Tag: Personal Development

  • How Analytics Can Solve The Perfection Problem

    Perfectionism is usually the enemy of done and how we can defeat this monster. We all probably know that one person won’t do something because things are not perfect. The weather isn’t right, they don’t have the right gear, they don’t have the right connections, or they don’t have the energy to get started. Things have to be perfect before they take the next step. However, certainty is a disease of the mind and keeps people in the same spot. Then, the need for certainty will cause them to regress because they can’t grow since all their focus is on not losing.

    Focus on doing important things

    To be perfect is to be inhuman, so we need to embrace looking at the flaws and gaps, then figure out a way to fix them or get past them. Not every problem needs to be fixed, and using analytics can help someone figure out what they should do. Analytics can help someone solve a problem in six ways.

    • Make Predictions
    • Categorizing
    • Spotting Something Unusual
    • Identifying Themes
    • Discovering Connections
    • Finding Patterns

    The goal of life isn’t to obtain perfection but to make progress that leads to many perfect moments. So if someone has a vision for their future and the right strategies, they can use analytics to help them progress by making better decisions on what to do. I use financial planning software to make predictions so I can help my clients reach their financial goals. If someone is not saving enough, the software can show them they’re on track to spend $3000/mo at age 65 instead of $7000/mo. This gap might motivate them to start saving more.  If they can’t save the right amount now because 5-15% is too much for them right now, I can advise them to save 1% of their paycheck now and, with any pay raises in the future, save 50% of that and spend the other 50% on their standard of living until they reach the target savings rate.  I might need to offer different advice, but having the prediction can help me give the right solution to solve the retirement shortfall. People don’t need to be perfect to reach their goals. They need to make progress, and daily progress can help them predict their future. I also have clients that were saving too much and were told they could start spending more money now on things they want to do, like a sabbatical or vacation, and still be OK with retirement goals. Having the prediction can give someone more peace of mind about what they’re doing without worrying about being perfect with their savings.  Trying to be perfect with savings creates a life where someone can’t enjoy other things besides saving. The future is not guaranteed, but we can get a good idea of what will happen and be close to it with a high degree of confidence based on someone’s current circumstances and the path they’re choosing to go down. Ultimately, the goal is to be satisfied with the path when it’s all said and done.

    How you do anything is how you do everything

    If you were to see how you spend your money and time, you could start categorizing them. With these categories, you can begin to pinpoint why your life is the way it is. If you see that most of your time is spent traveling to work, which gives you 20 fewer hours to do something else, then it might make sense to figure out a way to start telecommuting more so you can have 20 more hours to work on yourself or spend it with family. The same thing can be with your spending. I use a highlight chart for someone’s budget to see how they spend on different categories.

    Once you visualize all these categories, you can start to see if you can spot anything unusual. Data visualization can show someone that they spend too much on clothes or eat out too much. The idea is not to have all-or-nothing thinking but to figure out the perfect economy, where you don’t do too much but don’t do too little. It’s hard to make the right decision in your head, and humans are good at spotting patterns. And with the right analytics that shows a picture and story, someone can make better decisions to help them live their best lives. With all the categorization, then someone can start to see what the themes of their life are. If you were to look at my life, you would know I’m an entrepreneur trying to build. Most of my time and money spent is trying to grow my business. This is why I hired an assistant to help with marketing so it can allow me to focus more on strategy for my clients. When looking at how I spend my time and money and the themes they display, I’m better suited to make adjustments to help me reach my vision. Seeing the categories of my life will tell me that I’m not perfect, but then I can empower myself to make changes that will lead me to the theme that I need to have. This is why it’s important to know what type of future you want because a theme will tell you if you’re on track for it or not. This is another issue with perfectionism. It just focuses on the present with no defined future or is very unrealistic because so many things out of your control have to be correct.  When there is a defined future based on the variables you can control, you can create an action plan to help you reach this future. For myself, I need 50 tax planning clients to help me do my other goals that revolve around family, social causes, and personal achievement. So when I review my own business analytics, I’m looking to see what I need to double down on and what I should change.

    How can your progress move you closer to getting more perfect moments in your life?

    Then after seeing your themes, you can start to make connections. If you know that you need to talk to 100 people to get a new customer, that can be freeing. Instead of dreading every “no” you receive, you can say that you’re 99 people closer to getting that new customer. If you’re noticing that you’re not sleeping well, then you can do things to fix that. By tracking your sleep and applying analytics, you might see that losing one hour of sleep makes you 14% less productive. Then after reviewing the data, you can start focusing on ways to improve your sleep and get productivity gains in your work and personal life.  80% of your gains will come from 20% of your efforts, so the idea is to double down on the connections that will give you the most return on your time and money. Then you should delete, delegate, or defer the other 80% from your life. When you’re going after your perfect moments, it requires you to embrace chaos in other parts of your life. You can’t fix everything, so focus on what is essential. Making progress is about having the right behaviors. In public health, I learned about The Transtheoretical Model. Someone might need to undergo these six stages to get a behavior change.

    1. Precontemplation – People are unaware that behavior is problematic or produces negative consequences
    2. Contemplation – People are aware of their behavior but might not be ready for the change
    3. Preparation – People are starting to take small steps to begin adopting the new behavior that is healthier or more productive
    4. Action – People are embracing the new behavior and intend to keep it in their life
    5. Maintenance – People have done the behavior for more than six months, and it is about preventing a relapse
    6. Termination – People quit the behavior and have regressed into their negative behavior.

