#405: My Race🏁 Against⏰️TIME..

You can wake up early, grind all day, and still feel like you’re losing to the clock. I’m talking straight about that constant race against time: 4 AM mornings, training judo and jujitsu, getting workouts in, working a full-time job, writing a book, chasing stand-up comedy sets, and trying to keep up with family and life responsibilities without burning out.

The real enemy isn’t a lack of ambition, it’s procrastination hiding in “harmless” places. I unpack why scrolling in bed feels so awful after the fact, why the snooze button is basically a built-in option to delay, and why the smallest time leaks can wreck your momentum. I also dig into The War of Art and the idea of Resistance, using a spiritual lens to describe the battle between the part of you that’s called to build and the part that wants to stall. If you’ve ever felt self-sabotage show up right before a big opportunity, you’ll recognize it.

The big takeaway is simple: there’s no neutral. You’re moving forward or you’re moving backward, even when you think you’re standing still. I share the “moving walkway” metaphor, the daily reset reality that makes yesterday’s wins irrelevant, and the practical 1% habit that helps me execute when I don’t feel like it. We also bring it back to relationships, because that extra 1% can look like putting down your phone, hugging your partner, or giving real encouragement.

If you want better productivity, stronger discipline, and a mindset that holds up every morning, listen through to the end, then subscribe, share with a friend who needs a push, and leave a review. What’s the one thing you’ll stop postponing today?

Transcript

Racing The Clock Every Day

SPEAKER_00 0:06

You know, I feel like I'm always in a race against time, which is why I start my morning at four o'clock in the morning every single day, and uh go to bed around 10 during the week and around midnight or later on the weekends. And I still get up at four on the weekends. You know, so just as an example, here's just a rundown of the tr things that I try to get done in the course of a day. All right. So I train judo slash jujitsu for an hour. I exercise for an hour. I have a day job Monday through Friday, so I got to work eight hours a day during that, as I'm sure all of you do too. I also wrote a book. It's taken me about 12 years between doing four years of research, uh, four years of edits, and now I'm finally about to look for a publisher and I have to edit it also before giving it to them. All right. I also do stand-up comedy. I perform as much as I can whenever I can. I also try to rehearse about one hour a day, and then you have personal and family obligations and everything in between. Got a lot going on, and I'm not complaining, okay? But I need more time. I always need more time, okay? And where do I find that extra 1%?

Why Procrastination Feels Like A Trap

SPEAKER_00 1:17

It's called procrastination. I hate it. I hate procrastinating, and honestly, I do it uh, I don't want to say all the time to lose the message, but whenever I see myself doing it, oh I feel like I feel like I'm su I just I'm getting out of a trap that I just like got sucked into somehow, right? Um it is one of the worst feelings knowing that if you imagine if you took up all of the minutes, okay, laying in bed, looking at your phone, and think I could be working on something, I could be doing something productive. Now, I think part of the the biggest problem and hurdle to overcome is balancing all of your uh relationships when trying to be so busy. Because the things that I do, I I love doing them, okay? But it's also a form of work because if I'm creating something, if I am um editing a document, proofing it, reading it, rereading it, I'm not necessarily doing an activity that's fun. I mean, to a degree for me, but it's still work because it's art. And uh that's also another reason why I love, love uh this one

Resistance And The War Of Art

SPEAKER_00 2:36

amazing epic book. It's called The War of Art. And it has to do with procrastination and uh essentially God's gifts, right? And if God gave you a gift and you're procrastinating and not doing it, okay, um, then essentially anything that is in the form of either procrastination and he calls it resistance, such as um fill in the blank, whatever the reason you might not want to do something, when it's applied towards one of your gifts, that could only be a form of evil if you think about it, because sometimes you might self-there's a thing called like self-sabotage, you might try to trick yourself, or it could be a big opportunity. There's big opportunities when you have to perform, you have to be brave, okay? Because you have God's grace behind you, right? And that's a gift that He gave you. But wouldn't somebody else, the guy downstairs, right? An all evil, want to prevent you from triumphing and doing great on stage that night, or being an example for him as a politician, or uh whatever it is that that art is that you have. Your art might be actually be uh be a great leader, okay? That that may not that's not really an art, but it could be. I'm just trying to work with it, right? Or maybe your art is shooting a basketball or pulling a trigger. It's your gift, it's your gift, is what I'm saying, right? Um, and a lot of just because I don't consider it an art, there's guys out there between the math, the uh they have to do to be able to um uh think about like archery, okay? It's an art, all right, like martial arts, all right. Um and I think without digressing too much, the point is is that when if you have something that that's a gift that you're gifted and you're doing it and you're passionate about it, okay, you can only go two directions with it essentially, and there's no horizontal, there's no horizontal line, okay? You can either get better at it or worse. And God would of course God would want you to get better at it, right? And that's the reason it's a gift of yours. You have a beautiful voice or something like that. There's only one guy, okay. Well, there's one main source, right? Heaven and whatnot, that wants you to do great, exemplifying your voice in front of everybody, that gift that you have. And there's the other side of that, down below, the ones to make you to procrastinate and not get out of bed and not pursue your goals, okay? And it goes far beyond your gifts. Okay, but someone above wants you to succeed, someone below wants you to fail. And even if it's not applied towards art, every single day when you get up in the morning,

