Shiny & New: Tension with Attention | Ep. 18

Dane 00:00

Humans who don't have the ability to delay gratification are stunted in their growth for the rest of their life. 

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Dane 00:04

 And yet The delayed gratification is antithetical to the culture we live in. 

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Dane 00:09

The drift exists. The whirlwind of being human exists. Perpetual comfort, shiny and new, is always in front of us. Every room we walk into. So, in advance of walking into that room, in my mind, step one is acknowledging this is what's in every room. 

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Dane 00:26

and if you can at least start there, you might, Get ready for it.  

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Dane 00:31

As humans we prefer the path of least resistance. We crave convenience, the payoff without the price. But when our lives revolve around comfort, it doesn't deliver. Living in perpetual comfort leaves us weak and asleep. This podcast is an invitation to flip that script, to choose the unlikely path, to get the life you really want through voluntary discomfort. 

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Dane 00:55

This is Strong & Awake. I'm Dane Sanders. 

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Dane 00:59

So Mitch, I want to tell you a terrible story. 

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Mitch 01:02

I'm I'm always game.  

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Dane 01:05

So several years ago I had a birthday and I was relatively new to California and moved here from Canada. And it was kind of the first time I had a 

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Dane 01:15

critical mass of friends who were actually going to throw a party for me and it felt amazing and they were so thoughtful. Um, this is, this is going to date some things, but I actually got a printer, like a thing that printed on paper and not a, not a cool, like 3d printer or anything like that. Just like ink on paper with color. 

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Dane 01:32

Oh my gosh. Incredible. And they got me this printer. It was ridiculously expensive and, and I did not anticipate it. It was so generous of them, and One of the biggest regrets. I can think of in my adult life was I spent the rest of the party installing the printer. Like in those days, it wasn't just plug and play. It was like you had to do print drivers and do all these different things. 

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Dane 01:57

I was kind of in the back room and taking care of stuff and I finally got it dialed, and I was so excited and I came out and like my friends were gone and it was so like wah, wah, like just awful, awful. There's this overwhelming sense of like I got this cool thing and I was paying attention to it and it consumed me. 

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Dane 02:17

It had me and it came at great cost and It wasn't a conscious thought. If I thought of it for 10 seconds, I would have, no, I'll get to that later. This is the wrong moment for that thing, but it was such a novel thing. Like I can't overstate people didn't have printers. Like this was like a cool thing that, uh, like it created interruption in my life, but in the interruption. 

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Dane 02:41

Just remarkable regret. And I've spent a lot of years since thinking, like, not just that moment. These friends are still friends and we got past it. It was just great. But the, the dynamic that was going on, I believe, is amplified today at an unprecedented level. And it comes in so many different forms. 

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Dane 03:03

These, these temptations, these little, like, shiny, And new things dangling in front of us and they never stop. There's so many inputs. There's so many ways into my attention that can present a shiny and new thing. And I think that's maybe the category to put it in shiny and new and. To think through how does shiny and new negatively impact our lives. 

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Dane 03:33

And, and I don't think we're going to get rid, like our strategy isn't to get rid of shiny and new. Shiny and new is here to stay. Uh, but if, if indeed they're everywhere all the time, what do we do? I would like to talk about that today.  

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Mitch 03:48

I would love to talk about that. And for the record, you know, shiny and new has been happening since long before printers were invented. 

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Mitch 03:55

Long before, Dane's great journey to California. I mean, this has been something that's plaguing us. I mean, there's myths written about it, you know, siren calls and that's wrapping yourselves to the mass. I mean, this has been a human problem and, and, you know, opportunity. So I'd love to, to dig into that today. 

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Mitch 04:15

So we've got the shiny and new, so let's talk about different categories of this, because obviously you have the, you received a gift in your story, you get an Amazon package at the door, you rush out there and everything stops. You need to open this and get it. Like I had a plan for new water bottle. 

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Dane 04:33

I had a plan for my day, but the thing arrives and all of a sudden it jumps to the front of the list. Whatever totally shiny new has this dynamic of like, I didn't have a plan for this, but now it's here.  

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Mitch 04:43

Mm-Hmm. .  

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Dane 04:44

Exactly right.  

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Mitch 04:45

Mm-Hmm .  

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Dane 04:45

And it can come in the form of an email. In the morning you wake up, you have a great plan for your morning, but an email comes in, maybe it's from your boss or a client. 

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Dane 04:52

There goes the morning 'cause shiny and new. Even emails with complaints in them can be shiny and it's anything that draws our attention away from what we said we were going to do. That's what shiny and new is. That's what shiny and new is. So let's keep going. Like, what are some other examples that are in your world, Mitch? 