    If someone sees the connection to what stage they’re in, moving towards or staying in the maintenance stage can be more manageable. Analytics can bring self-awareness to your actions and hopefully cause less self-sabotaging.

    Do your best

    I’m a big fan of all you can do is all you can do. Just make sure you’re doing all you can do. Life can be hard at times, and it’s OK to terminate an effective behavior, but the goal is to get back into preparation and then into action if it’s essential. However, sometimes you need that break to give you a different perception and appreciation of doing that behavior.  Gaining awareness can be uncomfortable, and people can use perfectionism as a scapegoat to rationalize a false sense of certainty in their lives. And complete certainty slows things down too much.  Most of the time, good enough is good enough. Things should be fine if people are satisfied and getting the desired results. There is not enough time to make everything perfect, and it’s best to embrace the uncertainty of events and know how to work with them.  Treat pursuing the theme like a game that takes multiple attempts to get the desired result. Where you don’t focus on what’s missing, you focus on what has been gained or will be.  If you can say you are a better person than you were six months ago, and you’re on track to be a better person in six months, then you’re probably doing the right things. Focusing on the gains is much more important than removing gaps or flaws because removing them would require the impossible of being perfect.  One of my favorite quotes from the stoics is, “The Impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” This quote was written 2000 years ago by Marcus Aurelius, the last great emperor of Rome. Out of the 60 rulers, he is known as one of the five great philosopher rulers. Many rulers were not that great, but Marcus Aurelius knew how to work with problems by objectively looking at them and not allowing his ego to ruin his perception. This is what data analytics can do. It gives you an accurate answer on what you should do to remove obstacles objectively and not irrationally.

    Looks towards others for inspiration

    If perfectionism is holding you back, modeling your behavior after someone’s success can help you make changes to have success. In the Redeem Team Documentary about US Men’s Basketball team, the team in the early 2000s thought they were perfect against their competition because they were 63-1 in the Olympics. However, losses to Argentina, Yugoslavia, Spain, Italy, Greece, Australia, and Puerto Rico showed them that something had to change. So the US Men’s Basketball committee convinced Kobe Bryant to join the team in 2006.  The team’s training facility was in Las Vegas, with many highly talented but young players like Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Lebron James. They would go out and have fun and return to their hotels around 4 am, the same time that Kobe Bryant would be heading to the gym. This act showed the team what fundamental professionalism looks like and how it can lead to being a better basketball team that can compete against the world. The team started being more serious about their training, leading to the perfect outcome: winning the gold against Spain in 2008 and another in 2012 with Kobe leading the way. Figure out what is holding you back, and then find solutions to help solve your problem. And with problems, you can’t go around them. You have to go through them. What stands in the way becomes the way. You can do it intelligently or foolishly, but an analytical approach can prevent the latter.

    Final Takeaway

    The more problems you can solve for yourself, the better your life will get, and you will realize that things won’t be perfect and there will be setbacks. However, failure is rarely fatal if you act honestly. And this honesty will help you see that having a perfect process won’t help you grow.

  • If You Want Things To Stay The Same, Do This

    What We Are Seeking

    For Marines, one of the best experiences is going to their first unit. When a Marine first hits the fleet after going through boot camp and MOS school, it’s their first sense of freedom. They can go out of town without having to checkout with their boss, the schedule is more flexible, and they can start to get mentored on how to lead.

    They can form deep relationships with other Marines in their first unit since they will see each other in the morning for physical training, work together, and hang out after work and on the weekends since they live together in the barracks. Plus, they are in a foreign place not called home.

    Then will come a time when things will change. A Marine’s time will be up with their four-year contract, and they will have to decide to get out of the Marines or re-enlist and go to a different unit which will most likely be very far away. Nothing will be like a Marine’s first unit because the expectations are lower and less responsibility. The work has fewer stakes when you’re just focused on cleaning and doing the basic grunt work and not in charge of anything yet, but they will have many great memories with their brother and sisters in arms.

    I’ve heard from a lot of Marines that they miss that feeling of their first unit. When Marines get out, it can be a massive shock to their system. After all, the civilian world is so different from the Marines because the responsibility is upon them now. They have to think about medical and dental, there is no clear-cut mission, and the friends will be more dispersed. A Marine can wish all they want, but that exact feeling of the first unit will never be obtained again.

    If a Marine decides to re-enlist and go to a new unit, the dynamics will change and be much different from their first unit. They are going to be responsible for things like training the next generation, the pool of folks to hang out with will be lower since hanging out with junior Marines is not supposed to happen, and the person is going to be older and might have a family now and can’t spend all weekend drinking. So that same joy is not going to be there, but a different one can take place.

    How To Maintain Joy

    To get this new joy, people have to remember this quote:

    “If you want things to stay the same around here, something is going to have to change.” – Unknown.

