The Tin Foil Ball (Episode 14)

Kyle and Kim explore a simple childhood memory that turns into a powerful lesson about growth, persistence, and the compound effect of small actions.

Using the metaphor of a giant tin foil ball, this conversation examines why most people focus on the finished result while overlooking the countless small decisions, habits, and actions that made it possible.

Whether you're building a business, pursuing a goal, changing direction, or starting over, this episode is a reminder that every meaningful achievement begins the same way: one piece at a time.

The challenge isn't building the ball.

It's having the patience to keep adding to it.

Send us your thoughts on this episode!

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Transcript

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It's Legacy Live. I'm your host, Kyle Hosick. And I'm your host, Kim Fitzpatrick. And we are back with another episode. What are we talking about today? We are talking about the tinfoil ball. Alright, so I have a famous tinfoil ball that I remember. Um, and that's kind of how we got on this topic. Yes. Not that I think about Pee Wee's Playhouse regularly during the course of my business during the week, but that was a show I liked as a kid. Um, and I'm somewhere I saw a picture of him with his tinfoil ball, this giant tinfoil ball, that in each episode he'd add one piece to the ball. And that's how every tinfoil ball starts. And Kim and I thought, what a great way to look at life and business and the small steps it takes to get to something big. Yeah, it's quite the metaphor, actually, if you think about it. And you know, it's interesting. I have not thought about Pee-wee's Playhouse in a really long time, like maybe, you know, 30, 40 years. Um 30 years. But still, it's like I'm I'm younging myself. Not aging, I'm younging myself. I'm gonna create a word. But one thing I really like about what you said, and this is interesting, is we were like preparing for this. It's like when I think about a huge tinfoil ball and him adding one piece of tinfoil, it's like, imagine how lumpy and bumpy and uncomfortable that ball would have felt. Like there would have been no smooth edges, there would have been no, like, you know what tinfoil's like when you'd like take it off your, you know, your your roast or your I don't know whether I don't know whether or not people really use tinfoil as much anymore, but like none of it ever is circular, perfect, or linear, which is exactly why we're talking about one piece to a ball. Yes. And I guess if you're a perfectionist, you could like really try and like smooth the tinfoil out, but that's not the point of this episode. That's not the point of the ball. The whole point of it is that it's supposed to just be this beautiful art piece, and that is what is your life, that is what is your business, that is what is your relationships, like everything counts to the this one. It's a great metaphor for the journey that starts. You know, there's some saying somewhere that's like the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step, right? That's sort of what a tinfoil ball is is like one piece at a time, and uh and we look on this show for tiny key visualizations to help people through their business and their life and find ways to improve the outlook. And I think a tinfoil ball is great because um at some point you're only holding one piece of tinfoil, yeah. Right? And we talked before this about like how many pieces do you need in your hands that are starting to form a ball before you can be proud of the fact you're holding some pieces of tinfoil. Yeah. How many would you need to hold, Kim? You know, it's a good question. And I was just thinking about that because for a long time I probably would have needed a lot. It's gotta at least look like a ball, right? Or or something. Like, you know, it's like it's just when you're just holding one piece, you're like, oh, it's easy, I'll just throw it away. It's scrap, it's not, it's not anything. Yeah. But that's but that's part of the process of it. Like I like the question is when will when will you be proud? Well, I think now in Kim, like era level 45, she would be proud with one piece because that represents the start of something. But if you you put Kim five years ago, none of it would have been enough. Right. Which isn't sad or good. It just shows group growth and evolution, which I think is worth mentioning because you being able to be seen as a beginner with that one piece of tinfoil, I believe, is actually the magic to your next step. Because you will never get 10 pieces of tinfoil without one. So why not be proud of the one? Yeah. Right? And I okay. Can I ask you? