#1521 - Why A Lot Of Us End Up Feeling STUCK

Being consistent is so much easier when you understand this Today for episode number 1521 , why a lot of us end up feeling stuck . So what I say might be funny here , but this is how the episode came to me and this is what I thought of when I was figuring this episode out . Alan laughed at me .

He said that doesn't really make any sense and I said nothing I really say or do does . So I'm just going to roll with it . I think one of the reasons a lot of us feel stuck are you ready ? Please read it verbatim .

So this is all I have to work with .

Because we get on track and then we fall off track and don't get back on . Get on track and then get back on track . All I mean by that is anytime we think we're done . I think we're setting ourselves up for failure . That's all . That's all I meant by that , if you . Why ?

Well , that's what I was referring to Maybe , maybe , I don't know , we'll find out Cats definitely , fur babies definitely , but they make a mess . And no , I'm not comparing cats to real human babies that you may or may not have , but if you do have them , I was talking to Jerry and the other day I said look , I don't know what it's like to be you .

I get cats , but I know it's nothing like like what you got going on . So I all the grace and all the love , so I don't want . I want to make sure you know I'm not comparing the two , but I think that's life in a nutshell .

We build enough momentum to get a certain result and then we are kind of stuck with that result until we build enough momentum to get another result and you feel stuck . Or you get all the benefits of

your accomplishments upfront and then you feel stuck because you have to continue putting in the work to maintain the accomplishments . What'll happen oftentimes is we'll get well . Let me throw another thing .

I think another reason we end up feeling stuck is because we get so many results in such a short period of time that we forget what it was like before we had the results . So , just as an example , we got 20 next level podcast solutions clients in the previous quarter , so in Q3 .

And I remember having a feeling of I feel like we're stuck at 50 , some odd clients , or 52 or 53 , when in reality we've only been there for like 30 days . We're not stuck . This is just a new level that I don't know what it all means yet .

So sometimes feeling stuck can come from perceived lack of progress without having an understanding of the amount of time that's actually gone by . I think that's another one , but the one I really want to focus on is when we're on track . I think we assume we're on track forever . In reality we're not . You and I are never really on track .

We're just more on track than we've ever been but way less on track than we need to be . And sometimes that can create a stuck feeling of how are we going to get all these episodes done ? We never get them all done on Monday .

I'm not calling us out , I'm not calling you on my call on us out , but we have 11 am to 6 pm on the calendar every Monday and we'll never get them all done again . Maybe we may never get them . Alan shows up today and it's you know it's 12 and he texted me and I'm running a little behind . It's like , dude , I need the time .

Good , and then we're just BSing . Talking about stuff , talking about business . Alan was fired up today . He came in hot , real good , we'll get three done . We get three out of our required seven done .

They bring it to your house . You always have cold water again . I'm very privileged to have that , but yeah . So Alan wanted to take that away from me , said hey , man , like it's like 60 bucks or something every couple months , do you need , you really need that ? 75 ?

So I thought to myself we could also always put in a filter for your tap . Well , I like , makes it taste a lot better .

What's ironic is one of the reasons we can afford the lifestyle that we have now is because we've been so Dialed in when it comes to our expenses , so we're being pretty cool , frugal . So optimal , optimal , all right . So this episode .

They're they're working towards a horsey farm home in the mountains , and we are mathematically on our way . It's awesome , and they're saving a certain amount per Month , and it's it's great , and they're working together as a team . They're on track now . Now , let's imagine fast forward into the future .

They buy a home In , let's call it , a half million , so five hundred thousand dollars . Let's say , they buy this home , they , they move in and they're super pumped and they post a photo and they put it on Instagram and Facebook as they should , or should , not , depending , if they want to .

And then they have a caption of we achieved our dream together and we worked really hard to save for three years straight , and , and we got enough for the down payment and we got the right real estate agent . We , we made it work XYZ . Now that is awesome . Okay , that is success in a nutshell . I mean , that's what we all strive for beautiful home .

They got some

land . Imagine , imagine , imagine , awesome , awesome , awesome . Now here's the part of the equation that I don't think is talked about enough , and this is what we talk about at NLU . You , I believe the world's biggest lie is that success makes life easier . Kevin mentioned earlier that him and Taryn have been talking about how adulting is really hard .

