievement and ego. Have they just gotten that? Did they get lucky? Or are there some common, you know, things that that animate them versus animate those who were seen um run into challenge?

SPEAKER_02 40:58

So are you saying, can I just are you saying that is it that wealth isn't just money for them? Are there other things that mean wealth to them?

SPEAKER_05 41:05

Yes. Because I think I think what happens is is so often, you know, we we chase wealth, yeah, right? And and that's okay. Yeah, wealth is good, but after a certain point, it doesn't satisfy any longer, right? And so then it becomes just a number. Yeah. Okay. So at some point, um, we've talked about that.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

When it's being used as a tool that is healthy and good and purposeful, blessing your life, blessing those around you, that's great, right? There's a governor on that engine. But when it's no longer a tool that is serving and it has become the thing, that's that's when we say that's the warning light. Would you echo that?

SPEAKER_05 41:50

Yeah, I guess the nature of my question is did some people get lucky? Yeah, they just are okay, or or have they you know processed a little better than than some of us who just wake up and say, I don't know, I'm not type A.

SPEAKER_04 42:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Yeah, I just walked into wealth. I don't know, yeah. I just I just got rid of it. I uh I I don't I don't know. I I think that when I when I study some of these people that have done it well, and when I look at all the stories of those that have collapsed, there's some interesting themes you start to see for those that do it well.

SPEAKER_05 42:29

Ask a quick question. Yeah, are you seeing the stories in biographies? Are you saying you're you wake up and you read it? Is it in magazines? Is it in well and the fading story is the headlines?

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Okay, you know, obviously, I walk through a story here in Boise Local to Us that that was the loss of a of a leader and a tragic ending. Um and then and then in the news, you you know, you wake up and I I follow leaders and and follow people, and then they don't last. And it was like, why can't leaders last? Why do leaders fall?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

So you saw two patterns.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Those who were doing the fourth quadrant and those who were in the was it the first yeah, the the the yeah, I don't know what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 43:10

You put a number to them, but the top left and the top right, top left being uh yeah, low degree of sustainability and a high degree of ambition.

SPEAKER_05 43:18

The we're not gonna get people to not have ambition if we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Nor should we, yeah, yeah. No, that's not the app.

SPEAKER_05 43:23

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

That's not the app. That's not the app.

SPEAKER_05 43:25

But what it is, and in the same light, we're not asking in LifeRaft for the entrepreneur to say, I'm gonna stop growing so that I can come back and build relationship better. We're we're saying, how do we how do we raise up that spouse who hasn't been involved in this thing or invited? Um what is required to do that?

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Yes, and that's what we start to talk about. But I'm super curious. What did you see? I need to know.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Well, I I would imagine it, I wonder if it's the same in what you're seeing with the spouse is there's a high degree of intentionality.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

In this case, it requires I'm going to be intentional in these areas. And those that don't are have no intentionality, which is ironic because in their business, there's a high degree of intentionality. It's just not exactly manifest in the life. It's we we do a you know a SWOT analysis on whether our SWOT analysis is working in our business.

SPEAKER_05 44:25

You know, we we will oh and then you Venn diagram it.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

And then you VIN diagram. We will we are over intentional about what efficiencies are working and not working, and we kill them. We kill the things that aren't working, we take inventory, we like it's funny because a lot of what I built even in the steps of the hilled hustle is like what you do to turn a business around. When a business is failing, you audit, you take inventory, you you name the things that are not working, you put language to it, you build plans and intentionality about what we're gonna do to turn and reframe that. Yes, and we're gonna redefine what success is, and then we're gonna build the systems and habits that actually will turn that thing around, and then you turn the company around. But we won't do that in our life.

SPEAKER_05 45:10

And so you asked the question, what I think that's exactly it, is the family, the most important thing in the world is that thing where we often lack intentionality. And that is the missing ingredient. Yeah. We have mission and purpose in our business. We have cadence of communication. Yes. We have regular meetings, off sites, we think and read about business. And then we have uh in our case, we're saying we transfer key pieces of information in case one of us is gone, right? So so that there's sustainability. There's that word. Yeah. Um, and and we do all of that with discipline and intention. And then we say our family is the most important thing in the world, and yet we have none of those. And that is the the idea of the system we're trying to bring um is really summed up in a word, bring intentionality to your family in the same way that we bring it to our to our businesses.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

And the consequence of that is usually just that we assume that they will understand their family. Yeah, we just they will always be there. Yep. And they will always understand.

SPEAKER_05 46:26

And by understand, maybe another word for that is there's a high degree of forgiveness. Yeah. They will they'll just take it. They'll take it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

They're safe, they'll take it. They it's it's okay. And I think we do that, it in some ways it's like this weird compliment, right? I trust you, you're safe, but I also am not recognizing or admitting that I'm hurting you over and over and over again. Yeah. So it's not sustainable for you.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

Yeah. Well, and we find we have this uh exercise we take guys through where you're uh we call the circles of of um connection. And I'm don't claim to be like a relationships expert, but what I'm trying to do is look at like there are spheres in our in in our life. And it starts with our inner circle and our kids, and and I I call that like our um our uh intimate community. And then we have the outer circles, which start to be our peers and our network and all that, and those become our transactional community. Everything's transactional at that point because it's like I'll give and receive. Right. What's what's ironic in our journey is I don't walk through the door very many times, and my intimate community goes, Oh my gosh, Adam Cruz, founder of Xenia and uh you know, leader of a church plant, you know, blah, blah, blah, is here and has arrived.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

No, nope, and that doesn't pull it.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

It's not gonna go, hey, the dishes need done, you know, and it's like, well, it's it's funny.

