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 that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
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 are going to talk about how we need to know the rules well so we can break them effectively. Now there is a difference between a law and a rule. Don’t break the law and you can make the argument that some laws are really just rules in disguise and shouldn’t be laws anymore.
But a rule is what someone thinks should be in place to protect something. It can be you, your family, your environment, or the person giving the rule. And some of these rules can be good rules and some of them can be rules that don’t really apply to today’s society. This is why you have to understand the rules and how they are related to other things so that when you break them, you can show people that it is better to do things this way.
When I was in Washington, DC, one thing people tried to do all the time was to sneak into events. Now the best way to do so was just to be as confident as possible and the gatekeeper would let you in. You could also say your name was somebody else, and most of the time they didn’t check your ID.
So if you’re not on the list, how can you use the information in your environment to get your way. Do you have the social skills to persuade the gatekeeper to let you in? Do you have the network so someone can vouch for you and let you in? Do you know a third door that no one else knows about that can let you in?
Most people just try once, and then say it’s over, but living in DC made me realize that there are tons of people who break the rules and get their way. There are also a lot of societal rules than keep us in place. One thing I hate about America is the health care system. It is awful and I currently heard on a Freakonomics podcast that we waste one trillion dollars in health care costs because the system is so inefficient. You don’t know the price of anything and you might be getting more tests than necessary. I don’t blame the people on the front lines that much but the system needs to go.
I live in Medellin, Colombia now and health care is so much cheaper and even better at times. It’s kind of a rule that you need health care, and instead of choosing something from the American system, I choose to get my health care from another country. I had a doctor visit me here in my Airbnb for an infection on my tattoo and they gave me a prescription for antibiotics all for $40. Amazing deal compared to driving to the doctor, filling out paperwork, paying a co-pay, then driving to the pharmacy to pay another co-pay, and then back to my house.
The key thing is knowing the rules and knowing your options. You can break a rule and as long as you have options, you’re not totally reliant on that system. Or you can create your own system that is better. I have a rule now that I don’t deal with things I don’t like. I might have to deal with it for a little bit, but I will eventually find a way to get my way. And once you start getting your way, life will be a lot better for you.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, know the rules well so you can break them effectively. Don’t break laws, but it’s okay to break the rules. Most rules are set in place to protect people against the least common denominator. And if you’ve been growing your inner circle, you will know that you’re not the least common denominator. If there is a rule that is causing you misery, learn how to break it and your happiness will go way up. I was tired of the rules at my old company so decided to start my own thing and I’ve never been happier.
If you would like to get the journal questions for today’s episode, you can sign-up for my monthly journaling subscription newsletter, where you get daily journal questions Monday through Friday, and as a bonus, you will also get my time management course and my personal development cheat sheet. You can get all this for $13/mo, which is less than the cost of an audible subscription and it’s less work to gain more wisdom. You can get this offer at growwithjoe.me/journal
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my Audiobook “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and you can download it right there.
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
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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.
