In this episode, we discuss the importance of spending your time on the right things and not be wasteful with it.
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 financial planning with self-development coaching for Latino professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about how to take advantage of life. One of my favorite books is called On The Shortness of Life by Seneca. This book was written 2000 years ago but it is still packed with Wisdom. Seneca writes down that people should worry about wasting the non-renewable resource we have as people and that’s time. The book offers many great reminders on why we shouldn’t waste time and live our lives to the best of our ability.
Most people are stingy with their money but give their time away like it is free, but it should be the opposite. You should protect your time but be okay with giving away your money. Money can be replenished but time cannot. After reading this book, I learned that life is long, as long as you know how to use it. After reading the book, it tries to focus the majority of my day on doing important things and trying to minimize the unimportant stuff in life.
If you can focus the majority of your time on the important stuff, then life will be long for you. Life will seem short if you spend the majority of your time on the unimportant stuff in life. Right now, I wish I had more time to do more things but I’m only one person. So I try to focus my time on important things like building my business up, seeing family, and taking care of my health. If I can do these things, then I know I’m going to have a great day.
One thing I hate in life is going to meetings just to go to a meeting. Every time I go to a meeting that I don’t think I should go to, I just think about the time I will never get back. This is one of the reasons why I want to be my own boss because I want to control the number of meetings we have and to make sure they necessary. I remember as a kid, I wanted to be in meetings but after going through them, I realized that they are not that great for the most part.
I hate wasting my time because I know I will never get that time back. This is why I time block my day with activities that I know are important for me to do. By doing the important stuff like writing my podcast episodes out, making sure I call people for meetings, and other stuff that is going to help me grow as a person, then I know I’m going to have a good day.
There is so much I need to do but I make sure that I take time to enjoy friends and family and to take hiking trips in Oregon. I can’t believe so much time passed that I didn’t get to see all that Oregon had to offer. I went to Silver Falls a couple of months ago and you get to see like nine waterfalls over the course of a three-hour hike which was way cool to see in person. To me, life is about creating memories and challenging myself to get better every single day. If I can do this, then I’m good.
Like Seneca said in the book, Life is long as long as you know how to use it. For the longest time, I didn’t know how to use life. What I thought was important, turned out that it was very important. But since I read so much, listen to podcasts, and try new things out, I have a really good idea of who I need to be as a person, and the goal of each day is to be the person I need to be in life. Now I feel like if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and passed away, I would be okay with it because I did everything I could to live my life to the best of my abilities on my own terms.
I think this is a good benchmark, we are all going to die one day but most treat life like we have all the time in the world. I know I only have 36 more summers before I reach 70 years old. When I’m that old, will I have said that I took advantage of all those summers? Life is about seasons, you have some harsh winters, some cool springs, hot summers, and brisk falls, so we just need to learn how to ride the wave of life. I do not want to wake up one day and find out that I was good at the wrong thing for 40 years or to beg for more time because I procrastinated on my dreams.
You have to understand that life is not going to be perfect and there are going to be obstacles that get in our way. We might have an injury or illness that we have to overcome, or we might a family issue that we need to take care of that forces us to put a pause on your dreams. The key things are to solve those problems and to get back on track with my progress in life.
As people, we are very wasteful of our time. We spend too much time on things that won’t challenge ourselves or that will keep up distracted. It’s easy to be distracted and to not challenge ourselves but is we do this for too long, then we won’t become the people we were supposed to be. I pretty much stopped watching television and know I listen to podcasts as a form of entertainment. I learn so much from the interviews and lessons that people provide and I’m just trying to consume as much information I can so I know where I can spend my time.
I’ve made a lot of changes in my life by learning. I created my own virtual financial planning firm because I found a podcast that taught me how to do so. I also learned where to focus my time and energy. In life, I’m trying to figure out what are lies that everyone thinks are truths and what are lies that everyone thinks are truths. If I can figure out those things, then I can save myself a lot of time and energy. When it comes to discovering these things, it really comes from what worked 30 years ago, doesn’t really apply to do. So if you try to do things that worked 30 years ago and you believe it as true, then you can waste a lot of money and time.
I think houses are something that a majority of people believe that they need to own but there are other ways to build wealth. So you have to do your research to find out if owning a house is truly something that will work for you. There are costs associated with owning a house and if you’re not aware of those costs like taxes, maintenance, and how home values increase, then you could make a mistake that sets you back with your progress or it might cause you to become stuck. During the great recession, a lot of folks who owned homes couldn’t move for better job opportunities because their mortgage was underwater and the rent wouldn’t cover the mortgage payment.
As a financial planner, I saw people who got into owning homes and it was stressing them out because they didn’t make good financial decisions by looking at the rent, maintenance, insurance, and time costs that were associated with owning the house, which then caused them not to save for their retirement. Since I’m not planning to stay in a place for the long term anytime soon, I’m not going to buy a home, but you get this message on facebook that you should own a house. Don’t be a sheep and do your research.
So to take advantage of life, just know who you want to be and be that person. This is why I learn so much because I want to learn how to do things more efficiently and want to learn what should I stop doing as a person and what should I add to my life. We are all going to die one day, so I want to make sure that I don’t waste my time. So just focus on doing the important stuff in life, and you will live a long life.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode, to summarize it, life is long as long as you know how to use it. If you don’t know how to use life, then I suggest you start with reading Seneca’s book, on the shortness of life. Then figure out who you need to be in life, and then be that person you’re supposed to be. Do this and you will live a great life.
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
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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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