SPEAKER_05 48:00

Uh last year I got to uh be in a a uh conference where uh David Sinclair spoke, and David Sinclair is is working on the science behind longevity, and he was telling us that they had cured blindness in mice. And he said, the day that we did that, yeah, I was really excited. And I and I went home and I announced that to my family, and and he said, I was greeted with that's great. Here's the trash that needs to go out to the you know to the curb. So to your point, like and he's he was named by I believe time as one of the hundred most influential people in the world, and he has to take out the trash. Wow. Right. And so you know, now talk about all the applause, all the you know, and and that is um something that we all we all want I you know, identity and we all like the pats on the back. So um we have to learn to navigate this.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

We spend, we prefer to spend more of our time in that transactional circle.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

That's what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

The intimate community. And it's because when our ambition isn't healed, we our ambition is driven by what the transactional community gives us. The dopamine hits are the dopamine hits to invalidate the identity. I need to feel okay. So my ambition is driven to feel valuable and loved, and that I'm enough. Who who does that to me the most? The transactional the transactional people, the people that are like, Adam is a ride, he's in the room. My wife here reminds me that I forgot to take the often they want something, right?

SPEAKER_02 49:33

That was I was it because it's transactional. Don't forget, right? Oh, I'm getting, but it's because they want something.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

And then if we're not careful, we actually start to turn that into our intimate. I sure so we actually we actually start to prefer, I'd rather spend more time outside of the office.

SPEAKER_05 49:49

I'd rather so then and you've read Strength to Strength. We we um think that's a great resource for people by Arthur Brooks. Yeah um he talks about the problem that people have when they retire is they realize they had deal friends, not real friends.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

That's so good.

SPEAKER_05 50:10

And now they're lonely. So not only am I not getting the dopamine hit, I'm not getting, I don't even have friends because if I'm not talking to them about business, we have nothing in common. And now we have a different crisis, right?

SPEAKER_03 50:24

And so that was actually what I was gonna say is the second thing that I saw in people that that succeed versus fail is so it was the intentionality piece. Those that often fall or have fall is an extreme word, not everybody falls, but those that lose, they just start to lose in life and lose what matters the most, is they actually start to become very isolated. You start to see people, and this is when addictions can become dangerous because you have addictions, you're super successful, you have authority and uh influence, and now you have to be private, and now you isolate, and then you remove all the people that are gonna hold you accountable, and you get them out of your way because I cannot be honest. And what happens is you become isolated, and those people that is a recipe for an unsustainable ambition, which is just like an isolated, numbing out, chaotic pace. You aren't going to last. And those that do last, they're honest about they're honest with a few people. They have not everybody, but there's a few people in their life that they know everything about their life. They know their secret ambition and their desire that they're fighting through. We all have these these lies that we're trying to work through. And um, but you have people in your life that know those things and and they're not impressed by you anymore. They're you can be honest with them. Um, and and then uh and then you're intentional and and you have that intentionality with uh the things that matter most. And and that's when you start to see people that can handle ambition and be sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

Um relationship and intention, those are the two things that you would say.

SPEAKER_03 52:10

That's what I see a lot in yeah, in common is just the intentionality versus I have and honestly, the intentionality is even in relationship. It's it's really an intentionality. It's what you were talking about with business and how we um the the right pieces are all in place and we obsess over those details. We do that with our family. I saw I started making it a goal of I'm gonna have uh one uh conversation with a friend a week. I I went years, I go months, I spent years going months without like having a launch with a friend because you were so busy. You just busy, you know, that gets applauded. It gets applauded, it gets praised, it gets rewarded. Here's more money for your busyness. We wear busyness like a badge of honor. Badge of honor, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

So, what um on the opposite side of that coin, what do you think it looks like when you start to rest?

unknown 53:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Uncomfortable?

SPEAKER_03 53:10

Yeah, I have a there's a extra, well, I did I did all of the, I did nine of the all nine of these things, but I have this exercise with um uh I call stop with intention and or or pause, pause with purpose, stop with intention. And and to pause with purpose means um, what are my options? What does it actually mean to like pause? For some, they need literally need to quit their job, quit, sell the business. Wow, like let go of the thing that's killing you. Yeah, which just terrifying. Cut out the tumor, yeah, exactly. That is pretty terrifying because again, you're building things, you're you're scaling things, whatever. Um, some of the best, some of the best seasons of my life were step stepping away and letting go and and moving on, um, all the way to other, you know, other practices of like um those are extreme situations. What does it look like on an annual basis to get away and to like actually take inventory on your life? And how may how are we doing? How am I doing? Um, my wife and I do that once a year. Um, she goes away for two days, gets an Airbnb, usually local, and then I do it as well. And the intent of those two days is just to take inventory on our life, and to literally I have an exercise we go through and we just let come out what comes out over two days where you give your brain to fight yourself. By yourself, just rest and reflect. Yeah, we don't do it together. We do have a thing where we do together, okay? But she needs that time to go. Like, how are we doing? And not have my influence. Yeah, we're doing pretty good, babe. Just write that down. We'll do it pretty good. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

We yeah, we have a funny story about that. Um, they actually did a marriage conference, and um, this couple in particular will rate, like, well, on a scale of how are we doing? And I think it's one to one to ten.

