In this episode, we discuss the importance of focusing your time and energy on one thing at a time so you get more things done in life.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about the Confucius quote, “The dog that chases two rabbits catches no rabbits.” This quote is really about focusing on things at a time. If you chase too many things at once, you won’t be able to catch anything. It’s just best to focus on one thing at a time and then focus on the next thing.
You have your health, your career, your family, and your social life. Those are the four things that we can choose to focus on. Some people say you can only do two at the same time, but if you have the right system in place, you can have all four.
I would definitely say focus on your health first and it doesn’t take all day. If you do the right exercises at the right intensity, you don’t need to spend two hours in the gym along with watching what you eat and drink. I do 40 pull-ups a day and I make sure to walk 10,000 steps a day and by doing this, I feel that I’m staying in pretty good shape.
With your social life, you don’t need to go out every single day, you can keep in touch with people by sending them messages every once in a while. If you do plan to go to a social event, try to invite other people as well. Try to get more people involved so that you can see more of folks.
With your career, you just have to be efficient with your time. When it is time to work, you work. When it is time to rest. A lot of folks are inefficient with their time and what should take one hour, takes four hours because of interruptions to their workflow or going to meetings. Plus you have to make sure you’re focusing on valuable work. Clearing out your e-mail box to zero is not valuable work, the same goes for pulling certain reports. Focusing on that new project that is going to make your company more efficient is.
With your family, you don’t have to give them the best experiences in the world, you just have to spend time with them. This could be watching a movie together, shooting some hoops together, or playing a board game with them. 30 minutes a day can go a long way. I heard from a lot of people that they rather have less stuff and more time with their parents so try that. You don’t have to go to the best school to become successful in life, there are other things you can do to put yourself ahead in life. So helping your kids build social skills can be just as important.
I feel a great way to manage this is not to be only satisfied by getting everything you want in life but to be satisfied with everything you have. There is a balance between the two and you just have to decide as a person on how much is enough. If you’re only satisfied by getting everything you want out of life, that is a bottomless pit that can never be filled. So as people, we have to decide what the ceiling is going to be. The higher you raise your ceiling, the more you have to tend to sacrifice in one of those four areas, usually, it’s your health and family.
Right now I’m sacrificing on the family and social life because I’m so focused on building up this Grow With Joe business. But once I get my 50 clients, I know I’ll be in a good position in the future. Plus I think I want to live overseas in Latin America because my money will just go farther there. Plus it can be easy to hope on a flight back to the states.
I will be farther from my family but with the money I’m saving on my standard of living, I can just fly them down. I don’t know if this is the path I’m going to take, but I’m going to have options in the future and I’ll just see which one is going to make me the happiest.
Right now I can’t really focus on all four because I’m in start-up mode for Grow With Joe but this is only temporary for the next 2-3 years, but the way I see it, once that phase is over, then I’ll have more time for family and my social life. I tried to do the social thing and my work started to suffer, but you can have it all, you just have to create it. It’s not going to come to you. If you want to get two rabbits as a dog, get another dog to help you out but you have to have the resources and ability to manage other people.
Once you figure this out though, then you can start to have two rabbits instead of one. But this is not going to fall into your lap, you have to be intentional with your life to make it happen. If I live in Colombia or Mexico and make $35k a year, but I’m making $150k from my Grow With Joe Business because I’m an average $3000 from each one of my 50 clients, then I’m going to live a very comfortable life in those areas. Plus they have internet and good amenities now so it’s not like it was 50 years ago.
If you try to keep up with the Jones in New York City, Los Angeles, or Washington, DC, then that’s a different story and requires a different system. It’s possible but you just have to figure it out.
I spent a good part of my 20s trying to chase too many rabbits at once, and it cost me somethings like my relationship and quality time with family. Now I’m trying to rearrange my priorities and now I feel like I’m in a better place now.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, the dog that chases two rabbits, catches no rabbits. With your life, you’re most likely chasing what you have in your career, family life, social life, and health. With new technological advances, we can have it all now but we need to create the system to get it. It’s not going to come to us. I feel like building a lifestyle career is the way to go now. Why work 40 years in the prime of your life to spend your golden years when you have less energy to spend on the things that you enjoy out of life. So how are you going to get your multiple rabbits in life now?
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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