Bautista Planning and Analytics, LLC – Registered Investment Advisor

Tag: Time Management

  • The Power of Task Stacking

    In this episode, we discuss how to get more done in our day through task stacking.

    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 to get more done in our day through task stacking. In this new economy that we have, it’s going to be ideas and executing on those ideas that will help us get the life that we desire. If you don’t know, data is now worth more than oil.
    There is a lot of information out in the world, but it is going to require a different mindset that can put all the pieces together like a puzzle. To help me get these new ideas in my head, I use a technique called task stacking.
    Task stacking works when you pair a shallow thinking task with a deep-thinking task. Pretty much every morning I go for a 45 walk, and while I go for my walk, I’m listening to one of my podcasts. And if I come across an idea that will help me or someone else, what I do is go to my Evernote App and I write down the idea in my blog post notebook where I keep all my future ideas.
    Walking is a shallow thinking task because I can pretty much do it on autopilot. I don’t really require me to think too hard, which allows me to really focus on the podcast. Then I grab a cup of coffee and enjoy my coffee while I listen to my podcast. When I clean or doing laundry, then I listen to a podcast. Both tasks don’t require my full attention and I can pay attention to the podcast.
    When I go to an appointment and need to wait, then I pull up my Kindle app and start reading a book. I’m going to be waiting anyway and might as well take advantage of that time and it’s better than scrolling on social media.
    The way I use task tasking is by leveraging my time where I can get two benefits at once. And since this new economy needs ideas, then I need to consume information that will give me ideas. All my ideas that I’ve come up with have come from consuming new podcast episodes and books.
    If I can figure out a way to do something faster or help me generate more business, I need to have that thing in my life. I also don’t like to do laundry anyways and if I pair it with podcasts, then I’m going to do my laundry. It really just takes one new idea or insight to change your life. When I was at my last financial planning firm, I would listen to podcasts while I drove to my appointments. One of the podcasts that I listen to was the Financial Advisor Success Podcast with Michael Kitces and that podcast gave me insights on how to start a new firm.
    Another task stacking that I enjoy is going on for walks with people. This way I’m exercising and I get to catch-up with that person. So when you’re doing something, ask yourself if you can pair it with something else to make your life better like listening to music while writing.
    One thing you don’t want to do with task tasking is pair a deep thinking task with a shallow thinking task. Listening to a podcast while I do my school work does not work for me because I can’t concentrate properly on both tasks. Do this is like driving a car with a flat tire, you’re still moving but you’re not going as fast as you can while using more energy. So look at your life and see how you can multiply the value through task stacking
    And that’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, task stacking is when you pair a shallow thinking task like walking or doing chores with a deep-thinking task like talking to someone, reading a book, or listening to a podcast. This way you’re getting new insights and ideas on how to improve your life. Data is going to be very valuable in this new economy that we’re in, and we need to make sure we have the creativity to manage it. You have to be able to see connections between two or more variables so that you make things more efficient or developed under-valued assets. Plus it opens up your mind to new possibilities and can make you more empathetic. We don’t learn everything we need to learn by kindergarten, we have to be life learners and hopefully, this is the reason why you listen to this podcast.
    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.

    Additional Resources

    Get my personal development book for free

    Take my personal development quiz

    Schedule a discover call for one-on-one coaching

  • Find The Bottlenecks In Your Life

    In this episode, we discuss the power of removing inconveniences from our 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.
    In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the need to find bottlenecks in our lives. Did you know that if you want to double your profits in a business, you don’t need to improve one area by 100%, you just need to improve seven different areas by 10%. And to make something 10% better is a lot easier to do than to make something 100% better. The law of diminishing returns is one of the reasons why going for 100% better is a lot harder to do than to go for 10% better.
    By having a dual monitor, it can increase your productivity by 20 to 30 percent. And this is a lot. If a task takes ten minutes on your computer with one monitor, then let’s say you improve productivity by 30 percent so now that tasks take seven minutes, in one hour you can save 18 minutes, which is enough to do almost two additional tasks in one hour. Then in one workday, you can do 15 more tasks in a day and that is 75 more tasks in five days.
    So as you can see, small changes can make a huge difference in the long run. I’ve been traveling from place to place as a digital nomad and I’m staying put for a while because of covid, and I just bought another monitor on Facebook Marketplace and my productivity has increased tremendously. I have to copy and paste things from different tabs at times or do a search on one application and then put that information in another application.
    I also used to use the trackpad on my laptop and when I got a wireless mouse, my productivity has increased tremendously. Another trick is to increase the mouse pointing speed to the maximum. Everything takes a learning curve but once you get past it, then you can see real gains.
    Say if you only need to do 50 tasks instead of 75 for the week, you can use that time for something else that can make you more valuable as a person. Sometimes the bottlenecks are people that you interact with. So you need to use proper communication and strategy to lead people out of the bottlenecks. A bottleneck can also be a parent and you just have let go of wanting their approval. Once this happens then you can start living your best life.
    If you see a bottleneck, don’t accept it, try to figure out a way to remove it. Sometimes the technology isn’t there, but it’s with people, then raise your skills. Or hire someone who can do that thing for your life. The key thing is that the longer that a bottleneck last in your life, the more dissatisfaction you’re going to deal with.
    And that’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, find the bottlenecks in your life and remove them. And you don’t have to remove them completely, just try to improve them by 10 percent at first. If you can remove a bottleneck completely, then go ahead and do that. And realize that many of the bottlenecks are going to be with yourself. Head trash that tells us negative thoughts can prevent us from being our best lives. It can also be your skills. If you type at 45 words per minute, then you should raise your skills up to 70 words per minute. This will save you a lot of time. The goal of life is not to work 24 hours a day, the goal is to finish our work and then spend our time on things that give us joy. Do this and life will be great.
    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