SPEAKER_05 55:00

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

And one day she rated them at a negative 300 and I don't know, it was pretty hilarious. It was a big negative, it was a big negative.

SPEAKER_05 55:11

There's deep things going on.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

What? Yeah, he had no clue.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:15

What are you talking about? I thought we were great. Are we innate?

SPEAKER_03 55:17

I have guys take my assessment on how they're doing, and it's it's it's funny because I say you should make your wife take this assessment and then ask your kid to take it. Ask many kids to take this assessment on you. So for second. And uh it's interesting because the scores are often different. Because we'll, again, we lie to ourselves because we think we can manage it all.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

So that's a really good segue into this next um question here. Um, parents who are driven. How do you model strong, healthy lifestyles, right? We we we have this realization, this moment of okay, we're not sustain this isn't sustainable. But this is how we're wired. So we have to learn how to be healthy in the wiring. And then how do we um how do we model that for our kiddos? What are is there anything that you can speak to in that?

SPEAKER_03 56:05

Well, I'm in a learning stage right now because I am with 14, 10, and 8-year-old, and we're in the middle of figuring out what that looks like.

SPEAKER_05 56:15

I want to navigate this a little differently on that on that piece because I want to hear from Adam on some of the maybe there's some stories of of now you're getting to interact with people, right? They're coming to you for healing, yeah, if you will. Yeah, for your program. You're getting to see where they're coming from and then where they go to. Yeah. Um, and then we've talked about this a lot because this is where we think there is this synergy between the healed hustle and life raft. The healed hustle comes out from this perspective of as an entrepreneur, I have unregulated ambition and I'm going to hit a wall. On the other side is uh often spouse or family who's saying, we don't, we're we're losing connection, there's an increasing drift. And so we're coming at it from the family side with Life Raft, you're coming at it from the entrepreneur side with the healed hustle. So when you walk with them and they get they move from unregulated ambition into uh a high degree of intentionality uh and and community, uh, and now they have a healed hustle. Yeah, I we believe that all of the sudden they're also now going to want to move over here and and start having uh a lot more interaction with family. They're gonna say, hey, my family probably has been neglected. Um, maybe there's some pain there. Maybe like there's that that's this, these two sides, I guess, are are moving together. Um so I don't know if that's that's a long-winded um question, but what are some stories you're seeing, uh if you can, yeah, uh, of people walking through this journey? And then how does that change their perspective toward their family?

SPEAKER_03 58:27

Yeah. The one of the common things that I hear a lot is um like really tack like practically, it's interesting with in the family dynamic. Um a lot of times guys say, I'm just transferring my my like traits of ambition to my kids. Yes. The most common place you see that is in sports in the United States today. You make and then I don't this is a little bit of a tangent, I'll come back, but it's interesting how much more making sports just a new form of achievement, and we're teaching kids like you can't have activity in your life unless you're achieving, unless you're successful. And and that gets modeled in very practical ways, unintentional. And so I'm a very competitive person. I've been my whole life and played soccer and want my kids to play different sports. And um, for years I would get in the truck and and and talk to my kid, and and I hear this echoed in a lot of the families that I that I work with. It's like, yeah, we get in the car and we'd like, how could that go better? Oh, yeah, you know, like what did you learn?

SPEAKER_00 59:37

We make a business meeting.

SPEAKER_03 59:38

It's a business meeting now. Um yeah, and I remember thinking, like, this is going to in this process, like this is just modeling what it means to achieve. There's an aspect of that that feels very like right.

SPEAKER_02 59:52

Yes, yes, you're that's your job. That's not my job is to help you get better, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:59

I I about five years ago, I I made a commitment, and then this comes from some other guidance and mentors in my life too, that have have said, um, what would it feel like to not make any of those conversations about achievement with your kids and only about did you have fun? Did you enjoy that?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:18

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:19

And if you didn't, then there's other things we can do. That starts to feel like quitting. It starts to feel like it starts to rub all these things that us as like grit, resilience, all that like rubber. Growth mindset. Yeah, growth mindset. You gotta, you gotta quit, have what it takes, don't quit.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