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I mean, Kyle, you've built many things. Yes. Do you think that were you always proud with just one piece? Or are you would that be something more of who you are now because of your knowledge and what you know? So I was I was super proud with one piece, but I would rush the other pieces. Interesting. Okay. Like, because I I would be like, this is cool. How many pieces can I run around and find and tack onto here as soon as possible? I think the only thing that time has taught me is like it's one piece at a time is good. Relax, chill out. I think we've used this sort of metaphor about like, you know, one daily action or an email you would send to someone that's a long shot celebrating the small pieces. But yeah, like I definitely I revel and relish in knowing how big I might be able to make the ball, even if I only have one piece in my hand, because I like the story aspect of a business so much that I like sitting down with someone and being like, look at this piece that I found that I'm gonna call this, and when the ball starts to get bigger, it's gonna look like this. You can you're allowed to talk about how big your foil ball is gonna get, even if it's small. And that you know, that's so I like that part. I love that part, but then I also love the follow-through, which is waking up the next day and going, What's the next piece that I'm gonna show somebody and say, wait till this gets bigger, right? You know, it's interesting. One of the things that you just made me think about is like how can you're future-proofing? You have a real great ability to future proof, meaning, like you can see the end in mind. I yes, that's my favorite because it's a I it's like guaranteeing content movement. Yeah, right, but no, I don't think everyone can do that. I know, but this is that's why we want everyone to picture the tin foil wall. I agree, and this is so huge. I mean, this is like I love talking about this. It's like think with the end in mind, the end result, right? Like you've got to be thinking about, you know, Kyle and I have this huge goal across our businesses, right? It's like, okay, this will be the impact, this will be the income, this will be the scalability. We started there and then we moved back. So we actually started with the end of the tinfoil ball in mind. It's the best place to start. I know, but this is it. Like we this is what we want you to hear. If you're listening to this, it's like so many people start with the one piece of tinfoil and then are trying to get it going. But if you can start with like, okay, the vision is this massive, beautiful ball that's lumpy and bumpy and very many different layers and iterations and versions. Yeah, but when you look at it, you get to go, I remember all those layers. Totally. Yeah, it's the the lumps are the great parts, right? And then the bigger it gets. The funny thing is, I I took the tinfoil ball and then went Raiders of the Lost Ark to like this giant ball that's chasing you, you know. But I asked you this question when we were writing our notes is like, how big does the ball need to be ever? Like, if it's the size of a basketball, that that's a gigantic tinfoil ball. I think the point of the Pee-weeds playhouse that clearly wasn't all foil, like it was a prop that they filled in the middle. But like, even if it's the size of a baseball, that's like work went into that, and that can still be a successful business. I don't care if you're cleaning out Eaves Toughs and your spotless window cleaning. You you built up a tinfoil ball that's can allow you to work for yourself, and it's so important. I think one of the things is while we were chatting about is that a lot of people just don't won't even start because they're so embarrassed by this like one little piece, right? Because they're dreaming about the big ball. Oh, we have a little ball there. That would be a good visual, right? You're dreaming about this ball, but it's not there yet. And you know, I love this saying, it's the start that makes most people stop. You know, and it's like it is it's the start that makes most people stop because they're like, Well, don't want to be, don't want to be seen at the bottom. Yeah, I don't want to be seen as a beginner, I don't want to be cringy, I don't want to be embarrassing. I but like you have to start somewhere. And I think it's so brave. Like, I think it's so brave when people are like, I have this idea. You know what else takes guts too? Is sometimes you have to turf your foil ball. Yeah. And that's okay too. Oh man. I I can relate to that. Like I was chatting with Kyle and I were talking about this before earlier this morning when I was like, listen, I was like, I feel like, you know, my foil ball has changed. So is yours. Like we are both of ours has morphed. But I went from my a foil ball that was like really big over a decade of like growth and learning and different iterations. And I was like, that we literally said this like, do we do we just get a new ball? Are we starting with a new ball? Do we add to the ball? Like, that's a good question because I'm right now in a point of like, I love to call this re-entry where I'm not behind. I'm not, I'm not, I do not need to be like reenvisioned. I'm very happy with where I'm at. I love it. Like I'm happy, I'm aligned, things feel really good. But I feel like I'm a beginner in this new founding role of coach education and other things that we're really working to do. And I love it. I like being a beginner. I I was just at the ICF conference in Paris, and I we I was sitting in the coach educator's room, and I was like, I actually said it in one of our little sections, we were kind of like this. Oh my God, the Play-Doh. Never allow me to do the Play-Doh. Did you remember? I had to do this Play-Doh visionary of like what you thought you were, and I tried to build the lighthouse. It looked like Pee Wee's Playhouse comes into play in real life. It was like Play Doh, wow. And I had to create this thing, and I built a lighthouse that ended up not looking like a lighthouse. Use your imagination. It was not a