    Additional Resources

    Get my personal development book for free

    Take my personal development quiz

    Schedule a discover call for one-on-one coaching

  • The Best Way To Eat An Elephant

    In this episode, we discuss the best strategies to tackle big tasks. 

    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 best way to eat an elephant. And the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. The quote is about doing things in chunks and how we shouldn’t focus on the entire problem. Just start on one area and start getting to work.
    One of the worst things I hate in life is packing, but I just tell myself that I’m going to start in this area, and just focus on this area until it is complete. Then I’ll move on to something else. That’s how I accomplished my last couple of moves and this is the same strategy I use in other parts of my life.
    Just focus on the smallest piece that I can accomplish, then work on that piece until it’s done. Then you just move to the next thing. You don’t need to eat an elephant in one day, it can take you a week, a month, a year, or a decade to finish eating your elephant but you just need to get started.
    Then I find that once you start getting momentum, then eating the next piece gets a little bit easier. It’s like the quote, you don’t have to be great to get started, you just have to get start to be great. But also realize that some elephants require you to start as early as possible. If I was to wait until the day before moving day to start packing, I’m going to fail. There is not enough time in the day to get everything done, because when we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
    I know that I don’t want to be a failure, so this is why I plan out my future. I pretty much know what I want to accomplish over the next five years and what I need to do. It’s going to be a lot of work trying to build up my own financial planning firm, but I’m just going to take it one day at a time, and do what I can. Sometimes that requires me to rest but most of the time it requires me to get to work on the things that will get me the future that I desire.
    So I’m just going to start working on eating my elephant, and this is all I can do. Or this is all I want to do because I know once I eat my elephant, then I’m going to have the life that I desire and I’m going to make the change in the world that I desire as well. This is going to require me to live a few years of my life like most people won’t, so eventually, I can live the rest of my life like most people can’t.
    Has my journey been difficult, yeah, but I can’t see myself doing anything else in life and I feel that when I accomplish tough things, then it gives me a lot of joy and satisfaction? When I was in Marines and going through boot camp, if you just focused on the entire three months, then you would go crazy, but the way a lot of Marines did their times, was just go from chow to chow. I would wake up, get ready in the morning while being yelled at, then we would head to the chow hall, and then we would train and just think about making it to lunch, then after lunch, just thought about making it to dinner. Then all of sudden your three months was up and then you’re a Marine.
    I tell everyone, you can be a Marine, you just have to say yes to getting on the plane and the drill instructors will take care of the rest. They will ensure that you eat your elephant one bite at a time. It won’t always be joyful, but you will accomplish something amazing and will be a better person for it. I believe life is about challenging yourself to do a little bit better every day, and if you do this for long enough, you’re going to be unstoppable and accomplish any task that comes your way. Then live your best life.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. So if you have a big goal or task that you want to accomplish, just focus on the smallest thing that needs to be accomplished, and then do that, then once that is done, then move onto the next thing. But also you have plenty of time ahead of you so you finish your task on time. If moving is going to take 40 hours, just make sure you spend 3 hours a day for 14 days packing, and you will be done. Or find a friend to help split up your time. I believe that there is nothing in life that can’t change with enough persistence, so understand why you’re eating this elephant and that should help you keep going.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, what is a big task that you have in front of you? What is the first thing that you should do to get started? Is the thing you’re working on the most important thing to do? Have you tried creating a Gantt Chart to help with your progress? If you don’t know what a Gantt chart is, I highly recommend that you look it up. It will definitely help you with accomplishing your goals. Also, ask yourself, is there anything that I’m confused about doing or scared of doing to help me reach my goals? What is causing you to feel this way? Sometimes our own self-limiting beliefs hold us back from trying to eat the elephant, so just explore your thoughts and feelings as well.
    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 to 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

  • Taking A Break Can Lead To Breakthroughs

    In this episode, we discuss how taking breaks is crucial because we’re not machines and breaks gives the ability to make new connections in your brain. 