So it's interesting because and and then I'll ask um, so I'll ask people about uh we we have a framework called the recharge routines, which are really just about so if you're if if if you are working all these hours exhaustively tired, and the the way that I historically would fix all that is just to numb. So you just go numb out. What's the what is the alternative? What's the healthy alternative to not numbing out? Well, it's it's these what I call recharge routines, which are intended to actually recharge my capacity. That's how I can then go give more. So if um it's like a battery, right? And it's got to be recharged. But it's funny because we start to talk about what does that look like for your family? And it's like, um, well, I I listen to these podcasts, and it's like, well, what podcast do you listen to? You know, tell me about an example, and it's like the list I did is business 10x this. It's like that's not recharge, yeah, you know, or for your family, you know, uh, well, we're in these on the every on the every sport that my kid is involved in. Well, how many sports is your kid involved in? You know, tell me about the pace of like your family life and dynamic. Again, I'm not a counselor, I'm just walking through like we just translate this ambition and we move it into our family model and our family system. And so you realize, like, yeah, dude, we just we're on a plane every week flying for competitive sports, or we're trying driving here, all our vacations are centered around a tournament. Um, or and it's like, what does it look like to introduce your kids to the idea of being bored? That requires you being bored, that requires you not having something on the agenda to go do. Um, it's a little bit of a tangent, but it it starts to like it forces us to wrestle with like, what does it look like to introduce our kids and our family dynamic to the idea of connection and intimate intimacy that isn't through the lens of achievement, whether that's this the podcast I'm listening to, or the you know, a lot of guys are like, Oh, I run every week with my wife or whatever, and what are you guys training for? It's like a marathon, you know. It's like that's not that's not recharge, that's achievement. It's not bad. Go do that, it's just not recharge. So, recharge is about things that bring delight without effort. So, how do I experience delight without effort? And for the Enneagram three, it's like, no, I only get delight out of effort. Um, so for me, it was like I I have this uh practice I started doing, um, where I just uh I have a nature preserved near my house, and my goal is to touch the grass every day. If I can touch the grass every morning, it reminds me I'm not in charge. I look up at the mountains, see the sun. This is not about me. It like keeps me in my position. And when I don't do that, Amber will ask me, like, have you touched the grass? Like, you know, she knows because I need to go out and touch the grass because that's the rhythm that reminds me I'm not in charge. I'm not like um, and and it has nothing to do with achievement. This is not about me achieving something, I'm just going out and being present in um you know, for me in nature.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:03

So well, that can be a new goal, right? How many days in a row you touch the grass? Yeah, how many days? Yeah, every everything can be that's so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:11

I started habit tracking that. Yes, and then it's like this is not the point because now I'm bummed I didn't meet my seven days, and yes, anyways, it's amazing how our brains will.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:21

Oh, yeah. I think they um have you ever heard the expression fire together, wire together?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:26

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

So those neural pathways that our brain builds, right? They're so powerful. It's we get used to something, we repeat, repeat, repeat, and then and then our brains just wire that in. So that becomes hardwired.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

So the ruts. Yeah. So we're talking about it is funny as you were talking about, well, I'm just transferring how I run my business to how I run my family. I've fired and I've wired so much here, right? That I've I don't know how to do anything else any other way. So I'm just gonna do it at home, right? And then I'm gonna teach everybody else how to do that. Yeah. And you're suggesting we turn it around, we force rest, and then we fire and wire differently, is what I'm hearing. Yeah. This is um sacred rest. This is really good. This was written by Sandra Dalton Smith. She's a medical doctor, but you know, I'm just thinking it says many of us run from rest.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Rest looks like waiting. It feels like a lack of progress. And I think that's kind of what we're saying here, right? For for the for these personalities.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:26

For it can be real, it can be really hard to sit on a beach.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

Yeah. Exactly. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:33

Well, if I sit here, I better read a business book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

And this is saying a well-rested life requires a delicate balance between pruning and growth. Some things have to be cut away to make room for what's pleasant, but it ensures that the activities, relationships, and the situations that deplete you will not continue to be depleting.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:52

That's so good. And that that's in the step of stopping with intention is taking that. inventory on the all the things that it puts in your life and and like literally just asking like what is serving us and what is killing us and it's amazing how many things aren't serving us but they are just still a part of our life because it's the way it's always been or it's what's required to and it's what gets recognition and it's what the world tells us is good.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:20

And I will just just for the sake of being honest and humble, I'm sitting here going, yep, how many books have I read because they were fun or am I just reading because it's on the list of I've got to read this. You know, I was supposed to read the book on EOS and I was supposed to read traction and I'm supposed to read the you know I how many podcasts mow in the lawn.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:40

We can listen to the fun books while we're driving.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:42

Right, exactly we'll do that.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

Yeah. So funny but but I just kind of I'm sitting here going oh convicted of that and I don't view it as a guilt thing. I view it as oh that's so good. I'm gonna listen to that because I need that's a red alert.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

Yeah and it's I think it's the intentionality is like it almost kind of doesn't require intentionality to read the business book. That's just natural. It's like the intentionality is like I'm going to um I'm going to do something that doesn't it's not about growth. It's not about it's just about rest, delight. Because what happens is like you made a comment earlier Ryan about like when I'm in my circle with my friends or whatever and then everything is just about the business. It's it that is actually easy. It's easy because it's like that's just it's almost um it's almost a version of small talk. It's like fired and wired. Yeah that's just what comes out but like to actually because to slow down and to actually have the thoughts that are really going on in my head require me to actually be honest. Vulnerable vulnerable and now it's like dude there's I can't that's hard is it it's it it requires into every time I go there I I get teary well that's him you know we're not we're not doing that tonight.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:01