    To go through change is complex, and people need to realize there are seven dynamics to change, which are:

    • People will feel awkward, ill-at-ease, and self-conscious
    • People will initially focus on what they have to give up
    • People will feel alone even if everyone is going through the exact change
    • People can handle only so much change
    • People are at different levels of readiness for change
    • People will be concerned about enough resources
    • If you take the pressure off, people will revert to their old behaviors

    For myself, I have always been goal-focused, and when I got out of the Marines after seven years of service, I had to focus on change. I went straight into school full-time, which was not a total shock since I was going to school part-time at night while in the Marines. I had a partner and family that I could rely on when I needed help. 

    What helped me with the change of leaving the Marines was that I had a goal and what I was giving up was not as important as what I would achieve by going through this change.

    If I wanted to have the same feelings as my first unit in the Marines of having a purpose, a sense of belonging, a community, I needed to change many things about myself. I’m older now, and I should be different than the person I was ten years ago and even a year ago. Another thing that has helped me evolve is obtaining new skills and mental models for dealing with my environment. This attitude of getting one percent better every day has caused me to embrace change because something better can be on the other side of change. 

    How To Go Through Change

    Not every change will be a successful one, but the more experiments a person can do with their life, the higher the likelihood of maintaining joy. If one can also realize that things will change on their own, then doing small experiments to increase one’s human, social, and financial capital can increase the likelihood of thriving with change. This person will be ready for the wave and surf it instead of being crushed by it.

    One of the most prominent groups for divorces now is baby boomers. A lot of baby boomers are starting to retire now, and the family dynamics are changing. Now the couple is home together, and the social agreement has changed. Since males tend to have smaller social circles than females, the retired male relies on their female partner for social interactions, and they are not ready to take on this role or want to take on this role. The environment changed where they’re not working, the children have grown up, and they have more time to think about what life should be like. And if the partners are not prepared for this change, it can cause a lot of frustrations that end up in divorce.

    This relationship could have been saved if they followed the quote, “If you want things to stay the same around here, something is going to have to change.” But we are creatures of habit and like to do the same thing as always, which can cause the couple to slowly grow apart until it’s too late to fix something.

    To help deal with the change, it’s best to have a vision and communicate that vision to others, then create a plan to reach that vision. Then do check-ins to see if things are working or if some things need to change. It tends to be better to deal with a few changes at a time than a lot of massive changes at once. And if you follow this process, you can maintain the same amount of joy at any age because you will have new things that will give you this joy. 

    This path is more realistic than hoping an item from the past comes back into your life and keeps everything the same.

    P.S.

    This November 10th is the Marine Corps Birthday, so if you see a Marine or know one. Tell them happy 246th birthday, devil dog.

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  • The Project Is You

    Earlier this week, I went to check out a new barber to find someone who can cut the top of the hair. Usually, barbers can either cut the top but do not do an excellent job at the fade or can do a great fade but are not good at cutting the top. It’s a blessing to find a barber that can do both.

    As Adam got started on the haircut, I shared my story of traveling abroad and what I do for a living while also asking questions about him.

    Adam has been cutting hair for five years, and he said he likes to read old books because they provide many valuable insights on life, and said that people should read one of his favorite philosophy books, The Kingdom of God Is Within You.

    While we continued to talk about philosophy, he said that people are the project, but most people don’t realize it. I guess I never thought of it like that, but this is what I’ve been doing for my entire life.

    I went into the Marines to help change my life. I got degrees because I believe they would help me out. They helped, but if I didn’t have my GI Bill, I would have been drowning in student loan debt and wouldn’t have the flexibility to do what I’m doing now.

    I’ve been to public speaking conferences and done improv to help with my communication skills. I use Grammarly to help me write these blog posts to help me find my errors, and a previous partner taught me how to proofread my writing. I was a personal trainer because I wanted to understand how to do an effective workout for myself and others.

    When it comes to financial planning, I’m pretty much a master because there aren’t that many issues that I come across, and I don’t know the answer. If I don’t know the answer, I have a network to reach out to and get the guidance, but I’m still always taking continuing education credits for my profession.

    So the next thing I’m working on is Data Analytics because I think there are many opportunities to help me and my clients make better decisions. Now I’m consuming textbooks and articles on data analytics, and I’m taking the Google Analytics Certification course on Coursera.

    I work so hard on myself because I gain more control, flexibility, and options in my life when I do. Another thing I’m trying to do is reach the outer limits of my human potential like George Raveling says he is trying to do.

    Every time I level up my skills and mindset, it clarifies my life and shows me the next step. This is a big reason I love to read because they provide clues to help me unlock my potential.

    To do this work, though, you have to treat your mind and body as a project. You are continually refining different parts of your life so that you become a work of art. Adam was a musician before he started cutting hair, and I told him that the biggest thing that makes writing shine is editing. It’s like the Blaise Pascal quote, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

    Adam said as a musician, he was constantly looking to make the music cleaner and the lyrics crisper, but without ruining the experience. Adding too much or making something too simple is an easy mistake to make as an amateur.

    I look at old stuff I did in the past, and I’m embarrassed by what I wrote, but I know it’s OK because I’m not that person anymore. I grew as a person because I’m constantly working on myself, and this took time. I also know that I can spend too much time working on something, so there needs to be disciplined to know when enough is enough. I usually tell myself that I’m going to edit something around five times before I ship it out, but it can be more depending on the project. I just need to know the situation I’m in.