    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’re are going to talk about how taking a break can lead to breakthroughs. We’re not machines and we need to take time to relax and reset our brains. I recently went to Costa Rica for a school trip and a fellow classmate asked the group if they wanted to go to some hot springs.
    I had a class that day and I just told myself that I was going to take my day off and relax. I just spent the past two weeks hustling with school and work and I wanted the break. So I took it and it was the best thing ever.
    Sitting in those hot springs and sipping an adult beverage was all I needed to recharge my batteries. When I was on this trip, I heard my classmate wish that they could enjoy this life all the time. I was also in Panama and some classmates said the same thing. It made me realize that I’m blessed to have my own online business so that I can do what I please. If I want to live in Costa Rica for three months, then I can do that, which is the most you can stay without getting a visa.
    By taking this break instead of choosing to work, it made me realize that most people live lives of quiet desperation and it made me feel so good that I’m living life on my own terms and I’m going to continue to work to keep this life.
    There have been other times in my life where I took a break and came up with a breakthrough. When I went on a vacation, I came up with the idea of creating my own journal, and then I actually created it. Since breakthroughs happened in the past, I know they will continue to work.
    There was another time I took a break to go see my sister for Thanksgiving two years ago and on the car ride back home, I decided I was going to move to Latin America to learn Spanish. When you drive for 12 hours in a car, you have a lot of time to think.
    When you take time to rest and just think, then you’re able to make connections in your mind. It’s also important to take time to write in a journal and if you do these journal exercises, some new insightful things should appear to you. If you want to continue to have the same life, then continue to stay busy with your life. But if you want a new life and that you probably will enjoy more, then take some time to think and rest.
    Countless famous people came up with their big idea while they were resting. Winston Churchill used to lay bricks and paint as the Prime Minister to give his mind a break and was able to do some amazing diplomatic things. I don’t think he would have been effective if he never took a break. Rumor has it that Einstein came up with his theory of relativity while he was riding on his bicycle.
    For me, I love riding a bicycle and just getting lost in thought. That’s why the next city that I live in has to be bike-friendly or has lots of bike trails. This is one reason why I don’t like driving because you don’t have time to think. You have to constantly have your eye on the road and you have no time to think.
    I loved going on a walking break at my previous jobs. I felt it made me more productive. You have time to take a break where ever you are in life. It can be for five minutes the most. Just take the time to work. Plus if you’re working for someone else. Take your break. It won’t matter in the end if you took your fifteen-minute break. I worked in the White House as an intern and I took a break.
    I remember talking to one of my fellow interns who were scared about going on a coffee break after one of our breakout sessions, and I told her that I used to be scared like her once, but then I turned 16. She was 23. We then went on our break. Now that I’m out of the White House, there is a new administration and I know that I did everything that I could while I was there. Giving your all doesn’t mean that you have to work 24/7.
    If you take time to sharpen the saw, then you’ll be able to cut down more trees than if you were to use a dull ax.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, taking a break can lead to breakthroughs. Right now I’m in Latin America and I know it’s important to take breaks from this Grow With Joe business. I was in Mexico and I purposely blocked out my calendar to go sightseeing. If I didn’t do that, then I would have gone and seen these different amazing things in Mexico. Same thing about Panama, Costa Rica, and Colombia. Now I have all these different experiences that I can draw on for further business ideas and then I’m going to need breaks so I can put things together. So take that break and lower your stress hormones, it’s going to be good for your health.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, are you taking enough breaks? Are you burning the candle at both ends? This might be good for now but don’t make it last too long. Something I see is that people value studying too much. I’m a big believer that the good stuff sticks when you learn something. There is no need to study something over and over again. So take in the lesson, write it down and then move on with your life. If you’re not taking enough breaks, what is preventing you from doing so? If you’re currently taking breaks, have you thought about taking a power nap? Just experiment with your breaks. Overall, just be aware of your situation and do what is necessary to make it a great one.
    To solve your problems, you have to reflect on what’s going on in your life and come up and sometimes you just need those breaks to see what you need to connect in your life.
    Thanks for listening today! 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 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

  • It will always take longer and cost more than expected

    In this episode, we discuss how you have to be patient with your goal and your tasks, and how to use Hofstadter’s law to overcome setbacks. 