We're just gonna have have fun. So let's talk about how's your business doing yeah yeah and then let's just go get busy because busy will allow me and that's why we measure pace we actually do inventory on your pace of life because busyness is just a form of of numbing like we actually get addicted to busy well it's maybe uh again in this uh in this book we've referenced um strength to strength I mean he he references it's one of the most insidious addictions is is this idea of workaholism and it it it's it's real and and so I think what you're saying is busyness is it's different from me know because productive's work is good that that is feeding your soul yeah again blessing your life blessing others because that's how you're wired and that's a gift right that's good we're not saying that go sit on your couch eat potato chips no yeah that's not what we're saying no we're saying that when that becomes the thing added it is driving you crazy and your family crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

That's what we're saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:09

And none of this is like you something you graduate from so like one of the things I realized in my journey healing journey over the last really what started about seven years ago and walking through the the inventory and the pausing and the naming the lies and and then the my circles of connection and my recharge routines and my new vision for my life and what is success. I I remember like walking through all this I met with a counselor my counselor walked through a lot of my journey and I said why am I still struggling like all these years later like I've I've we're not I'm not who I used to be right I'm not where I used to be but I it's it's still hard and and what do you do in that situation? And and I remember him looking at me he said Adam you never stop using the tools and I just I hated it because it was like but I already graduated like I learned the tool I took the course I'm the achiever right I graduated I got the certificate I'm the one who can teach people now. And he said you just never stop re using the tools so back to our conversation of the difference between successful people that sustain and not is you just keep being intentional. It's just this continual repeated pattern of now I don't have to take inventory on my massive mess of the life I've created now I take inventory on how's our pace this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

Did I touch the grass?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:30

Did I touch the grass? I'm taking inventory on these things that I know will predict my sustainability and I and I my neighbor um uh is 82 just celebrated his 82nd birthday neatest guy and um there a couple months ago he was on his way somewhere and asked where he's going he's oh I'm headed to my AA meeting and I said oh a at 82 and he said he looked at me and said Adam you never stop using the tools and I was like there there it is here's this age he's I've been sober for 50 years 50 years and he said I never never stop uh using the tools and it was intentionality his intentionality about me being sober for 50 years and um and he has a heart now for helping the young person and so he's it's beautiful he wants to go help the 30 year old who's walking in going am I the only one maybe that's how we help our kiddos maybe that's like we never stop using the tools in the tools you teach them how to use the tools and then we're willing to mentor someone else and I don't have all the answers.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:34

I'm not perfect but I'm using the tools yeah could I show you how to use the tools could I use the tools with you yep exactly like that it's really good.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:42

One of the things um we've been talking about here uh both of you is rest yeah and I just love this from from another book it it says we often we too often look at rest as this thing that is the reward we get when the work is done but the work is never done.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:02

Wow right well that's the J curve.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:04

That's the J That's right the work is never done so when can I rest? So the problem then is you are always working from a place of exhaustion. And so we have to change that dynamic somehow and I think you're you're walking through a process and we're trying to do the same of saying okay we need to rest and then work out of a place of rest and and experience joy out of a place of rest from the fruit of that work that we that we but you can't do that until your identity isn't tied to the success or find business or the money or the bank account or the idol.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:44

Yes. You cannot do that. It's impossible and until you heal that like that's the journey we're all on is like now I can I'm resting in an identity that's beyond me.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:56

So how do you get people to as you're walking with it to understand that one my identity is somehow wrapped up in something it shouldn't be. Yeah and then change because as you said you're not a counselor. So we might think that that's the work of a counselor.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:11