Emilie and I same deal . We have three fur babies and home and three businesses between the two of us . Awesome , awesome , awesome , very , very grateful . But it's a hell of a mountain to climb and it never really ends . The work never really ends .

And if you're an adult who has high responsibilities and who's going for a lot in life , I think responsibilities exponentially increase as you get older and then eventually , at the tail end of your life , you the responsibilities start to dwindle because your kids get older and now you have grandkids . It's that kind of thing . But it all depends on your goals .

I digress . So let's imagine this couple that we coach moves into this new home , takes the amazing photo . This is the part that you're not seeing . Hey , now we have to either do our own landscaping or afford landscapers . Now we have bigger utility bills . We also have closing costs .

This might get a little depressing , by the way , for anyone who wants to buy a home . Now our heating bill goes up . Now we also have to take care of the property , and we also have a roof that needs to be replaced within the next five to 10 years . The basement actually needs a new radiator or humidifier or whatever . I'm just making stuff up .

I don't know houses . You know my point . Now we actually have to clean a bigger place . So now we need to redo the basement and we need to redo the kitchen and the faucets leaking and our toilet won't shut off and XYZ . And now we have a $2,000 per month mortgage payment . Maybe it's $3,000 , actually in this case , probably more like $3,000 .

And now we also need homeowner's insurance and now also the taxes went up quite a bit , because now you have to pay taxes as a homeowner . So it's awesome to see the Instagram photo of this young couple , newly engaged , buying a home . That is success and that's awesome , but don't get it twisted . What's underneath ?

That is nothing but just absolute struggle , bus responsibilities , and I just you can't have one without the other , and I think that that's the world's biggest lie . I really do , and so the more success that you accumulate in life , the more responsibility you will have . And I coach a mom who is the mother of four , jerry Ann she wouldn't mind me sharing this

and I've talked to her behind the scenes . I coach one of her sons . His name is Calvin and it's awesome , one of my favorite things ever . Honestly , genuine dream come true . Shout out to Calvin . But anyways . So she took a picture . Calvin graduated high school and there was this beautiful photo of their family together . And it was this wonderful photograph .

And I talked to her behind the scenes and I said isn't it fascinating how that's such an enviable photograph ? But the amount of work that goes into cultivating that family , I must be .

I mean , oh my , it's a full time , full time , full time , full time , full time job , and that's the truth , though Everyone wants to have a magnificent family with a beautiful home and with four children and with , you know , graduating high school . That picture perfect moment is beautiful and I take nothing from that .

But that is earned with struggle and with sacrifice and with sometimes suffering and with fear , and with vulnerability and with challenge and with growth and with opportunity and with I mean I could go on and on and on . And so , no matter what your success is health , wealth , love , like the picture on stage and the fitness show I've been there .

I won a fitness show . That picture was awesome . Pretty much everything else that it took to create that picture and to get that trophy was really , really , really hard , and I just think that that's the most important understanding . It is it's the most important understanding about success , in my honest opinion .

are dumb . I don't know what . Am I gonna put them on my ? No , no , throw them away , save the weight . Throw them away , toss them Trash . I had a breakthrough when you were speaking . This is kind of what I was trying to say in my epic description of this episode . You start by juggling . You start by throwing up One ball , one pin .

Whatever you're juggling Probably not a chainsaw at this stage , but let's just say it's a pin , you're using a bowling pin . Then you say I'd really like to get to the stage where I can juggle two bowling pins . All right , well , I have to keep juggling this one .

I have to kind of learn how to juggle the second one and I gotta figure out how to kind of connect them . Sorry , now I'm juggling two . Hell yeah , I'd really love to learn how to juggle three . You have to learn how to juggle three while you're already juggling two . So it's almost like every time .

So this is what I was trying to say with getting on track and then getting back on track . Every time you do something and then you wanna do something more . You are doing something more along with everything that you were already doing before , like that game . What is it telephone ?