    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’re are going to talk about Hofstader’s Law which basically means that things take longer and cost more than originally planned. This is an important concept to know because when things aren’t going your way, you can just say that it is supposed to be like this.
    When you do that new home remodel or trying to start that new business, it’s most likely going to take longer and cost more than originally expected. As part of my MBA program, I went to Costa Rica to learn about sustainability practices in Latin America. Since I’m a digital nomad, I thought I would stay in Costa Rica for a while.
    With the Syracuse MBA program, I have free access to WeWork locations around the world and I saw that Costa Rica has a location. So I booked my AirBnB next to the office which is away from a lot of the stuff in San Jose, which is the main city in Costa Rica. So then on my first day out of class, I went to the WeWork office and I discovered that it was closed for remodeling. I was devastated but I was able to find another coworking space but that cost me more money.
    Then I noticed that ubers and food basically cost the same in America or more. Public transportation is not that great in Costa Rica but it’s a beautiful country. I’m not upset because I know that Hofstader’s Law exists. Things will be more expensive or take longer than expected at times.
    When things don’t go my way, I just have to adjust my plan and keep moving forward. That is all I can do. I need to continue to do my work and live my life.
    I’m also in the process of growing my Grow With Joe Business and this is taking longer than expected. I thought I would be a successful financial planner three years ago when I first started out as a financial planner five years ago. It’s been a grind but I love what I do. When I receive emails or have phone calls with my clients and they express how I changed their life, it just gives me the fuel to keep going.
    It helps me realize that I’m doing the right thing and that I just need to keep going. I also know that once I’m at the point where I want to be in life, it will all be worth it. Even though there is a lot of uncertainty in my day, at least I have the freedom of choice. Like this morning, I read my book, I went to the park to do a TRX workout and now I’m getting to work. I’m doing what I want to do.
    So if I don’t have the success that I want right now, I know that if I just keep persevering everything, I’ll eventually get what I want in life. Life requires patience. When it comes to investing, it’s a very slow process. You really don’t see your big gains in investing until you’ve been doing it for 30 years. But all people tend to be very impatient. The average S&P 500 return from 1995 to 2015 was 9.85% but the average investor’s return was 5.19% according to a Dalbar, Inc study.
    You’re most likely not going to be rich overnight in the stock market, but with enough time, you can be. And that is like 30 to 40 years. The average investor used to hold their investments for 6 years now the time frame is 8 months. So when it comes to life and investing, you need to have the right perspective to keep going. Don’t quit at 8 months when 30 years is required. Right now I’m in Latin America and I’m learning Spanish very slowly. But I’m just going to stay here as long as it takes for me to learn it because I know that is what it takes and all I can do is just follow the process until I reach my goals. For me, life is good and it’s because I’m doing what I want to do in life and I just focus on what I can control and then let everything else go. There is a lot less stress when you do this.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, it will always take longer and cost more than expected. This is known as Hofstader’s Law. So when this happens, don’t get too upset because you don’t have control over the entire process. You’re just an actor in this world. You might have more power than others but you don’t have absolute control over everything. Even if you did, then it would be too stressful because all your time would be dedicated to making sure other people are doing what they should be doing and they’re not. So control what you can in the process and let everything else go. This will probably give you a lot less gray hair.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, what is something that is taking longer than expected? Are you being impatient with that goal or do you need to take more control over the situation? You have to look at the situation sometimes and realize that things are not as bad as they seem. If you have to wait an extra month without your remodel is done, then so be it. If you’re not going to do the work then someone else has to and then the ball is in their court. You can get things fast with high quality but that’s going to be more expensive or you can get something fast with low quality that is going to be cheap but that cheap thing isn’t going to last. So have the right perspective and just follow the process.
    Thanks for listening today! 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 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 to 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 Spread Yourself Too Thin

    In this episode, we discuss how multitasking and adding too much too your plate is harmful to you. 

