In this episode, we discuss how important to make decisions based on where you want to go, instead of where you already are.
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 how unsuccessful people make decisions based on where they currently are and how successful people make decisions based on where they want to go in life. Where ever you are in life right now, you’re going to have to make some decisions. Those can be bad decisions or they can be good decisions. I would say a good decision is going to give you more flexibility and control over your future while a bad decision is going to make you feel good at the moment but harm you down the road.
It goes back to the saying hard choices, easy life, easy choices hard life. I’ve seen so many people at work, with family, and friends too who made a decision based on where they currently are in life and it sabotaged their future. If you don’t know how to make a better decision, then you don’t know how to. It can be hard to see past your environment because that is all you know. I remember at my last firm, I thought that’s how financial planning was done. You work for a big firm and you focus on selling their products. I didn’t know better, and when I did some research online in 2014, all the search results pointed to the big wire firms, so that’s the path that I took.
When I was going to high school in Oregon, I grew up in a small town of 3,000 people I think, which is now like 10,000 but it’s still small and all I thought that I could do in life was basically lawyer, doctor, police officer, work at a restaurant, or go into the military. It wasn’t until I joined the Marines, where I realized that there were a lot more jobs available to me and when I moved to Washington, DC, where I discovered even more possibilities.
So I would say an unsuccessful person would just see what’s in front of them and say that’s all that I can accomplish but a successful people will say, what else is out there and explore that. This is why I think learning is so crucial because it allows you to break past your current environment and be future-orientated. I know the future that I want to have and I’m busy working towards that future today.
I know that I don’t want to trade my time for money, and I want the flexibility and control to choose my day. I don’t want somebody to tell me that I can’t go on a vacation or sit in a meeting that I don’t want to be apart of, so that’s why I’m working hard with Grow With Joe to have that freedom. Right now, I’m working on year one with Grow With Joe and it requires a lot of sacrifices. I moved back with my parents from DC to save on money. DC was a fun place to be and I easily could have gotten comfortable living there. I could have found some government contracting and consulting job, make a decent salary, and just work under somebody else’s firm, but then I would have given up my dream.
Being Latino, I really want to help other Latinos with their financial planning needs and I want to be able to market to them the way that I think will be beneficial to them. When I worked at my last firm, they were focused on this other niche that I wasn’t very passionate about, but I had to make an effort to focus on them because that’s what they wanted. It was constantly reinforced in weekly meetings and how they changed the comp structure so there would be a financial incentive to focus on that niche. But my saving grace was finding out that I could start my own firm, which was easier than I thought.
So if you want to start something like a business or create something new, it’s probably easier than it seems. I’m pretty much facing the same hurdles now as I was with my last firm, except that I get to keep more of what I produce with fewer rules. It’s still a grind to go out and find clients and to do the other administrative things but god bless my Marine Corps training for helping me prepare for this moment. I hate when my freedom is being restricted by someone else so I will make decisions that will give me a brighter future. There is a trade-off now because I spend a lot of time working on this Grow With Joe business but at least I can say this time is for me and not somebody else. So when it comes down to it, a successful person will make a decision that makes them a better person in the future, while an unsuccessful person makes a decision that comforts them now but will harm them in the future because they won’t be strong enough or have enough to handle the challenges of tomorrow.
When I look at my day, I make sure that I work out because in the future I want to make sure that I’m not stuck in a hospital bed. In the mornings, I could say that my bed is comfortable and that I don’t need to work out, but then I’m making a decision based on my current situation. I’m comfortable and why would I want to stress my body out. It’s really easy to fall into these comfort traps because the brain likes to avoid pain while seeking pleasure and conserving energy. But this comfort trap is going to degrade me as a person. I need to focus on my development as a person if I want to be a better person six months from now.
So when you’re planning out your week. Ask yourself, am I making decisions that are going to make me successful in the future? If you do the same thing over and over again nothing is going to change really unless those activities are focused on growth. If you save a percent of your paycheck towards your retirement accounts every time you get paid, then your future should look better than not doing anything at all. Going to the gym will be better than not doing anything at all. With the gym, if you’re overweight, you might go, why should I work out, I’m already out of shape. Same thing with a diet. I already ate bad, might as well keep going. Again we are making decisions based on our current situation, not where we want to go in the future. If you make this mistake, it’s okay once, just don’t do it twice in a row and get back on the right path as fast as you can.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, unsuccessful people make decisions based on their current situation and successful people make decisions based on where they want to go in life. So take some time this week and ask yourself, are you making decisions that will give you flexibility and control over your future? If not, what can you do to change that?
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.
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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.
*Music outro