lighthouse. Anyway, but uh it's fine. Everyone's like, that bottom looks quite suspicious, Gamble. It's trying. Anyway, my point was this is I was like, I'm the newbie. Yeah. And I was excited. And you know what they said? Congratulations. How can we help you? That's a killer. Like, most people are so afraid to be seen at the bottom, but people want to help you. They want to know that you're excited about something. Like, oh, that's intriguing. Tell me more. Well, how can I help you? What can I do? Like, it was so neat to just be in that room as a beginner and like coming in there, being like, gosh, the last time I was here, we were just trying to get our provisionally, we were trying to be provisionally accredited last October. So now we're here in the next one and we're in the in the ring. It's with a foil ball. Legit foil ball. Legit, and it might be here right now because we're gonna get when we get to the next step, it'll be bigger. But like that was cool. And that's my point about that re-entry of like the fascination with being a beginner again, even though you're not a beginner, you're not starting from the bottom, you're starting from the middle of the foil ball. So that's the question. Do you abandon the big ball because it evolves and it shapes, or do you just keep on adding in? And I think that's up to each of you listening as to what you want to do, like what feels the best for you. But you know, what got you to your first $5,000 or $100,000 or your first million will not get you to your three to $10 million scale. You have to become a different person. So your tinfoil pieces may look similar, but they're gonna be placed differently. Or I don't know, what's your take on that? Uh there's a thing right now, like in the zeitgeist, yes, I get to use that again, where like 40 to 60 is like the age of the entrepreneur. I feel this in my bones. I think you should because uh it's so easy to be like, I didn't have my shit together when I was 18 or 25, and now I'm too old. Or 30 with babies when you're just like, I'm just am I sleeping? Am I coming? Am I who needs to be fed? Yeah, right, and so this is what I like about being almost 50 with like some tinfoil scraps. Yeah, that's true. Like I was having lunch with my it was my dad's birthday, and I saw him yesterday and was like, I'm gonna tell my dad about my tinfoil pieces. And we hadn't talked in ages, and he was like, Holy cow, you have a lot of small tinfoil balls, but I can see how every one of those is gonna like jump to be a big tinfoil ball. And I was like, I love talking about small foil balls. Wow. Um, even though I'm 50. Like you could argue I'm supposed to be thinking about retiring in in 10 years, right? No, no way. I love that. I would I actually like the thrill of having rolling three or four juggling different businesses, you know, and we're doing that. Yep, just because you have one foil ball doesn't mean you can't have another one. That's amazing if you can, you know, manage it and you have the capacity for it, yeah. You see how they're gonna have to work together in your schedule or get along with the other foil structures. It's it's fun. You know, are any of you visual learners listening to this podcast right now? Because I am so visual and that helps me to think about that. It's like I think for so long I always used to think everything had to be this one thing, but I actually I love this analogy of like I see you love the um tinfoil balls, I love glass balls. So I love the analogy of these glass balls. And if you think of juggling, so now if if I replace those glass balls that I love to juggle, you just put those tinfoil balls in, which actually makes more sense because you know what? Glass balls you cannot add to. Right. There you go. So that's interesting, right? That'll be. Is this a thing? Because if you drop one, it breaks. Yes, it's usually me. Okay, gotcha. It used to be my thing, but you know what? It was I remember one time I uh okay, I'm gonna give a shout out to Lori, tarot card Lori. I love her so much. So she is um she is amazing. Okay. Anyway, so she was like, Kim, she's she's so cool. She was like, think about this. She's like, Do you remember? And I don't know whether I shared this before on the podcast, but I'm gonna say it again if I have. So she's like, Do you know those? Do you remember those IKEA plastic plates that we used to get for the kids? And they were like all scratched up because they just could get me destroyed. She goes, right now, you are holding like 15 of these IKEA plastic plates, and you're just like junk, you're just like spinning all your plastic plates. But you know what? She goes, underneath those plastic plates because you have this royal Dalton China. Okay. And you are you are missing, you are missing the China because you're just so busy with all these scratch scuffed old plates you won't throw out and put down to get to the China. So that speaks to like taking a few layers of the ball away to make the ball even better. And that's where I actually liked your your thought about smaller tinfoil balls that are manageable, that you yes, but they all lead and file into each other. Okay, like this is I like this because that I can feel them coming together with me right now. Like yesterday I just went out and got my next like written calendar agenda for us. We've got a lot coming up for Q3, Q4, Q1. Like, we're moving, right? I can't wait to see what