    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’re are going to talk about how we can’t be spreading ourselves too thin through multitasking. This doesn’t just apply at work, it also applies to your personal life too.
    There are times where you might have to spread yourself thin but don’t make it a permanent state. I know I spread myself too thin during the first part of January. I was starting school, I was traveling to Panama and Costa Rica, I’m trying to take care of myself, and I’m trying to run my business.
    This was only temporary because of my traveling to Panama and Costa Rica for school. I just had to get through the two weeks and then I was back on schedule. And this is the key, to get back on schedule. My school work for my other classes took a hit, my business took a hit, and my health took a hit.
    I couldn’t manage everything at once but I’m okay with it because I got to see some amazing sites like San Blas in Panama and Tabacon in Costa Rica. I just told myself that I probably won’t see these sites again for a really long time and might as well and enjoy my time here. I did try to squeeze in some work here and there but it wasn’t really enough to move the needle forward on my business.
    Now as I’m writing this piece, I’m in my zone at a co-working space. So back on my grind and my exercise routine. You have to realize that if you want something to grow, you need to put energy into that thing. If you don’t put sufficient energy into something, then it’s not going to grow.
    Then when you’re spread thin for too long, then that is when chronic stress starts to creep in. Since you have so many things on your plate, you’re just constantly worried about the next thing. This is not good for your body. I was a real workaholic back in the day but now I take more time to enjoy things and I love my life now. I feel more relaxed.
    I still work really hard where I do work a majority of the weekends but if an opportunity to do something amazing or to go see someone, I will figure out a way to make it happen. I know that work isn’t everything but it is important for the majority of my day. I also love what I do so that makes it easier to put in the work.
    When you are spreading yourself thin, it’s real easy to get used to that feeling and not realized that you’re actually causing damage to your body. One thing as humans that we are great at, is knowing how to be miserable. We just go with the grind and take whatever is coming our way. But once I learned how life is when you don’t spread yourself too thin and just focus your energy on what matters, then it’s really amazing. You start to wonder how did you live your life any other way.
    There are going to be a lot of people that want your attention and cause you to focus on what is important to them but make it seem like it is important for you. It’s real easy to be tricked and this is why you should spend to reflect on what’s going on in your life and see what is important to you at this moment. This might mean that you spend time on your career or business. Or it might mean that you spend time on yourself and with your family. Time is short and you just want to make sure that things are going well.
    After going through experiences like the Marines, being a Federal Employee, a personal trainer, a business owner, and once being married, now I know where I should put my energy and how thin I should spread myself. I think it also helps to have your goals written down as well and to know what a perfect day and year would look like. Have a clear visualization of this will help you know how you should spend your time and have fewer feelings of being stressed out.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, don’t spread yourself too thin. There will be times where you have to spread yourself thin but don’t make that a permanent state. Things need the energy to grow and prosper, otherwise, they are just going to die. Plus once you start living your life with intention by knowing what is the most important thing to focus on, then it’s a really fulfilling life. When you go on vacation, you can actually enjoy the vacation instead of thinking about other things and have an abundant life. I used to be caught up in the rat race but when you win the rat race, you’re still a rat. To understand what you’re getting yourself into and know your worth.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, are you spreading yourself too thin? Do you feel constantly on the run? Do you feel anxious? What can you do to start taking control over your life? Take this time of journaling to start taking control over your life. If you’re spreading yourself too thin for too long, it means that you have lost control over your life and you should start taking steps to regain control. It might take a while but the goal is to eventually get it back. Don’t be miserable longer than you have to.
    Thanks for listening today! 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 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 to 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

  • Tired Minds Don’t Plan Well

    In this episode, we discuss how sleep is important for planning out your day. 