Yeah yeah and and I'm probably just introducing you to like ideas that you're gonna need like deeper help with but uh you know so much of it just starts with the the inventory and the auditing and like being honest about where I'm at. I call the ambition collapse but the ambition collapse really starts with um you know uh no language for sustainability but maybe your mission is small. So maybe you're a new entrepreneur you're just getting started you're building something new maybe you're young um but the the the ambition is small the mission is small and so the uh sustainability you don't really have any language for but what happens is then the mission grows and that was the case zero to 2000 in two years series A six million dollars scale the team like you start to grow you get influence authority power whatever you're after we think our ambition it grows because the same level of success wouldn't give the dopamine hit exactly so it has to be bigger has to be bigger and and again our ambition and wiring is driving success the thing is that we believe our mindset our toxic mindset is that my broken ambition will stay small so my need to prove that I'm enough will stay small even though the company's growing big the the the reality is that that thing is amplified. Okay so now my ambition and my my core need to prove that I'm enough is just now 10x so be very careful about how successful you want to get with a broken ambition because then it creates the ambition trap and the ambition trap is basically anybody like take Lance Armstrong the pinnacle of his career the best to ever do it can't tell anybody he's honest has his first interview post fall and says I've never been more free. It's out like he lost everything it collapsed but he talked about how like it's finally out because for years it wasn't for years it was hidden the success ramps up you're at the top of your thing and your ambition is driving this it's not decreasing your your need to prove that you're enough is not low it is maxed out and if you're not honest and open that's what creates the the in the end the collapse for a lot of us where we we end up losing what matters most lose my family yeah lose my marriage lose the job lose the company um lose your soul lose your soul yeah can you talk about the hustle meter is this a good yeah so the hustle meter was my attempt to ask myself how can I not do this yeah on a seven year cycle you know where it's like okay we are toxic and broken and all this stuff how do we actually do this in um I wanted something repeatable and approachable so how do we make and uh regulated ambition how do we make healed hustle uh regular uh repeated and approachable and so what I basically did was was created seven levels to from healthy um uh to escape and so H hustle it's an acronym hustle is uh healthy and E is escape and escape is at the bottom and we're all moving through this meter all the time we're moving up and down it and I wanted a tool that I could use weekly like every seven days or five days I could call Ryan and go like hey here's what I'm at on the hustle meter and it just goes through a series of questions of where are you at you know from from um from healthy to um you know uh the the U is um I'm trying actually forgetting the the like forgetting priorities um and then the S is stressed and the uh T is um um a turning point and then the L is like I'm losing and then the E is escape and so what happens is we go from like I'm hey I'm just stressed I'm super stressed right now I'm moving towards like a turning point where I'm actually going to start like losing uh um my intentionality losing my uh sustainability and then eventually when we get to escape we're just hunting for a way out either we're that for an addict that's gonna be numbing and relapse for some in a lot of traumatic situations it's I want out of this marriage I want out of this life I wish I could quit my job and just leave you know I'm leaving it all um so we're just hunting for escape so the question like kind of weakly is like how do you start move back towards healthy? What is healthy? How do you define healthy? Well healthy is going am I taking inventory? Am I learning to pause with purpose? Am I um naming the lies going on in my life? Am I prioritizing connection with my intimate circle? Do I have my recharge routines and am I making progress towards the life vision I wrote for myself. So I have an exercise where you redefine success and kind of how EOS does it where you have the rocks and the like here's the things I'm actually going after success in my life and here's the things that will get me there. And and and in taking inventory on the progress you're making. And so it was like taking this big long kind of eight step heeled hustle and going how do you do this every week like just in a routine and a rhythm and a practice so I created the hustle meter which is just uh it's actually a worksheet you can do uh we'll build an app for it but you can just take inventory on your life in a like weekly way and eventually it just becomes language and yeah and you're you have two or three people that really know your story and who you are and what drives you and you can just be honest like here's where I'm at on the hustle meter. And here's and so then the question for the accountability person is like so what's your commitment to move back towards healthy?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:28

So that's good because again we just talked about the the whole rust thing and then the hustle meter so how do you stay if you're if if you're a driven person and you are used to putting out a lot of energy you have ambition we said it's not bad. It just needs well I said the governor on the engine right because then we don't rev it so high that the engine just explodes no we're letting the engine keep running just governing it. How do you stay creative when you add more rest than most entrepreneurs think is possible you know that pushback of like I can't I can't step away can't take that break do have you run into that yeah so I guess yourself and others you're putting you're you're resting too much kind of thing is that yeah like um how am I going to do all this how am I gonna be creative how am I going to be ambitious if I add rest yeah how do I keep there's a book uh called a book how do I take two days away Adam I will have 400 emails in my inbox that's impossible and nobody else can answer those except me yeah yep and this is really hard when you're in a startup yeah like nobody gets paid if we don't this doesn't work. Yes and you and you said something toward the beginning of the podcast you know maybe it is something really hardcore like you have to quit your job. And for some people they're like I can't I can't yeah can't quit my job.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:45

That is a tough question I'm always answering is as I'm building the the healed hustle it's not it's not I it doesn't uh I don't know the word is it it's ironic that I have to ask myself am I healing like am I am I doing am I resting as I'm building you know the things I'm building out I think it's good because it's lived experience. The the couple of thoughts that come to mind um uh Jake Knapp wrote a book called Make Time they were the uh does the does the guys who built Gmail no and uh they wrote a book called Make Time and in their book Make Time they talk the one of the interviewers asked them do you guys think because they were they were basically making a case for what you're saying which is like you've got to sh to turn off you have to learn the art of slowing down and they have a a framework and a case study for how slowing down will actually help you go farther. And there's evidence behind this if you want to go far you actually have to have these intentional rhythms that will help you go far. And they're like yeah but would Gmail have ever become what it became or Google became whatever it became right and they had a fascinating answer. He said I actually think it would have been 10 times what it is today. No way had had we gone slower he's I think we actually limited the impact that it has today because we went fast and we didn't stop and we're exhausted and we lost our it was an interesting philosophy. I don't know that's true in every situation the go ahead the the the the point being that um there's a there's a an idea that actually slowing down and having these rhythms your most intentional thoughts are in the shower out on the walk you know like those are some of your best ideas but if you never give yourself the space or time for that it doesn't happen. Give yourself time to shower please that I they talk about smell the shampoo oh smell the shampoo is a philosophy of make time and I I loved the theory behind it.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:52

When is the last time you smell you actually noticed the smell because you were so present in your life I just have to wash my hair and get out of the shower smelled the shampoo you actually noticed smell um I would just add in a a a program that that I'm part of called Strategic Coach um the the whole foundation of the program begins with the entrepreneurial time system. So which starts with free days a free day is 24 hours of no reading thinking or talking about business.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:29