    No one knows how much time they have left on this planet, so I’m going to enjoy it as much as possible. For me, this is finding the right mixture between working on myself and trying out new experiences. I need to take these breaks at times because they rejuvenate me and give me new ideas. If I didn’t have this fantastic conversation with Adam and took the chance to find a new barber, I wouldn’t be writing these sentences right now. I also went to the Oregon coast with my cousin, and we got to experience the Oregon coast and talk about life and our family dynamics.

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    Working on yourself will be frustrating at times, and you might not see the progress you want, but realize that great things take time to build up. Growing too fast causes weak roots, and the first major storm will knock over that tree. An Oak tree can take 20 to 50 years to mature, but its roots will spread out as much as 90 feet from the trunk, and no storm will be able to knock it down as long as it’s healthy.

    So have hope and patience while you work on yourself. You’ll eventually be a highly polished project, but remember that there is always room for improvement and not become complacent in your self-development.

    You got a lifetime, but each person’s timeline will be unique, so don’t waste it.

    P.S.

    I’m offering a new service to provide people’s budgets and data analytics to help them make better decisions. This service can help identify future trends like unexpected expenses so folks can spend more time working on their projects. If you’re interested in this service, click here.

    P.S.S

    Adam did a great job with the top of my hair, but could do better with the fade. Oh well, I’m only here in Oregon until November.

  • How Business Analytics Improved My Understanding of Personal Development

    Last week, I signed up for my last semester of my MBA, and I’ll be taking marketing analytics and a Capstone. In the Capstone I’m going to work on building a business plan and pitch it to investors for a Dia de Los Muerto Altar concept I’ve been dreaming about doing for two years as a side hustle.

    The concept
    The concept
    The artist I want to use
    The artist I want to use

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    Overall, I’m excited to finally be done with my MBA in December to have more time to implement the ideas from my analytic classes. I have fallen in love with analytics, and I feel that there are many opportunities to combine this with the financial planning, business consulting, and personal development coaching that I do. I’ve already created an analytic cryptocurrency dashboard and I want to add other features to help me think of strategies to implement in this space. If you’re not familiar with analytics, it’s taking data to do one of three things:

    • Descriptive Analytics – Trying to find miss opportunities or threats that happened in the past, like knowing which cashier has the most voids, which can signal fraud and should be explored more.
    • Predictive Analytics – Trying to predict what will happen in the future so that you can be better prepared for it, like knowing how many people will show up at a farmers market on the weekend when the weather is 80 degrees.
    • Prescriptive Analytics – Using past data with criteria to optimize a situation, like creating the upcoming work schedule for employees by saying you can only spend $2000 but need these many workers for the week. Then the analytics will tell you if you can do it or not.

     Even after spending 225 hours in June to pass my CFP exam on July 6th, I can’t stand still because I’m excited about these opportunities with analytics. Right after my exam, I enrolled in a bookkeeping class and Google’s Data Analytics certification program because of what I’m learning in my Syracuse Business Analytics class this semester.

    How Using Business Analytics Is Helpful

    From what I noticed, many small businesses don’t keep outstanding books, but if they do, they’re not using analytics to help them make better decisions, which can significantly boost sales and reduce costs. I wouldn’t be able to make this connection unless I took my MBA and then took accounting and marketing analytics by accident because the other electives were filled. After I took these classes, I immediately made the connection to personal development. If you can get the right skills or insights, at the right time, it can really speed up your results or cause you to be on a growth path that you didn’t think was possible. If I can have the correct variables in place, I won’t be two times better. I can be 29 times better than the average financial planner and business consultant. Two years ago, if you were to tell me to do the things that I can do now with business analytics, I wouldn’t know-how. I had the tools of excel and Access back then, but I didn’t know how to fully optimize them until I spent time learning them in my classes. Last week, I learned how to optimize my excel spreadsheets to save myself 8 hours a month of data entry, which saves me money and 96 hours a year. Without tracking my time and looking on how I spend it, I could have wasted a lot of time. And if I can save myself time and make better decisions, then the analytical skills are the moderating effect that speeds up the results that I’m seeking.

    How To Think About Moderating Effects With Your Personal Development

    Think about moderating effects when it comes to your relationships, what are the skills, mindset, or frameworks you need to ten times the power of your relationships? But first you should ask yourself, what happens if you don’t seek out great relationships? To get a great outcome requires having the correct variables at the right time to get that moderating effect. If you’re in a relationship, then going to therapy might be the moderating effect that increases your emotional intelligence to be a better communicator and makes you emotionally stronger to handle the conflict in your relationship. Now instead of having distress when it comes to communicating with your partner, you can have the power to make every conflict a five-minute problem that can get resolved.

    moderating effects picture 1
    moderating effect picture 2

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    With analytics and moderating effects, it’s not a one-and-done type of thing because things are constantly changing. Just continue to monitor the situation and realize that if you want things to stay the same, something has the change. With constantly changing variables, you want to learn how to stay ahead of those changes. This will come from asking questions and then pondering those questions while you review the data to see what you need to do next to get the results you desire. My original moderating effect with personal development was books. Without the 247 books that I have read, I would not be doing the things I’m doing today. These books add to my knowledge bank which creates a lallapaloosa effect where I can pull insights from different authors to make better decisions. And this is what analytics is all about, to get more results with less effort or make better decisions for your life based on the resources and capabilities available to you internally and externally. And if you have shortfalls, the data will show you what areas you should act on. As a person, you get to decide what is enough, but don’t be fooled into settling and living the rest of your life in quiet desperation. Have the self-awareness to know what you need to do every day and what needs to be added or removed from your life to help you live your best life. It’s all we can do.