    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’re are going to talk about how tired minds don’t plan well. First sleep, plan later. This is a quote from Walter Riesch who is an Austrian screenwriter and director back in the day. As someone who is creative and comes up with a lot of ideas myself, I realize that sleep is so crucial to helping me come up with everything.
    Do this podcast every Monday through Friday requires a lot of mental energy and I strive to get eight to nine hours of sleep a night. I went out Friday night and only got about five hours of sleep last weekend and the next day I tried to write and do other things, and I didn’t have it in me. So I just went to sleep at 9 pm and work up at 9 am the next day. Then I was ready to write. I had to write an extra episode because I missed out on the previous day but I was ready for it.
    When you miss out on one hour of sleep a night, you decrease your brain functionality by 14 percent. And that’s a lot. That basically means you’re operating at a B level and today’s economy you need to be operating at an A level. To help me sleep better, I also stopped drinking coffee. I noticed that I wasn’t sleeping very well and it was affecting my performance. I do miss my nitro brew and I will only drink coffee about once a month now. Now it’s green tea and peppermint tea. At least my breath should smell better now.
    I know I do my best work when I sleep well. I feel like I also have better discipline when I get a good night’s sleep. I’m able to write faster and do other work because I don’t feel like I’m running on a flat tire. At my last firm, I made my own schedule for seeing clients and doing my work, so if I was feeling sleepy and didn’t have a client for a while, I would just go take a nap in my car and made sure to set an alarm. It might be for 15 minutes or an hour. It just depended. Also if I went to go see a client for lunch, sometime I would just park my car and go to bed. Then when I went back to work, I would do what I needed to do. I made my own hours and if it meant that I had a client meeting at 6 pm, I was going to take a nap because I didn’t want to fall asleep during the client meeting and it helped me pay attention to the meeting more.
    I can’t do financial planning well if I’m tired. I might miss something that is crucial to the client so this is why I value sleep. I will forgo something so I can get some more sleep in my day. I love taking naps because it just makes me feel more alive afterward. Plus if I’m operating at 100% every day Monday through Friday and I’m going against someone else that is operating at 84% then after one month I’m going to do about 308% more work than that person. Going back to my tire analogy. If I was on a bike that had tires properly inflated, I’m going to travel so much farther than the other person in a month, and in a year, I won’t even see that person when I look back. And this is assuming we are equal in every other part except sleep.
    I know I’m in good shape and so I know would be operating at 100% or close to it. I refuse to do all-nighters if I can. I rather plan something out and then decide if I can fit it into my schedule. Since I know what I have to do, then I can say no to the other things in my life and will harm my performance. If you do decide to stay out, just make sure you make up your sleep the next day. You’re not going to do your best work if you treat your body like a rental. This body is the only vehicle that will carry yours through life. You don’t want to have major engine issues in your 40s or 50s.
    So do things that will help you go to sleep. So don’t watch television before you go to bed, eliminate electronics from your room, and stick away from alcohol and caffeine after a certain time. Plus also get blackout curtains. Those are a lifesaver.
    Just imagine is you can start planning out your day better and are better able to execute on those plans. You’ll be unstoppable in a year. If you want more control over your life, then bring more discipline into your life by the way you sleep and take care of other parts of your body.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, tired minds don’t plan well. Sleep first, then plan. This will ensure that you’re a well-oiled machine that is less likely to break down. You don’t want to be constantly sick and tired, after a while you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. To not get to this point, take care of your body and make sure you get some sleep. This will ensure that your brain is operating at 100% versus 86% and if you want to make it far in life, you want to be operating at 100% as much as possible.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, what is your quality and quantity of sleep. Not all sleep is created equally and you want the deep rem sleep. So you might need to get a device to record your sleep. When you operate at 86% or lower because of a lack of sleep, what happens is that you just get used to this level and it seems normal but it’s not healthy and you could do better. Once you start operating at an A level, you’ll notice the difference and you won’t want to go back to being a B or C player.
    Thanks for listening today! 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 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

  • A Goal Without A Plan Is Just A Dream

    In this episode, we discuss how when need to execute on a plan if we want to have our goals come true.

    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’re are going to talk about what is a goal without a plan, and the answer is just a dream. With my life, I don’t have everything planned out but I have a good idea of where I want to go in life. My goal is to live in Latin America for the next two to three years and I’m just taking the country that I’m staying in at a month at a time. I’m currently in Mexico now and I’m going to Panama for a week in Jan followed up by a month in Costa Rica. I really want to see the waterfalls in Costa Rica. Then I’ll come back to Mexico to see my family and then I’m going to Colombia.
    I know my general goal is just to learn Spanish and as long as I’m in a Spanish speaking country, then it doesn’t really matter to me where I am living. Thanks to Airbnb, living abroad is so simple. Plus a lot of places take cards so I don’t have to worry about taking out cash.
    To make the goal a reality, I worked on it for a year. I decided what was necessary to make it happen and then I made it happen. I needed to get into business school and I needed to start my own financial planning company, which I did, and once they were in place, I knew I have the income coming in so I could travel abroad in Latin America. I had money coming in from my financial planning company and I had money coming from my GI Bill. If you make about $1500 a month, you can live in Latin America just fine.
    When I was in the states, I did my budget for living in Latin America and I looked up Airbnb prices, and I looked at food and transportation costs, and I just added everything up and $1500 was a good number to have. So once I started making this, I was fine. My parents bought me a one-way ticket to Mexico and I sold my car, so I had the money to make things work.
    I plan this thing out for the most part and I know I just living in the moment here in Mexico. If I didn’t plan all of this out, then my goal of living abroad would have not happened. It would have been a dream and that would be very sad for me. I don’t want to live my life with a bunch of what-ifs. I want to live my life to make sure that I’m seeing what I can accomplish for myself and right now it’s trying to learn Spanish. I know if I can learn Spanish, then I can help out a lot more people.
    I have goals and for everyone, I have a general plan on what I’m going to do to accomplish those goals. Sometimes goals take longer than expected but even if I fail along the way, I’m learning new things and I can just try again. If it takes me ten years to learn Spanish, then that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t think it’s going to take that long but I’ll what it takes.
    I’ve accomplished a lot of things like working in the White House, getting all my education paid for, and starting my own businesses because I had a plan and then I just started working on the plan. Sometimes I didn’t really know what I was doing and I was just fumbling around trying to make things work, and that just seemed to work. For the White House internship, it was brought up to my attention that I could apply, and then I just applied to it and I asked two people to write a letter of recommendation, and then I got it. I had no idea I was going to get it but I did, and it was a great experience.
    With running a business, this is the ultimate test of just following through. All your plans will be changed but as you get new information, you just formulate another plan and go with it. I’ve changed so many things in my businesses and know I only have so much experience. Plus I just give myself micro-goals that I can focus on. I don’t focus on the big item a the end of the road, I focus on the thing I need to do now to get me where I want to go. That will keep things more manageable and more process orientated. You don’t want to focus on outcomes, focus on your inputs. Every day, I have things that I need to do and it’s part of my plan to get what I want in the future. So when you have a plan, just make sure you then start taking action on those plans, because if you don’t then you’re just dreaming.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, a goal without a plan is just a dream. Dreams are not reality and you should strive to make your dreams a reality. Don’t go into the grave with unfinished business. You might not have reached your ultimate goals, but as long as you did all that you could do, then you should be satisfied with that. You can’t control external thing but you control what’s happening with your actions and your attitudes, which is probably like 80% of the formula for success. You can probably get 80% of the way there through the right attitude but the other 20% will be luck. So to help you get more luck, the right plan to help you reach your goals. If you do this then you’ll increase the likelihood of your dreams become a reality. I know I rather live in reality than in a dream world so I’m going to develop a plan and then I’m going to execute on that plan.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, what is a dream that you need to develop a plan on? What would be the first step that you would need to take to make your dream a reality? When can you start implementing your plan? Just write down your thoughts and only reflect on them. Is this what you really want to do? Take the time for reflection and just see where your life needs to go and then make it happen.
    Thanks for listening today! 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 only 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 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 to 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