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Mitch 05:12

Ooh, well, I find that, uh, things, maybe this is getting too far ahead of ourselves, but I can, like you said, even things that are interruptions, even things that are, you know, a different category of uncomfortable. Like, might jump to the top of the list because it's the lesser of two evils, or I'd rather open up my email and see if there's any urgent tasks that I need to tackle besides doing the most important thing of, you know, sitting down and writing or tackling this bigger project that is more important, but I just don't want to do right now. 

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Mitch 05:46

So, I can often like elevate. less important things because, uh, it's, it's at least more comfortable than the thing that I want to deal with.  

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Dane 05:55

And is that like a path of least resistance thing? Like, gosh, that path looks very difficult. This path looks more accessible. I'm just going to go that road.  

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Mitch 06:06

Yeah. And I think it could be the actual ease of the task itself in some category, mentally, physically, whatever. 

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Mitch 06:13

Um, or it could be, I don't want to suffer through this discomfort, but I still want to have some kind of feeling or excuse of reward or like progress. I checked the box. It's productive procrastination. You know, I'm going to open up my email, I'm going to dedicate, you know, 30 minutes of work time to responding to these emails, even though it's not the most important work. 

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Mitch 06:36

So I think that's one category of, uh, these bright and shiny things. There's a thousand other notifications and things we're getting pinged by, but that's one thing but then also like we can seek them. That's another What other categories come to mind for you as far as kind of bright and shiny or these? 

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Mitch 06:53

These things that are competing for our attention.  

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Dane 06:56

I love your connection to certain feelings I like for example, I love the feeling of productivity. I love feeling productive and I don't know what that feeling is. I don't know. It's, it's maybe dopamine hits, or it's a sense of like box chucking or whatever it is, but it, it just feels good. 

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Dane 07:15

And, and when I can do something that are kind of short term satisfying, but ultimately aren't serving my longterm ambitions, that trade seems like a, a trap, a fool's errand. And And, and with this weird false proxy, like it, it gives me this impression like I'm moving forward. Like, for example, I, I heard a guy, um, someone that you and I both know, as, as a writer, uh, this guy named Eugene Peterson and Eugene Peterson. 

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Dane 07:47

I once heard an, an, uh, an event with, uh, he was, uh, a Christian writer. He, uh, did the, the rewrite of the Bible. He wrote the message and some people are familiar with, and. He was addressing these mega church, um, pastors and, uh, at this big thing. And he's always subversive and how he likes to prod at people like that. 

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Dane 08:08

And he, he basically his opening line, this isn't the point I want to make his opening line was, um, The, uh, the consumer driven church is the Antichrist church is how we started. And then pause, right? And this is a room full of consumer driven churches, right? So he is offended everybody right outta the gate. 

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Dane 08:26

Um, but later on in the conversation, one of the things he addressed that I really appreciated was he, he described busyness as laziness. That busyness is this false proxy, this overwhelming sense of like, there's so much that we can lay in front of us and do those things and it feels like, like the feeling boxes are getting ticked. 

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Dane 08:52

But yet we end our days and we look back and we go, I am deeply unsatisfied. I am not happy. With the fruit of my labor and I think that for me is a version of shiny and new to it's but it's not maybe shiny new and easy, shiny new and convenient, shiny new and comfortable, shiny new and like it's all in the same category where 

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Dane 09:16

 I think I want the thing that's in front of me. 

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Dane 09:20

I think I'm going to go consume it and often connects to consumption. And what I discover on the other side of it is I feel consumed. I feel like it took me, I didn't take it, and I got bamboozled. That's what occurs to me. Yeah.  

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Mitch 09:36

I love that you're drawing kind of the through line or the connection point between a lot of these things, or maybe going a little bit further upstream or higher order, because I do think it comes down to that. 

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Mitch 09:45

It's this, I want the quick, comfortable thing. Without the work, without the, the energy or the effort output. I just, just give it to me. Let me consume it. Um, and like you said, it ends up consuming you. I mean, taken to the extreme, you see this with, you know, the kind of, uh, drug epidemics that are going on. 

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Mitch 10:07

It's like, that's the extreme this taken to it's, you know, full end. It's like, I just want the highest high right now, right. And it will destroy you.  

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Dane 10:17

Consequences. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And it's funny too. I was, I was thinking about this this morning, uh, people's efforts towards weight loss in the way that weight loss, for example, is being marketed. 

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Dane 10:28

So regularly it's, it's weight loss. Easy. It's weight loss without pain, it's weight loss without, it's just, you know, could be a, you know, a pharmaceutical. It could be a, um, you know, eight minute abs. No, no, no. Four minute abs. No, no, no. You know, like just a sense of like a slightly easier path to the thing that you think you want. 