The Daily Reset And The Missing 1%

SPEAKER_00 5:30

all of your success from the prior day means absolutely nothing because in the morning it's an equal reset. You have to get up, you have to get after it. Do you really not feel like getting out of bed? Maybe. Do you really feel like not wanting to do something? Maybe. But where does that seed come from? Okay. Procrastination is one of the slippery, one of the uh uh slickest uh roads to go down, right? It's a slippery slope, as they say. Because you feel like you're in control when in reality, I mean, that's that's like realistically, if you think about it, that's that would be like evil's greatest uh hidden trick to make you not want to exercise, to make you not want to be healthy, okay, not to pursue yourself and with bravery and and might overcome uh overcome, conquer, and accomplish your daily goals. Okay. The guy downstairs doesn't want you to be better, he wants you to be worse. And that's also why I hate like alarm clocks that have a snooze button. It makes no sense. That's actually like an option to procrastinate. If it was called a procrastinate button, you might start you might start psychologically uh feeling more attacked and not hidden, you know, not like a hidden psychological attack where you just feel like, oh, it's just a snooze button, you know. All this coming full circle, right? Um I it was it was really laying on me, and everything that I say, I always I say it over and over again. I say it as a mental note to myself because I need these reminders, I need these daily, weekly reminders, etc. Okay, that when you start your morning, everything I did great last night, okay. I had a small period where I was just scrolling around on the internet doing absolutely nothing. Um, and I caught myself, and I just knew I had to talk about this because that's 20 more minutes. That's that's like I wanted to finish editing uh a chapter of a book that I wrote, but I wrote it as a screenplay first, and I I made it into a book, and it's a little over 200 some pages. Um, but those I was like a few pages short last night for my goal. And it was like after midnight, and I'm uh I'm just going to bed. And uh if it wasn't for those extra 20 minutes, I probably could have gone through the rest of them, or at least gotten close, maybe on the last page, and being that far would have made me want to run that little that last mile, so to speak, you know, to get that last part finished, and I did it. Um so my point is is that whenever I do these, I try to do them weekly. Um but uh oh yeah, do a podcast too, throw that in there, absolutely right. Um, you know, let alone also I was just randomly thinking about it. Grocery shopping house duties. I mean, it just keeps on stacking,

Standing Still Means Going Backward

SPEAKER_00 8:53

and that's fine. My point is that if you need an extra 1% in your life, regardless of whatever you're doing, you can get that extra 1% at a time, right? You just got to stop procrastinating, gotta get out of bed, stand up, and get after it. And just remember that whenever you're doing something good, there's someone upstairs that wants you to succeed. And whenever you procrastinate, that is a hidden pill of poison, right? And your soul to not move forward. And the guy downstairs is dancing dancing in a circle and jumping up and down, right? He's running across whatever. Just celebrating the fact that you're taking not forward steps. Anytime you just stand up and you're not moving forward. What if you were like on one of those um you know how on the elevat uh in the uh airport they got those things that you can just stand on that helps you like you don't like you don't even have to walk. It's like a moving, it's like a moving floor. Well, what if every single time when you stood still and did nothing, you were actually going further back? Think about that for a minute. Think about that and make it a reality because that's also the truth. Whenever you're procrastinating, you think you're not doing anything, no, you're doing something, you're going backwards, you're not going forward because you only have two directions that you can go. Like I said before, there is no horizontal plane. So, this is a mental note to myself to stop procrastinating, okay? To master time more, and to also know that every morning you gotta start that battle over. You gotta have your mental coffee, you have to be motivated, you have to have your purpose the night before, you have to think about it, and in the morning, you activate it, you execute, you get after it.

Mindset Training And Better Relationships

SPEAKER_00 10:51

So I hope everybody has a beautiful day. If there's anything that I said, absolutely anything, you know. I actually had a a girl reach out to me recently, and uh she said that she really liked what I had to say, and um uh it it meant the world to me. Because if there is anything that I say that benefits you, the listener, the better. Because I know at the very least, I'm listening to me, and it's not a lie. I don't just believe myself, okay, from my own personal motivation. I say it because it's the truth. And I also say inconvenient truths to help me get to where I am psychologically right now. You know, it's the it's the uh the Navy SEALs and the special forces operators, etc., that will always tell you, and it's a valuable lesson I learned in the Army, not being a part of those uh uh operator branches, right? Those special teams uh branches, but it's something that I I learned and was exemplified more than anything else in the army, that how far the mind can take you. If you look at a team of special forces operators, a lot of times a lot of those guys can look like the most unathletic specimens you have ever seen, but their mind, it's their mind that carries their body. Okay, and they are gifted, and those are comparably with their skill sets, their arts. It doesn't have to be an art that you think to be an art to somebody else. Sword fighting, it's definitely an art, okay? Judo, art, writing, art, comedy, art. And if maybe something doesn't fill in the blank as an art, you can still use the tool of pushing and grabbing that extra 1%. All right, telling somebody you love them a little bit more instead of being on your cell phone scrolling down, doing nothing in a relationship, okay? While being right two feet right beside your partner on a couch or something, okay you could hug somebody one more time, you can give them a word of encouragement. Outside encouragement's always encouraged, right? But you gotta encourage yourself, and it has to be the

Momentum, Gratitude, And Closing Challenge

SPEAKER_00 13:12

truth. Actions and truth work together, okay? If there's anybody, as I said again, and I'm getting off right now, that listened to this and it benefits you, that's great. Because that's part of the purpose, and as always, it's a mental note to myself of what I need to do, what I'm lacking, and what I'm succeeding at. And for that lady that uh reached out to me, um thank you so much. I appreciate you listening, and I hope something that I said today helps you get 1% better in your life and your mission. And just remember, tomorrow morning, all of your success today means nothing. Unless you have that contained momentum. It means something, but tomorrow, you gotta start all over again. So my hope is for today, and my prayers are for tomorrow. Everybody have a beautiful day. I'm Benjamin Well done. Check me out.