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  • You Never Step Into The Same River Twice

    In this episode, we discuss how, when we step into a situation, it might look the same, but things have changed internally.

    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 to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances. At the same time, 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 Grow With Joe founder, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
    In today’s episode, we will talk about how we never step into the same river twice because the river has changed, and so have we. Growing up, every summer, I would head to my local river in Oregon and go tubbing or do something else. There were even cliffs that you could jump off from that were 40 ft high. And to me, even now that river looks pretty much the same, but it’s not the same. There are different animals and organisms inside of it now than when I was a kid, plus I’m so much different as a person now than when I was a kid.
    Today, I’m braver, stronger, and wiser than when I was a kid. And this is a good thing. I’ve been overseas for 10 months now, and I’m much different as a person today than I was when I first landed in Mexico. I realized that I could withstand operating in a country where I don’t know the language and actually survive. It kind of reminds me of my dad’s story, who came to the United States in the 70s from Mexico and did not know the language. I’m a much better person today than I was in the past.
    We are always going to change in some way. We might think the same, but our bodies are definitely not the same. I’m 34 years old now, and my body takes more time to recover. I was watching the NBA playoffs last night, and I was so sleepy at 11 pm. I also haven’t been drinking coffee because of my teeth whitening, so that might be the case. But I remember when I was 21 years old, I could go out, and then still operate the next day. Now I won’t do that. I’m taking the day off. And this is okay because I’m so much wiser and mentally stronger today than I was at 21 years old. So there are some trade-offs. I feel I look the same from when I was in my mid-20s, but I’m different internally.
    In this new economy that we are entering into, the ones that will thrive are the ones that can handle uncertainty the most. Things will look the same, but there are going to be uncertain things that are going to happen. As I look outside, it looks very normal, but with covid, it’s different when you look up close. So internally, we have to learn how to make good decisions, handle uncertainty, and have the courage to make moral decisions when necessary.
    Since the new economy will require this mental resilience, it’s why I love to read books and listen to podcasts. It’s better to have one Socrates than a 1000 Hercules in this new economy. We need to learn how to make decisions quickly that are good ones. And not allow the head trash in our minds to hold us back from pursuing the person we need to be. Since I took a speed reading course, I can finish a 225-page book in three hours. Now I can consume information twice as fast and apply that knowledge to the real world faster.
    If you look at me, I still look the same, but I’m not the same person. And the key thing is that we don’t want to be the same because if that happens, we’re not going to keep up with the new economy. There is plenty of room for improvement since the largest room on this planet is the room for improvement. So next time you step in that river, ask yourself, are you better or worst off than the previous time you step in that river. Hopefully, you can say the right answer.
    And that’s it for today’s episode. To summarize it, you never step in the same river twice because the river has changed, and so have we. The key thing is that we can hopefully say that we are a better person physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually than the last time we step into that river or when we wake up the next day. One thing I like to ask myself is, “Am I a better person today than I was six months ago? And I’m on track to become a better person six months from now?” If the answer is no to any of those questions, I need to change something in my life, but thankfully, my routine doesn’t allow me to develop myself. We have one life to live, and we might as well make sure we can fill it up with as much dope stuff as possible. And if you stop developing yourself, you will never reach your full potential and get swept down stream, which is not a good thing. So go to bed a little better than how you woke up, and things should be fine.
    Suppose you would like to get the journal questions for today’s episode. In that case, you can sign-up for my monthly journaling subscription newsletter, where you get daily journal questions Monday through Friday. 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,” go to my website growwithjoe.me/book, and you can download it right there.
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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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  • Every Time You Take Action, This Happens

    In this episode, we discuss how, when we take action, were are rewiring our brain to adopt a new identity. 