Is it telephone where Alan tells me something and then I remember what Alan told me , and then I tell somebody something else and then they have to remember what I told them , that Alan told me and what I told them and eventually , by the end , nobody has any clue what the hell they're talking about , because you're 26 people deep and you're saying there was a

zebra who went to the zoo and then he got on a jet ski , went to the boat , got hot dogs four of them , cotton candy , large dunk in from ice , large ice from dunk in , even though it's in the winter . And by the end it's just a tangled mess . I think leveling up as a human is very similar to that , so that is my next level .

My next level , nugget , is juggling gets harder as you go .

And what I'll share briefly on this is we were in Book Club and we were reading Limit List by Jim Quick , as I've talked about , and there's the eight different modalities of thinking . The chapter 15 was on thinking and we actually had everyone self-assess three things . I went through every single one . I read the description . It was really cool .

Self-awareness club is what we joke Mirror club for Book Club and I had everyone say you're either great at this , decent at this or not so good , nsg not so good .

And I had everyone write in the chat and eventually at the end I had everyone tally up their scores and I wanted to know the top three that you're great at and the top three or bottom three that you're bad at . For me my lowest one was musical . I'm not a very good musical person , not good at music . My highest was math and logic .

Most people's lowest was math and logic Super fascinating . So my point here and for anyone listening if math and logic is low . Please don't shut off to this . I really wanna try to make this land . The layers of complexity are exponentially increasing .

Kevin and I often joke as we have a 21 person team in 22 departments and we're doing a lot of stuff and we're juggling a lot of pins . In this analogy and I say you ever wonder what it must be like to run Apple ? And he's like no , no , no , no , no , no . The layers of complexity at a company at that level must be insane .

And so , whether it's going from two kids to three kids , or going from 18 team members to 21 or five departments when we started , to 22 now , it exponentially increases the challenge , but in tandem with that and this is my point you actually exponentially get better , because I was in Book Club and I was talking about how , even if Kevin and I improved by just

0.1% per episode for 1500 episodes , it leads to 100 plus times better . We've gotten probably about a thousand times better at podcasting , despite the fact that I can't talk right now . But that's the key .

If you can improve incrementally along the way , yes , your life will get exponentially more challenging , but you will get exponentially more intelligent , exponentially more capable , exponentially more emotionally aware . There is a way to improve along the way and , quite frankly , I do believe this . It's very hard to sustain level five without improving to level six .

So Kevin and I , let's say we're level seven competent , we're probably playing at level five right now , and so I think we're actually more capable than this . I think at times Kevin feels like the opposite . We definitely I dragged him to places he wasn't ready for for sure .

But at the end of the day , if you focus on your improvement proactively , when you do get the success , it won't crush you because you're ready for it , you're preparing .

It's just like with Kevin with Jiu-Jitsu If he's practicing Jiu-Jitsu consistently , when he does spar with someone who's good , he's not gonna get his ass kicked nearly as bad as he would if he wasn't practicing .

Please , if you have not yet and you would find value in which I do believe , you would join our private Facebook group , next Level Nation , a group of like-minded humans who want similar things out of life . We're gonna talk about fulfillment

next episode . They value fulfillment , they value growth , contribution and just getting to the next level , and it's a safe place to be yourself . It can be authentic , it can be vulnerable and it can meet some friends . We all want more friends who are like-minded . So Link will be in the show notes , as always . We'd love to have you there .

Monthly meetups , every single month , were created specifically to come and meet other people like you , other people that are into growth . So our 24th , next level monthly meetup this is two years . This will be our two year mark of doing monthly meetups . It's behind the scenes , it's private , it's not recorded .

Nothing that you share there is ever going to leave there . What you share there stays there . And Kevin and I prepare the three things holding you back from your unique version of success , and we really do work hard on preparing . The last one was absolute fire . People were in chat . The chat was on fire .

Amy L is now the facilitator , the director of that department , so she's in the chat . Kevin and I are going . We're talking , people are contributing .

You can sit there with your mic off and camera off if you want , or you can contribute a ton , assuming that you're not driving while you're listening , but you can be as passive or proactive as you want while you're there . Please join us . The link to register will be in the show notes .

Again , this is meetup number 24 , two years in a row , three things holding you back from your unique version of success .

As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you , and at NLU , we learn of fans . We have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow , keep after it , next sublimation . Oh man , all the best .