#372 - ALWAYS, Be On A Mission.

Having a mission in life is essential to finding meaning and purpose. Without goals to progress toward, we risk falling into the dangerous trap of merely maintaining, which actually means we're moving backward in life.

• Maintenance is one of the most dangerous mindsets – in relationships, skills, and personal growth, we're either improving or declining
• Important areas like comedy and jiu-jitsu provide structure for constant improvement and a framework for setting progressive goals
• Relationships require active improvement – they're either getting better or worse, never truly maintained
• Setting increasingly challenging goals keeps life meaningful, like a weightlifter who reaches 250 pounds then adds more reps or more weight
• Creating moments of true silence helps connect thoughts and gain clarity on your mission
• Growth creates a positive feedback loop – achievements inspire you and motivate others who witness your progress

Always be moving forward in everything that matters to you – your skills, your relationships, and your personal growth. If you're not actively improving, you're falling behind.

Chapters

• 0:00 Be on a Mission
• 1:14 The Danger of Merely Maintaining
• 3:20 Finding Purpose Through Progressive Goals
• 6:26 The Power of Silence
• 10:42 Improving Relationships, Not Just Maintaining

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Be on a mission. You know I can't imagine what my life would be without comedy and jujitsu. You know your thing in your life might be your spirituality, because you're working to be a priest. But once you're a priest, what's the next level up right For me? I'm working on being a professional standup comedian and one day it's not immediate goal, I always focus on today, but knowing what goals I have planned for tomorrow and then even further. You know to be a black belt one day. I don't want to progress from today and as I continue to progress I continue to have to get better and just by that natural sequence, I'm going to be a black belt one day. But I have to focus and improve today and tomorrow. Just like in standup comedy, I have to always be.

Speaker 1: 1:03

I mean, could you imagine what life would be like if you're just constantly maintaining and then not even that, not even having something to maintain, you know, like? Imagine going to the gym and you didn't ever try to lift more weights, or being a track athlete a track athlete and not ever trying to get a faster mile. I think maintaining is one of the most dangerous things that you could do in your life, not just personally, but spiritually, um, and with your personal relationships and your friends, like if you're married and all you do is maintain your relationship and you're not trying to make it better always. I feel like the relationships, whether it's on the personal side or friends or whatever right, if you're not doing things to constantly improve them. There's no such thing as maintaining a relationship. It's either always going up or always going down. Right, and I think by you having a purpose, you know, having a mission in your life, such as me for my standup comedy, and then with that secondarily, but helping out with that jujitsu like, I just get like potentially so depressed because I think about how every single morning, my routine is geared. When I go to bed, I'm thinking about it. When I get up in the morning, I start working on it.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Um and uh, just knowing the fact that you have something that you continually not like, a um, uh anyway, just knowing in life that you have something that's a goal, short-term, medium, long-term and always. And then, once you're there, like once, once I am a standup comedian, which are bold words to say, but that's the reason to say them, right Um, how do I continue to get better as a professional standup comedian. I have all of these goals lined up, Okay, and without them, I really kind of feel like life is meaningless, because you have to have a purpose, you have to be purposeful in everything that you do. You know, like, I couldn't even imagine just getting up in the morning and not having, uh, not going to the gym or not, not, um, trying to be more healthy. You see, everything is always progressive and it has to be Um. That's why one of the biggest things that I always tell myself and uh to a few others of mine that are great friends uh, you have to always be moving forward. But it's not just like, um, you know, going forward, it's also going upward. I think anything you do in life is gonna be like an escalator, and you're going forward and upward, or forward and downward, I guess backward and downward, right, but it's just, it's a dangerous thing and it's the most inspiring thing, it's the most powerful thing that you can do and the most devastating thing that you can do. And the most devastating thing that you can do is not have all parts of your life. Be progressive, be moving forward in all parts of your life, and maybe some of them you're not like, as an example.

Speaker 1: 4:20

I have a day job, right, and I'm not trying to be the best at that, because that's not what I'm passionate about, but I'm a working professional. I have a day job, right, and I'm not trying to be the best at that, because that's not what I'm passionate about, but I'm a working professional, I have a skillset and I can do that job. And if that's you, that's fine. But there needs to be something in your life. There needs to be something that you are working to be the best at and if not the best at, better than you are today. Okay, you should all, whether you're lifting weights or you're running, or it's in your personal relationships or whatever.