you've assigned me. I haven't I haven't assigned you anything, but I needed a calendar for it, right? So I like writing stuff down too with you, yeah. So I went and I got a new calendar and I was like, oh, this is so exciting. But here's the fun part. I don't have two calendars, I have one calendar that that fit all of our little businesses, oh no, not little, all of our big businesses in one thing, but they're just different. I'm gonna just highlight different things. But the same analogy goes with that tinfoil ball, right? It's like, what are you adding to? What are you having? It's the same thing like our think about our podcast. Okay, let's talk about our our podcast. It's a podcast, it is a tinfoil ball. Little tinfoil piece. I'm so sad I don't have tinfoil in my hand right now because I'm so tactile. Well, if if you looked at every episode, we're slowly creating they work as a unit, which is the tinfoil ball. You can listen to one and take something away, but what the feedback we're getting is like 13, 14 episodes all work together to paint a picture, and that's a great example. And we wrote how this applies outside business, and I think of like TikToks or Instagram reels I see where it's like some dude who's in credible shape. Yes. And you I'm looking at that being like, Oh man, I'm never gonna look like that. But you gotta this is how social media is kind of like corrupted people's perception. If you start comparing your foil ball to someone who's puts 15 years of work into theirs, and you go, I'm holding these two pieces of foil, so I'm gonna give up because these don't compare. That's the worst. Instead, look at that physically fit guy or girl and go, they did the foil ball every day or five days a week. They put in the half hour of their piece of foil that day to look and feel and deliver a reel like that. That's somehow I got all these kettlebell things two weeks ago. It's like I think I need to buy a kettlebell. But also, I was like, I can't do, can I do that many? Yeah, I can do five minutes. Yeah. If I'm pacing around on the phone, I will hold a kettlebell. Let's see what that improves. Right. That's one piece of foil. Yeah, grip strength. Yeah, exactly. See, or I can do this with it or whatever. And I can talk into it by accident and do that with my phone. You know, one thing that it's interesting too. It's I I remember this analogy, and I use this with a lot of my clients that I coach. It's like, imagine this picture. So it's very similar to this, uh, to the tinfoil. It's like, imagine you in if you put 12 weeks, okay, you're gonna see no results for 12 whole weeks, but you have to stay consistent. Every day you have to do similar things. Every day you have to do similar things, and it's just gonna like that. Let's use nutrition or fitness for an example, right? Because it is, it's the level of like self-leadership is everything, and we definitely are want to talk more about that as well. Like when you think about this. So it's like say it's fueling your body, it's getting to sleep on time, it's things like that that that you need. But in those 12 weeks, you stack all these habits, but you will see no result, no change until 12 weeks and one 12 weeks, one week. So thirty, you know, whatever, 13 weeks. You're saying the results will all appear at one time. All appear at one time in the 13th week. Would you stay focused? Right, would you be able to stay focused on that for 12 solid weeks? And most people will stop after eight days because there are those limiting beliefs, the subconscious thoughts you have, right? They're just gonna be like, it's not worth it, it's not worth it. So the tinfall tinfoil ball ball analogy, what I love is you're just continuously stacking your habits. And if you can stack your habits one day after a time, it's like very James Clearish, right? It's like this, the the habits are everything. And if you can do that, you will completely change your trajectory because on the on the 13th week, you will see all those results because everything compounds. That's the same with a tinfoil ball. Like one little thing doesn't add up, but you go one little thing for 12 months of the year, yeah, you are 10xing your results. So that applies in business, that applies in fitness, that applies in relationships, that applies in everything. It literally applies in everything because you do get to see the results. And so when my question to the audience is like, what size does the tinfoil need to reach for you to be proud? Yeah. Is that one piece? Is it 10? Is it a softball? Is it a baseball? Is it one of those little bouncy balls? Like, give yourself permission to be proud with the golf ball. Yeah. And go, I see where this is going, and I'm going to continue to put the one piece where I need it. Or you can be extra and you can put five pieces down in one day. You can it's up to you, it's a decision. It's 100% a decision. Sometimes you will find a piece of foil that exceeds your expectations in just in how big a piece of foil can be. I love it. When you're like, whoa, I'm wrapping this one around, yeah, and it's still going and still going, and I gotta push it together. Yeah, but it's still a piece of foil, and you can you likely will never find that huge piece in the first 10 pieces of foil. That's true. You only found that big piece of foil because you're building the ball that deserves to find a piece of foil that size. That's brilliant.