    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 every time we take action, we are rewiring our brain. Just think of every action or decision that you make, it’s a vote for you who you want to be. So look at your life as who you want to win the election. And some elections are going to be harder to win than others.
    I heard a good analogy, where adopting new behaviors and rewiring the brain is like walking to your mailbox but there is four feet of snow. The first time you walk to the mailbox on the sidewalk and back, it’s going to be tough because there is no path. But when you finish, you will leave a little path.
    The next day, you have to get your mail, but it snows again, but the path you made yesterday, it still mostly intact. So then you take action and make the path a little bit clearer. And if you keep up this routine, eventually, you’ll have a clear path and it’s going to be super easy to get your mail.
    This is what happens to your brain, where you do something over and over again. It’s going to get easier and your brain is going to rewire itself so that it will make that task easier. Then you’re going to have a new identity.
    Changing oneself is rarely clean and simple, it’s going to require work and feelings of frustration. I say what makes things is easier is to adopt a new identity. I was not a podcaster by nature. I don’t like to put myself out there for people, but I know if I want to create a successful financial planning and development coaching business, then I need to do things that will help me get that identity.
    I feel like the movie Field of Dreams, messed up the world. If you build it, people won’t come. This strategy might have worked 50 years ago when most people didn’t have access to a lot of things, but even the Ringling Brothers of the circus fame had to do a lot of marketing to get people to their show. So in a sense, they did build it, but the building was done once they got the animals and talent for the show.
    I know a lot of financial planning and development coaching, but it’s not enough to get me where I want to go. In the Coleman study, they found that success is comprised of three things, your technical skills, branding, and marketing. And technical skills make up 20% of that equation, with branding coming in at 40%, and marketing coming in at 40%. So I have to make a decision on marketing, which is not my strong suit but I’m working on it every day. Now it’s a lot easier for me than it was a year ago.
    I can definitely say that I rewired my brain. And this is what we need to do on a routine basis. We are not perfect people and we have a lot of flaws. So we need to rewire our brains so that we get rid of the negative habits and start adopting better ones. And the voting takes place every day. There are no off days. So know who you need to be and then start voting for that person.
    And that’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, every time you take action, you’re rewiring your brain. So you have to look at your day and see what are you rewiring your brain for. Is it for a person you want to be in the future or not? And what makes it easier to take action is to start identifying as that person you want to be. If you want to go to the gym, then say you’re a gym rat and gym rats go to the gym. Then it should be easier to go to the gym. And every time you go, you’re making a vote to become that person, and then with enough votes, you’ll win the election. And with your life, you don’t want the wrong people to win the election over your life. It can be fatal.
    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
    I’m also on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
    If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and hit the subscribe button as well.
    The greatest way to support this show is to share it with someone else.
    Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
    *Music outro

  • You Get What You Tolerate

    In this episode, we discuss how if you want to have a better life, start tolerating the things that will get you a better 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 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.
    At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
    In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how we get what we tolerate. This applies to your health, your relationships, your career, pretty much everything. If you can tolerate going to the gym and striving to eat well and get a good night’s sleep, then you’re going to receive the benefits of those activities.
    For myself, I love to read, and I’m willing to tolerate this activity so I gain all the wisdom. If you’re not going to tolerate certain conversations, then you’re not going those conversations in your life. I think as people, we have to decide how much of something we’re going to take.
    If you tolerate going to a job that you hate going to, that is what you’re going to get. If you can tolerate a relationship that isn’t filling up your cup, then that is what you’re going to get. The world is not a mind reader and it’s going to try to give you what it’s offering but for the most part, that means following someone else’s dream.
    In life, you have to know who you want to be in life and be the person that you want to be in life. And to help you understand the type of person you need to be and then actually be that person, you have to tolerate doing growth activities and be comfortable with uncertainty and losses.
    I’m not going to tolerate going back to a regular 9-5 job. If I tolerate that job, then I’m going to a stable paycheck as long as the company does well and I’ll get benefits but what I’ll be missing out on is creating my own thing and being the person I want to be. I don’t want to work for someone else, so I have to tolerate being a business owner.
    I have to tolerate the uncertainty of not getting a client for the day, I have to deal with the uncertainty of figuring out stuff as they come up, and a bunch of other stuff, but the reward for tolerating this stuff for me is control and autonomy over my life. This is what I want so I’m going to tolerate the entrepreneur lifestyle.
    Same thing with your relationships with friends, co-workers, acquaintances, family, and significant other. What you tolerate from these people, is what you’re going to get. So either you can take them as they are or you can try to raise their standards by setting a good example for yourself.
    To set your own standard, you’re going to need courage. It can be hard to stand up for yourself but the more you do it, the easier it’s going to be. Just remember that a missed mistake lowers the standard. So every time you tolerate the lower standard, that is what you’re going to get and it’s going to take work to raise that standard.
    To help you understand what you should tolerate and how high your standards should be, you just have to know yourself and what you want and need out of life, the go out and create it. Then if things enter your life that is not up to your standard, you can either get that thing to be of a higher standard or you just remove it from your life so you can focus on the stuff that matters to you.
    So understanding what you should tolerate is going to be kept in your development, so you want to change something in your life, you probably need to raise your standards and find something else that you can tolerate. I couldn’t tolerate being in the military anymore so I got out. I wasn’t going to be able to change the military and I saw that I could create something larger outside of the military, so that was the path I followed. Now I am much happier because I’m doing the stuff that I tolerate in my life and it gives me a lot of purposes. I’m not sacrificing who I want to be and this is exactly how I want my life to be, and this gives me a joy that I’ve never experience before and don’t want to lose.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, you get what you tolerate. So figure out the life that you want to have with your career, relationships, and lifestyle, then figure out what you need to tolerate in order to obtain those things. It’s probably going to uncomfortable and you’re going to face rejection as you move towards the life you desire, but it’s what’s required. If you can’t tolerate these uncomfortable things, then you’re life is going to stay the same and be filled with things that you don’t truly enjoy. Life is short and the goal of life is not to exist for 100 years but to live for those 100 years. So if you want to live life, raise your standards, and execute. Do this and I think you can have a pretty great life. And if you need help, then ask for help.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, what is something that you’re tolerating in life that you shouldn’t tolerate anymore? Do you need to raise your standards in an area of your life? How can you raise your standards? Are you satisfied with your standards? The goal is to see what you should and shouldn’t do with your life. If you can spend more time on the stuff you enjoy, then life will be good but this requires work. So put in the work and start growing.
    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
    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 friday@growwithjoe.me
    I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
    If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and hit the subscribe button as well.
    The greatest compliment you can give me is to share this episode with someone else.
    Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
    *Music outro

  • To Convince A Man That He Does Wrong, Do Right

    In this episode, we discuss how it’s not much use to convince a person they are doing wrong. They need to see with their eyes what good is. 