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Dane 10:50

And yet. They're shortcuts and they're not the right kinds of shortcuts. They're not actual efficiencies or they look like the short path. They turn out to be the long path and it, and it's, the truth is upside down. It's the other way around. It's the shortcut is the long cut. Uh, the, if I really want the result I'm looking for, if it's not uncomfortable in the front end, there's something. 

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Dane 11:14

askew, but the question is, in my mind for today's conversation, because none of that's new, we've talked about these ideas before, but I, I am interested in talking in a little bit more detail around what are the signals, even the feeling signals that we should be looking for. When it comes to voluntary discomfort, when it comes to choosing the long way, the, the, the way that will satisfy when we, when we, we have intention, like picture the night before, you've made your list of what you're gonna do in the morning before the shiny new comes. 

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Dane 11:46

What are, what are the signals you're looking for in advance of the morning? You're gonna wake up and you know what's coming. You, you should anticipate it. 

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Dane 11:55

I love, uh, Marcus Aurelius, in his meditations when he describes like when you wake up in the morning, you're going to come across and this is a paraphrase and a bad one, but you're going to come across people who are, who are nasty and mischievous and, you know, Nefarious and they're going to be petty and, and, uh, they're going to double cross. 

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Dane 12:16

And sometimes it'll be intentional and sometimes it won't. Why be surprised? Like, this is what you're going to wake up to every single morning. And as analogy, I want to say that is like the first starting point. We have to acknowledge if we're going to look for signals to tell us we're going into something. 

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Dane 12:34

The first is to get our mind straight of like, 

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Dane 12:36

 this is the nature of the world we live in. The drift exists. The whirlwind of being human exists. Perpetual comfort, shiny and new, is always in front of us. Every room we walk into. So, in advance of walking into that room, in my mind, step one is acknowledging this is what's in every room. 

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Dane 12:55

And, and if you can at least start there, you might, Get ready for it.  

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Dane 13:00

Maybe. Uh, so, you know, you order something on Amazon, just know when it comes in the mail, you're going to want to stop what you're doing and pay attention to that thing. Some of you, depending on your temptations of choice, but, but, but in that, in that anticipation. 

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Dane 13:17

So we know the room is, uh, what we're walking into. The second step is like, okay, it arrives. How do we get in front? Of the arrival, how do we kind of gird our loins or prep for that moment? Uh, and, and even have a place and like set your environment in such a way where you have a place to put the, the shiny and new, or to, to set it aside for the right moment, not the wrong moment. 

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Dane 13:40

If I could go back in time to that silly birthday party, if I could only have. If they had wrapped the present and I didn't open it, and, and we just like put it in the corner, and I would have tended to it later, I wouldn't have been so naive to, to what it, the draw that it was going to pull. Um, and then I could have had my cake and eat it too, metaphorically. 

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Dane 13:59

I could have actually been with my friends and had the thing in the right moment, but this sense of delayed gratification, Intentionally, anticipating the, the, the lore, the shiny of new, of, of, get it now, get it quick, get it easy, get it convenient. That is what's coming, and to decide up front, that is what I'm going to shun. 

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Dane 14:19

That is what I'm pushing away, putting it into its proper place, so that I can be after the thing that will really give me what I'm looking for.  

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Mitch 14:28

Yeah, I mean, we're already starting to dip into some of the like solutions, some of the benefits, some of the outcomes going back to the signals. I mean, aside from like, just acknowledging that this is a reality, anticipating, knowing oneself, knowing the realities of this world, that's one thing. 

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Mitch 14:46

But what are other signals or triggers or things that we could pay attention to? Like, I want to kind of zero in on that because that's kind of where it starts, like, aside from just acknowledging that these are the realities like in those moments.  

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Dane 14:58

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean the feeling that I, I don't, I don't know how you would describe it, Mitch, but the feeling that I have when I go into those moments is a surge and it's probably biological. 

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Dane 15:08

It's, it's this something is craving a deep need. Like I think folks who were in active recovery, you know, they, from addiction, they have the sense of like remarkable pull. Toward a thing that is the feeling however that manifests in your life that you should anticipate and it comes at You don't have to be addicted to fentanyl or alcohol to know what we're talking about here. 

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Dane 15:36

This is true for all humans We're all in the spectrum of that draw. I love how Russell Brand talks about this in his book around recovery and Is it Russell Brand? Is that his name? The, the, the funny guy who turned into the political guy.  

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Mitch 15:50

Yeah. Long hair. Yeah, that's the guy. Typical white Jesus looking guy. 