This is hard for you.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:30

And it's it's a learned um uh skill yeah um the uh tension in the room when when the coach tells you you can't check email on a free day you can't read books wait a second but I like I like those books but but can I check email for just 60 seconds? The problem is what what's in that email right and and so so free days are the foundation and and Dan Sullivan who created that concept who also wrote the books that many people are now familiar with 10x is easier than 2x, who not how, the gap and the gain some great ideas uh coming out of that program and and and from Dan but he says in his more than 30 years of working with and coaching entrepreneurs there is a direct correlation between the amount of time they take off and the success of their business direct correlation. So the more time you take off the greater the success. Wow you know backing up what what Jason or Jake Knapp said in in that book. Yep but it's it's hard and it and it's funny because he walks people through a continuum of of taking free days. I mean we are adults we have to be taught how to take a day off but yes because you start with a day off away and completely scheduled okay and the reason is if you don't have if you have downtime so if you just go sit at the pool yeah guess what I'm getting on the phone I'm gonna read that book. So you have to have everything planned out mapped out we're gonna go take a fishing trip that we're gonna go on a hike whatever that may be then you can you know once you master a day away with uh a complete uh schedule of activities for that day well now we can move to a day at home that's completely scheduled okay so we we we still have to have everything scheduled but we don't have to go away now yeah and then when we've mastered that we can move to I can go away on vacation but you know I can have some unscheduled time because now I've I'm getting better. I'm it's actually a process of healing from an addiction. Yeah right and then finally when you've mastered a free day you can stay at home uh and have have it unstructured or unscheduled so it's it's pretty fascinating um to watch a group of 60 adults in a room be told that you have to take a free day and no you can't check email and you can't read it all.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:14

Switching like they knew their next morning hit it's um but it speaks to the depth of the problem.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:20

I heard a leader say um that I really respect uh just a a friend but um that's been done well in his life and he said um you know I just choose to let my family limit my uh my uh business impact and that's really sweet and it's just an intent it's an intentionality yes like I'm going I versus the other way about we usually like I'm gonna let my business limit my yeah family engagement and it's like I'm gonna let my family engagement limit how much success I can have and it's like whew that feels that's like you know there's not a how in there it's just a a philosophy a mindset a way of of thinking about life and what success really is and it's a mindset of of wisdom yeah right that's what the guy told you enjoy your life it's going against the grain to your job right and I and I think that's so often uh wisdom is contrarian I mean we we talk about that all the time to be a good investor you have to be a contrarian yeah I think that if if what if our philosophies are widely accepted by everyone around us maybe we need to uh question that yeah that's good um yeah I mean I think one of the things that that's coming up for me as we continue to talk and and we already knew this this is why we're talking is just the the commonality or the the synergies between Life Raft and healed hustle so you talk about intentionality.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:50

I mean that is in Life Raf the thing that I guess it's this moment of saying we're gonna move from unintentional in the family to intentional. We're going to To apply that same discipline to our lives. Yeah. So for you, it's it's saying we're gonna be intentional. Hey, entrepreneur, we're gonna be intentional. We're trying to say, hey, entrepreneur, we need to, and family, we need to be intentional. Yeah. Um, mission and purpose, right? What is our why? Let's let's maybe define and heal that why. Let's create the rhythms and patterns. I I loved how you you know touch the grass every day and you know, the the confession, the take inventory. So you you know, you have a regular rhythm and pattern for sustaining that. This isn't a we talk about this a lot in the book that we're writing. This isn't something you can do once and say, I did that. We we went through, hey Shannon, here's here's an education on the the balance sheet, here's where things are, here's the will, put it on a shelf, it's done. Nope, that's not good enough. Yeah, right. Things change, things need to be updated because all of this is about creating a life that flourishes, right? The entrepreneur, I mean, you're you're trying to help them get to a place of flourishing. We're trying to help the family get to a place of flourishing. And those those two ideas really come together. The the final piece in our model is what we call life moments, celebrations. Yeah. I mean, that's the I I think you, you know, when you were talking about moving from a place of, hey son, what could you have done better in your basketball game? To did you have fun? Yeah, like that's a celebration. It is. We're we're celebrating today because you got to go have fun on the basketball court or you know, whatever that is. And we we so often miss that. We we have the success in the business, the the exit, we we raise the funds, and now we're just on to the next challenge. Yeah, we're on to the next hurdle. You know, we don't slow down. Um, what comes up for you and and all of that?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:14

Yeah, I just keep thinking that in order for people to be successful with the life raft journey, they have to take this personal hustle journey often. Yeah. Right. So, and it's funny, you talked about pausing, and we talk about that in Life Raft. We'll say permission to pause.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:35

I guess right now I would just say, hey, here's some permission to pause. Do a little inventory. Um, walk away with one, we'll have you give one little simple habit that someone could do to try this week that we could line up ambition with intention. We'll we'll get there. But I guess what I'm saying is let's take a minute to pause and say, okay, what is coming up for us? I know things have come up for me. I would assume things have come up for you, maybe even you, right? Because none of us here, this isn't prescriptive. None of us are saying we're counselors, yeah, we have all the answers, our lives are perfect.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:08

We are saying Yeah, none of us are saying we have now arrived. This is all easy for all.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:14