    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.
    At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
    In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the Henry David Thoreau quote, if you want to convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see. This quote is about setting the example and letting the other person come to realize that they are doing wrong. When people are able to internalize their actions and see that it’s not up to standard, then they can change their ways.
    Now there are three types of incentives that can cause people to change their behavior and they are financial, social, and moral ones. This quote is about affecting social and moral incentives. If you want to be a good neighbor, then act like a good neighbor and set the example. There was a study done that wanted to see what was the best way to reduce energy consumption.
    The electricity company sent out different flyers like discounts on saving money, messages about saving the environment, and one the ranked their energy consumption against other people in their neighborhood. And the one that worked the best was the flyer that compared the other person to their peers.
    Now, this was social cue to do better. So if you want a better community, do things that will create a better community. If you want a better relationship, do things that create a better relationship. And if you want to end social injustices, do something that will remove those social injustices. This is going to be work and requires effort. It’s easy to wish somebody would do better, but you have to show them what excellence looks like. The other person has to see it with their eyes.
    To nag at someone is not going to be that effective. And by setting the example, you can affect the moral and social incentives that will get people to act the right way because the other person sees with their eyes on what the right thing to do is.
    One of the reasons why I hated being in the Marines, was the hypocrisy that I saw with my superiors. They would be late, not do their work, and just be a jerk sometimes, and as someone with lower rank, you can’t really fight that person or argue with them without the fear of getting in trouble. Then their behavior made me not work to work as hard. This takes a lot of work to set the example but it’s required to make the world a better place. The worst thing we can do is be a hypocrite in the situation and expect other people to do better when you’re not willing to put the work in yourself.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, to convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see. Not of things are changing with the protests because there are a lot of people out their who want to change the standard. I can’t believe the confederate flag is being removed from a lot of places like NASCAR and military bases. Those institutions are setting an example. So let’s hope more positive change happens and if you want that in your life, have high standards for yourself and do the work within your community to affect that change. Which reminds of me the Marcus Aurelius quote, don’t argue what a good man should be, be one. This is all it takes to make things better.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, What is an area of your life that needs to be improved? How can you raise your standards to get a better outcome? How can use one or three of the incentives, which are financial, social, or moral, to help you get what you want? Are you mentally strong enough to set the high standard? If not, what can you do to be stronger? There is no use trying to convince a person that they should change, they need to see it themselves, so set example and let the other people know that this is what the example should be. If we all did this, then we can make our lives, community, nation, and the world a better place.
    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
    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 friday@growwithjoe.me
    I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
    If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and hit the subscribe button as well.
    The greatest compliment you can give me is to share this episode with someone else.
    Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
    *Music outro

  • The Three Types of People In This World

    In this episode, we discuss how we should focus on being this one type of person 80% of the time, another person 20% of the time, and how we should avoid being this one type of person. 

    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.
    At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
    In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the three types of people in this world. The people who make things happen, the people who watch what happened, and the people who wondered what happen. And if you can be anyone, you want to be the person that makes things happen and the person you least want to be like is the one who wonders what happened.
    Right now, there is a lot of uncertainty with the world with covid creating a global pandemic and know you have protested over social injustices. There is a lot to focus on but I’m going to focus on what I think is going to create the greatest good. For myself, that is building up my business, with the future focus of hiring more minority financial advisors. Right now 2% of financial advisors are Latino and the other 2% are black.
    We have a long way to go, but the way I see it, if I can grow my business by focusing on the Latino Market, then I can eventually start hiring more Latino financial advisors, which will hopefully bump up that number. If I were to watch what happened, then I know this number of Latino and Black Financial Advisors will stay the same. And within these two communities, they need a lot of help with their personal finances. Financial planning and development coaching is my gift, so I’m going to do my best to spread my message.
    The worst thing I can do is wonder what happened. That just means I’m being ignorant and that’s not good. I’m too focused on my pleasure or fear, which are things that are not going to help me down the road. Now I can’t focus on everything, I can only focus my energy on a few things. I can give support, but I can do the heavy lifting in every area.
    I might not be able to do something right now because I’m still growing but I have a plan to save my slice of the world. The best way to predict the future is to create it and it might take a couple of decades to make your thing happen. You just got to follow the process and building the thing brick by brick.
    I’ve almost been in business for myself for a year now, and I know I have a while to go. I love what I do and I love who I get to help out. The world needs help in a lot of different areas and as a society, we just need to do our part to save a slice of it. And if everyone did this, then the world would be a better place. So don’t stay complacent and wondered what happened to the world.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, there are three types of people in this world, the ones who make things happen, the ones who watch what happened, and the ones who wondered what happened. Try to be the one that makes things happen in the areas that you care about. There are other times you need to be the person who watches things happen because it’s outside your expertise or you’re waiting for more information to be gathered, but if you’re staying idle because of fear, that’s not good. The last person who wondered what happens is not a person you want to be because society is going to move on from that person because they are not keeping up. So have the wisdom to know who you should be as a person and then start acting like that person so you can save your slice of the world.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, what is an area that you need to start making things happen? What is an area of your life that you don’t need to be involved in and just watch things happen? What is the smallest step you can take to start making things happen? What is the smallest step you can take to remove yourself from something that you don’t need to be involved in? Is there an area where you need to do more research? The goal is just to figure out who you need to be in life and then to start acting like that person. Do this and you can have a pretty fulfilling life.
    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
    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 friday@growwithjoe.me
    I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
    If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and hit the subscribe button as well.
    The greatest compliment you can give me is to share this episode with someone else.
    Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
    *Music outro

  • Don’t Be The Sucker In The Room

    In this episode, we discuss how we should know the deal before we accept the deal, so we don’t become the sucker in the room.