  • Tomorrow Is When The Weak Become Strong ,You’re Not Weak

    In this episode, we discuss how not to procrastinate and become the person you were meant to be. 

    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 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’re are going to talk about how tomorrow is when the weak become strong and you’re not weak. This is a quote from Og Mandino and the book, the greatest salesman in the world. In the book, there is a chapter about not procrastinating and acting now. The full quote goes like this.
    For now, is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the evil becomes good. I am not evil. Tomorrow is the day when the weak become strong. I am not weak. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now.
    When I first heard this quote I was in shock. When you start to analyze what Mandino was writing, it’s very true that you don’t want to associate yourself with negative things and this will help you get over your procrastination. How many times have we said we won’t do something because it doesn’t fit our values. This could before good habits or bad habits. Once you identify with something, then you’re more likely to do things that will fit that identify. When you start to say tomorrow is reserved for the labor of the lazy. I’m not lazy. Or Tomorrow is the day when the weak become strong. I am not weak. Then you will stop second-guessing yourself if you should do something. You’re either that person or you’re not.
    One of the things that helped me with writing, podcasting, and running my own business. Is that I tell other people and myself that I am a writer, I am a podcaster, and I’m a business owner. So then I’m going to do things that are going to fit that identity and start taking action. I earned the title of the US Marine and I feel like I have to maintain a certain physique so that I keep the standards of the United States Marine Corps. I’m 33 years old now and I feel great and it’s because I take care of my body. But I take care of my body because of my identity as a Marine.
    So looking at my day, a lot of what I do is based on who you identify with. So if you identify yourself as average and worthy of less, then this is what you’re going to get. It’s going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. To be the person that you’re meant to be, you need to be taking action. As a writer, I write. As a podcaster, I make podcast episodes, as a business owner, I made decisions that are going to help me with my business. I sucked at everything in the beginning, but with enough time, I got better. Plus it’s better to suck at the beginning when no one knows who you are and work your way up the ladder than to start at the top of the ladder with no experience. If you start at the top, you’re probably going to fail. Even if you do fail, you can get back up and start climbing again.
    To get better physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally, which is going to help you with your career, your relationships, and your personal finances. It requires you to take specific action to help you get better in those areas. But if you want to stay weak in that area, you will either start tomorrow, next week, next year, or next decade. I’ve written tons and I’ve produced a lot of podcast episodes, and I’m going to keep doing what I need to do to grow with the business. I know who I want to be in the future and it’s going to require me to act now on things that need to get done. It goes back to when is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago but the next best time is now. If you want that better future it starts with acting like that person today.
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, tomorrow is when the weak become strong, and you’re not weak. Tomorrow is an easy thing to say when you don’t want to do the uncomfortable things that will generate a better future for yourself. But if you wait to feel like you’re ready, then it’s never going to come. It is always better to act to feel than to feel to act. Once you start doing the activity, then you will start to identify with that activity. I’ve pretty much written 1500 words every day for the past 10 months and now I highly associate with being a writer. Now that I’m taking my MBA, writing is easy. I just took my final where we had to write essay questions for five different topics and it was such a breeze for me and I like to contribute my success to writing every day. Do the activities that you’re supposed to do every day, and you will just stay strong and not become weak.
    So in your journal, ask yourself, who do you need to identify as? What activities does that person do? When today, can you start doing those activities? Yeah, take some time to figure out who you need to be, and then start acting like that person. You’ll be amazed who you will be a year from now. I know I love myself so much more now than the person I was six years ago and that’s because I’m acting like who I am supposed to be.
    Thanks for listening today! 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 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.
    Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
    *Music outro

  • Go After 100 Dollar Bills

    In this episode, we discuss how you should look at your day and the activities that you do.