I want to absolutely let's let's say that again a little bit louder. We don't have the answers, but we have come into a space where we want this wellness, and then we want you to have it too. And so we're willing to be vulnerable, yeah, and invite you into a journey with and so a journey that has worked, like a journey that has bring positive information. We are seeing positive outcomes. Yes, absolutely. We're seeing it, yeah, right? Um, and it came from places of pain, yeah, places of intentionality, places of doing assessments and realizing we were lacking here. Yeah, we have to, we have to correct this. That's we're out of balance. And so then we're just saying, wow, you know, could could could we invite you in? And so permission to pause for anybody listening and to say, okay, maybe I'm a little bit off here and I want this for my family, but I do recognize that I need to heal here.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:07

Um, so what would be one little thing that you could say? Take this away and try this.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:12

Yeah. I think the um the first like little exercise of taking inventory is um um the Patterson Institute has these four questions I that I like, um, that I think is a great place to start. Um, and it is what is working, what is wrong, what is missing, and what is broken? And so um this is just a quick little exercise you can do to start the conversation of like inventory. Um is you know, look and you're looking at your whole life, you're looking at your family, you're looking at your marriage, you're looking at your individual life, what is working? And you should make a list, make a list of what's working. Uh, what is wrong? Something that you know, like this is just wrong. This this is not working. Are there anything missing? And is there anything broken? Could be right, just needs to be fixed. Yep. Um, that's a great place to just start to go, how are we doing? You know, uh, how am I doing? How am I doing? And uh, and I think that all leads to the one nugget that I would say for in in in relationship to the Hilled Hustle and Life Raps and stuff is um just allow yourself as you look at that list and the answers to ask yourself, why am I really doing what I'm doing? Just uh as a thought exercise, like, why am I really doing what I'm doing? You can have the right what with the wrong why. So take a moment to just reflect on why you're really doing what you're doing and see what comes up. And that might be an indicator of like, I need to just dig into that and think through why I am really driving this business, building this business? Why do I really want to sell it? Why do I really want to um you know be as successful as I am or have this title or whatever it is? Why am I really doing what I'm doing? And um and then that allows the opportunity to then start doing the work of like, how do I reframe? How could how what would a reframed why look like? Might be the same what with a reframed why, and that'll help me be more sustainable in the world.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:16

That's fantastic. And I think I I wouldn't want somebody to do this exercise and go, I I suck. I'm just I'm too broken and I don't even know where to start. I think instead giving giving yourself grace and permission, yeah, to say, Oh, okay, this this isn't awesome. And now I realize it and recognize it, and I'm calling it out. So now I can move forward. I don't have to stay here, I don't have to move further back. Yeah, I I can stop this train wreck, right? And so um, I think just having a moment of encouragement. Yeah. Like, yeah, there's hope, of course there is, you know, and and we would love to partner with you in that.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:02

Yeah. One step that changed a lot of my life over the last few years that feels really small, but feels intentional, um, in in my naturally wired, ambitious, hustle body, is I changed my mornings. And one of the things I did is I moved the charger of my phone. Um, I moved it away from my bed and moved it like at least 10 feet away. So I had to get out of my bed to get my phone, and my phone goes on that thing every night. And then I just made an internal commitment. I'd love for it to say that I'm perfect at this, but uh I'm not, but I I do try to do it more than not, is I don't check anything business related. My email, text message. I don't even look, I can see that I have eight unread messages. I don't check them until I touch the grass. So I go out, I do my walk, I touch the grass, I remind myself I'm not in charge. And then I can go to town on my emails and my text messages and all the things. But that little like morning hack for me has it's it's like helped my ambition just a little bit be throttled. Of like, you put a governor on the engine. Put a governor on the engine of how I start my day. Otherwise, I will lay in bed, look at my phone, and start checking email, and now I'm into work and I'm not even out of bed, and that's how you start. And most of us start and go to bed that way, you know. And so it's like, what does it look like to start differently?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:34

That's great.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:35

Um these tools of of modernity have have created a real challenge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a question. Yeah. Um, how do you touch the grass in the winter?

SPEAKER_00 1:36:48

Just gets as all right.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:51

And if there's snow on the ground, you dig through it. Yeah, with uh the the nature preserve has these really tall, like I don't even know what they're called, like the wheat things or whatever. Okay, yeah, okay. It's kind of a brush and draw that with okay. So any type of grass, yeah, any type of whatever your version of grass is.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:06

It's gotta be wheat grass, which where you want you to go. We want you to press it and drink it.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:11

Yes, yes, all right, yeah, your version. Whatever your version is great, Adam. Thank you. Um how can people find you online?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:20

Yeah, the heildhustle.com is where they can go and take an assessment and see where you're at. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:27

I think it's good to say too, again, we're not mental health professionals here. And if something comes up for somebody, don't be afraid to ask for help. Yeah, right. Don't be afraid to seek professional help. There's there's power in that.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:41

That's the unlock. Yep. Yeah, it's the beginning of the unlock. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:46

Thank you guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:48

Thank you for listening to the Worth Beyond Wealth podcast. If you liked this podcast, please like, share, and subscribe. The highest compliment you could give would be sharing this with a friend. Thank you. The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or any specific security. RW Investment Management, LLC, DBARW Investment Management, is a registered investment advisor. Testimonials given by current clients are not in exchange for compensation. This document is solely for informational purposes. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where RWIM and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. No advice may be rendered by RWIM unless a client service agreement is in place. RWIM is not a legal or tax advisor.