    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.
    At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
    In today’s episode, we are going to talk about how we shouldn’t be the sucker in the room. The world is a very complex place with a lot of different people in it, who have their own agenda and they are going to do things that will benefit themselves.
    I’m in the financial services industry and we get a lot of flack for screwing people over and I say it’s because of the industry was formed. It started off with stockbrokers, who made a commission, based on how many transactions they made. There was an incentive to sell a financial product and back in the 1950s the fees were a lot higher than today’s environment and it could cost up to $100 in brokerage fees just to execute a trade to buy or sell a stock.
    Thanks to the internet, you can find a trading fee as low as $0 on some brokerage platforms. Now there are trade-offs in terms of speed of the transaction and access to auxiliary information, but today more and more people have access to invest in the stock market.
    Now when it comes to the financial services industry this year, there are three types. Commission based, asset-based, and fee-for-service. Basically a commission-based financial planner gets paid on selling a financial product like a mutual fund, life insurance, disability insurance, or long-term care insurance.
    An asset-based financial advisor gets paid on what they manage. For example, if you give $500,000 or $100,000 to someone to manage that money, they will charge a fee of 1-2% most likely.
    A fee-for-service financial advisor charges on complexity. They charge a fee based on how much work it will take to build a plan that covers topics like estate planning, tax planning, retirement planning, cash flow planning, and investment planning.
    A financial advisor can be one of these, all of them, or any combination of the three. You just have to know the deal before you accept the deal. And I’ve seen people get inappropriate advice or bought an inappropriate product because they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.
    So this is why if you enter into a room and you don’t know who the sucker is, then you’re the sucker. Now the sucker is the person that doesn’t know what’s going on. They don’t know the incentives behind the person in the room. Now, these incentives might not be entirely bad for both parties, but one party might not get their full benefit.
    Now a person can be taken advantage of in all three scenarios, but I feel the best model is the fee-for-service model because it allows the financial advisor to be in the best position to be a fiduciary. With the asset-based and commission model, there could be an incentive to move someone’s money to a product that this not the best for the client. If you don’t have a product to sell, then there is less conflict of interest.
    A lot of this depends on the situation, and what your goals are. But you don’t want to enter a situation where you can be taken advantage of because you didn’t do your research and making the wrong decision can have huge financial consequences, which can lead to other problems.
    This doesn’t just apply to your personal finances but in other parts of your life. This could be with a relationship, your career, and a hobby that you enjoy. If you really want to do this thing, then make sure it’s what you truly want and it’s the best for you. We’re humans and we get to decide what we put in our lives, for the most part, this is what I believe. Or we can design our lives in a way to create a perfect life. And what that perfect life entails, is up to us.
    But the key thing is, make sure you’re not being taken advantage of. I would recommend you ask questions and try to figure out what are the goals for this other person. If you believe it’s fair and just, then there shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of the things we enjoy today are based on the social norms that we believe to be true. So what is true for you might not be true for someone else, but we need to know what is the truth for ourselves.
    I’ve made mistakes where I followed this dream, and then I found out is wasn’t something that I wanted in my life. I thought I wanted to be a police officer in high school because that is the only job I thought I could get, but going into the Marines, reading books, and listening to podcasts has expanded my horizons in terms of what I could accomplish and what I want to do. Just raise your awareness and see what you need to add to your life and remove from it. This is going to take patience and action, so do what you can and start building that great life.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, don’t be the sucker in the room. If you don’t know who the sucker is, then you’re the sucker. Try to understand the system, the motivations, the desires, of all the parties involved, and the tools that people are using to help them reach self-actualization. The tool might be the wrong one, or it might be the right one. We just need to increase our wisdom to know the difference. So before you enter something, just know the deal before you accept the deal. Know your upside, know your downside, know what you can control, what you can’t control, and where are the bottlenecks and inefficiencies are. Do this and you’ll decrease the likelihood of being the sucker in the room.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, are you the sucker in the room? Think about your work, with your family, your friends, a service that you’re using, a product you’re using? If you’re the sucker, how can you not be the sucker in the room? What skills or wisdom do you need to acquire to design your life with more control? What are the incentives of the other people or the system that you’re involved in? Just think about the situation and figure out a way on not to be the sucker in the room, and then start taking steps in that direction to help you live your great life.
    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
    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 friday@growwithjoe.me
    I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
    If you’re on iTunes, don’t forget to give me a five-star rating if you liked this episode and hit the subscribe button as well.
    The greatest compliment you can give me is to share this episode with someone else.
    Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
    *Music outro