    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 reflection 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 life. Your 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’re are going to talk about how you should go after the 100 dollar bills in your life. I learned this great lesson from someone I was talking to a couple years ago at a conference. She did time management coaching and she mentioned that every day you wake up, you wake up with a hand full of bills.
    Let’s say there are five ones, five fives, two fifties, and two one hundred dollar bills. And as soon as you wake up, that hand full of money is going to be blown out of your hand. Now it’s your job to go find those bills. Now which of the bills should you go after first. The obvious answer is that you should go after the hundred dollar bills.
    But going after those hundred dollar bills will be much harder to do than to go after those one and five dollar bills. You could spend all your time going after those one and five dollar bills but you won’t have time to go after the fifty and the hundred dollar bills. So at the end of the dollar just spending your time going after ones and fives, you will only have $30 dollars for the day. And for the week, you will only have $210. 
    Now let’s say you spend time only focused on going after hundred dollar bills. The first day, you might not find anything, then Tuesday, you don’t find anything, but then on Wednesday, you got lucky and got a hundred dollar bill. Then on Thursday, you get nothing, Friday again, you get nothing, Saturday, nothing again, and on Sunday you get a hundred dollar bill. For the week you will have $200 for the week which is $10 less than going after the ones and fives.
    This might seem like a waste if we only look at things for only a week, but if we look over a year, the person who spends a majority of their time on finding hundred dollar bills, will get better and better and collecting those hundred dollar bills. There will come a point where that person will collect one every other day, then every day, then they are collecting two a day for a week which will give them $1400 for the week versus the $210 going after the ones and fives. 
    If we look at our day, are we going after the hundred dollar bills or are we going after the one and five dollar bills? Your life will pretty much state which path you’re following. At first, going after those hundred dollar bills will be hard and frustrating because you’re not getting what you want. This is happening to me and my business. I have to do all these uncomfortable things like Facebook Lives, Podcasts, and reaching out to folks to generate business, but this is how I will get my hundred dollar bills. I’m take a cut in my pay right now so that I can have the opportunity for a brighter future. It would be much easier to do something less challenging but it wouldn’t be fulfilling for me. I need to generate revenue so that I can make the social changes I want to see in the world. So I need to go after the one hundred dollar bills.
    There will be a lot of uncertainty in the beginning where you’re not getting your value for the amount of time you’re working. This might be true if you’re working on the wrong things but you have to reflect to see if you’re actually going after your hundred dollar bills. I already have a couple of clients now so I know I’m on the right track. I just need to keep putting in the work so I get better at finding my hundred dollar bills. If you want to play it safe at first and go after nothing but ones and fives, then you will only have $210 for the week, then what happens when you’re expenses go from a hundred dollar weeks to $200 a week. Now you don’t have much leeway for things going wrong. When you’re young and don’t have much responsibilities, you want to make sure you’re taking time to get good at find hundred dollar bills because you want to build up your safety net. If you’re making $300 for a week, you’ll be in a much more secure position than making $200. It all depends on what you have as a stock pile when the unexpected hits. 
    The average person has about $2000 in unexpected expenses every year so I’m just trying to warm people that this happens and to make sure you’re ready for it, make sure you’re spending your time on things that will generate value to you so you are more protected. 
    That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, we need to go after the hundred dollar bills in our life so we can stay protected against the unexpected. Your hundred dollar bill is going to be different from mine, so you need to figure out what is the most valuable activity that you should spend your time on. You don’t have all the time in the world so you want to make sure it’s spend well. Plus if you fail after going after you hundred dollar bill, then you have the next day to try again. 
    So in your journal, ask yourself, what is the hundred dollar bill that you should go after today? You probably already know what you should be doing but you try need to keep doing it so you get better at it. We all suck in the beginning and we will only get better with practice. I hated doing these podcasts at first but now they are pretty easy and it doesn’t take me five minutes to hit the submit button. I’m working on other things and I’m just getting better. I know with enough time, learning from experts, and taking action, I will get good at collecting my hundred dollar bills and you can do the same as well. 
    Thanks for listening today! 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 me answer on the air, just e-mail me at friday@growwithjoe.me
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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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