Speaker 1: 4:53

You can't not care about everything, because then there's no purpose of life, plain and simple. You know, in this podcast, as I've mentioned before, I always try to have things that I'm instilling for myself, which is kind of like a moment for me to document and take a moment in my life and just putting it out there and making a record of it, and I was both thankful and I don't want to say depressed, but thinking of where depression could be hypothetically without the things that inspire me, and it's an awful thing to think about. And I'm just so dedicated and so geared and I get so angry. I get so beyond angry there isn't even a word for it when I feel like not necessarily my goals aren't being met, but when I'm not working on my goals.

Speaker 1: 5:50

Okay, you might want to bench press 250 pounds, but if you don't go to the gym a certain day on your way to that goal, even if you're benching less than that to get to that goal, man, that's the worst. But once you get 250, what do you do? Maybe do more repetitions. You got to find out. That's the worst. But once you get 250, what do you do? Maybe you do more repetitions. You got to find out. That's part of the challenge, and part of the fun in life is making challenges for yourself, making things more challenging, you know. So maybe you get 250 pounds on a bench press, okay. Well then, how many times can you do it? Okay, you've done it many times. What about more weight, more repetitions?

Speaker 1: 6:31

You know what I mean and for me, I'm not going to get into them, but I have many different goals between locations and sizes of the individuals that I'll be doing comedy to all at once, and how much I'm going to get paid, my pay structure, all sorts of stuff and I think the biggest inspiration that I can be to not just myself, you can inspire yourself. You know, in those moments of greatness when you level up in life, you know you're inspired by what you just did and you get addicted to it. You want to do more of it. You know you want to be more of an inspiration to yourself. But realistically, I also think that the biggest inspiration that you can be to others is to have them see you succeed, is to have them see you not just pursuing OK, you remember, like Rocky one, the training montage, the training footage. That's always inspiring. It's not just the fight, but it's a training before the fight. That gets you really inspired. But you're always thinking about that.

Speaker 1: 7:35

I don't like calling it a finish line, but what's past the finish line? You got to follow through. You don't just run to the finish line In any race. You run through it, and that's exactly what I think. But once you run through that, you have to be thinking about the goal that you're on and what lies ahead, right?

Speaker 1: 7:53

So, anyway, I just wanted to take a moment and just get this out, because I try to have everything on this podcast be purposeful, and there's been the last like week or so I didn't. I felt like I was like accumulating thoughts as far as not necessarily what to say on this podcast and just to have something out just for the purpose of it. But we're where I was, uh and um, basically just tapping into to my own thoughts a little bit more. And I think stillness and if you just drive around in the car with no radio, your, your mind has a way of like starting to like connect dots because it's constantly in static, it's constantly in motion, it's constantly absorbing information and hearing things, so um. So, if you want to take a minute, if you don't have moments to yourself which I'm going to do another episode about having time to yourself, how important that is make that time by the very least clearing your thoughts, by driving wherever you're driving, and doing it without the radio. And doing it without the radio Because sometimes you can have noises around you.

Speaker 1: 9:11

It could be a radio, it could be public streets and you're just relaxing, meditating, whatever. But there's a different kind of silence when it's actual silence. And when it's actual silence when there is no horns honking and the street lights buzzing and stuff like that, something interesting happens and your mind starts to connect dots. It gets a little bit more clear and I feel like you can hear your inner thoughts. You can feel those ideas start to connect more and you start to think different. You remove an element, you start to think different. So, anyway, guys, I really appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 9:55

If there's something that I said that can take you to that next level, even great. But I know this was important for me to say and I had to say it, and I'm thankful to have a mission, to be on a mission and even thinking about this by saying it out loud helped me think that my mission should not just be for my personal goals, it should also be my relationships. When I started talking, that's what happens. It opens up also, kind of like, my mind to these other ideas. That's what happens. It opens up also kind of like my mind to these other ideas, um, because I started just thinking about comedy and jujitsu and I finished thinking about um, exercising a little bit, yeah, which is true, definitely exact principle, but also your personal relationships.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Um, and maintaining that's another big one. Maintaining relationships is one of the most dangerous things because if you're maintaining them and just coasting by like on cruise control, you're actually going down. Okay, because you constantly have to be making them better, because if they're not getting better, they're getting worse, and you need to think about that in your life and who your real friends are and what you're doing. Because your time is very valuable, right, and you should be using them to improve your relationships and not letting them consciously get worse by not trying to make them better. If you care about them, right Again, if it's work, if it's professional, get in there, get out and do your thing, but unless you love that job and that's your mission.

Speaker 1: 11:23

So, that being said, I hope everybody has a beautiful day. If I said something that takes you to that next level, I'm really happy about that, that's great. But I know in this moment, for me it has, and I'm going to upload it, put in a video and uh, continue to uh, always be moving forward, amf. So you'll have a beautiful day. I'm binge. Well done, check me out. Peace.