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Dane 15:55

Yeah, that's the guy. That's the guy. Um, but his book on, on, on recovery talks about this, a sense of like, we're all in it. We're all in the spectrum of addiction. And what I think what he's pointing to is that again, this drop. And so this isn't, um, certain people have to wrestle with it, but the signal you're looking for is when that surge happens, you need to be on the ready. 

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Dane 16:15

To apply the anti, the antidote to the, to the surge and this is where the plans, the environment, the, um, the anticipation, they are part of the ingredients on how to deal, but the, the spark that, like, you know, it's game on is the search and when the surge. This is sent and you're experiencing it if you didn't preload what you're going to do in response. 

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Dane 16:43

Good luck. It'll probably have you. But if you if you did, you have a shot at a dampening that surge of putting in this proper place of interrupting it. Sometimes it's even a little violent. Like I'm going to know I'm pushing this right now. And for me, it can come as practically as like, you know, a cold shower in the morning. 

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Dane 17:03

Uh, I, I used to turn the cold shower on and stare at the cold water and, and go, okay, one, two, Oh, just a minute. Just a minute. Okay. One, two. And, and. I would waste so much time was so silly and so much water and so much. Exactly. Uh, but, but that's not my practice anymore. My practice is no, no, no. I'm under it and turning it and the water hits and I'm three seconds away from exactly where I say I want to be. 

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Dane 17:34

But it's anticipation of what I'm really the surge in that moment is like, Oh, just. Hang on for a minute. Isn't there something you could go attend to that would be just a little easier than this? And, and if I can get into it quicker, uh, that's, that's a good sign. But that's the signal for me is, but to, to have the surge and then respond too late to anticipate the surge be on the ready. 

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Dane 17:58

And when the surge comes, that's your starting gun to get after the thing. That's what you're looking for.  

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Mitch 18:03

Yeah. And I think for me too, the, that you have the, the draw. So if we're using magnets or something as an example, you've got one magnet position here. You've got the other magnet here. And there's that kind of draw that yes, that pull that we feel like you mentioned. 

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Mitch 18:17

And then I think the other signal too, is just be aware of the other magnet on the other side that might be pushing you towards that thing. Like for me, I noticed like, Ooh, I'm dreading this thing. This other thing. Unrelate. Completely unrelated. To this thing that's pulling me, I'm dreading and kind of being repulsed. 

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Dane 18:36

I love what you're saying. So, so let's, let's put it in the categories of hard and easy. The going to the, to the easy thing, the immediate gratification in contrast with the hard thing, which is what you actually want to have done. Those are the two, two options, option A, easy option B, hard. So what I'm hearing you say is there's a magnet toward the, the easy, and there's actually another magnet pushing you from the hard. 

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Dane 19:02

Toward these, you're getting a double whammy.  

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Mitch 19:05

100%. And I think being aware of the power and the signal of the draw, but also being aware of the presence of this thing, that at least as I'm relating to it right now, it feels like trying to run away from this thing or being pushed away. You know, Get me away from Nineveh, kind of a deal. 

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Dane 19:26

Yeah.  

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Dane 19:26

Yeah. So, so if those are the, the forces beyond ourselves pushing and pulling us in the direction we say we don't want to go, 

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Dane 19:35

and we've anticipated that these things are happening and the trigger kick kicks, and in some cases, maybe it's more of a draw to the thing or more of a push away from the hard thing. There's a need to take instant and real material action. To put things in its place, um, I love how Andy Crouch calls it, you know, putting in its proper place and it could be, you know, the allure of our phones. 

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Dane 19:59

Um, it could be the, the, all the things that we described in the front end of the show in that moment. Decisive action is required, distinct from like mental assent, like, I know I should do this. No, no, it's get into the thing right away. And maybe even rev up for it, like have a running start. Um, we can turn off all the notifications, all, all those kinds of things that we want, but if we don't have some sense of momentum in the direction we said we want, it's, it's just tough. 

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Dane 20:32

There's forces beyond us that are pulling us in real way.  

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Mitch 20:35

Absolutely.  

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Mitch 20:36

Yeah. Yeah. You can, I like that distinction because there's important kind of acknowledgement and head knowledge and prep work that one can do to set themselves up. For the likelihood of success, but you can Eisenhower matrix the crap out of anything and you're still, that's right. 

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Mitch 20:56

And it doesn't matter. I'm sorry. What did you ask?  

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Dane 20:59

Well, you said the Eisenhower matrix and not everyone who's listening. That's what that is.  

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Mitch 21:02

So sure. Sure.  

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Mitch 21:03

You got the, it's like classic, you know, four quadrants of urgent. 

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Mitch 21:07

Uh, what is it? Urgent, important,  

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Dane 21:11

urgent, not urgent, important, not important.  

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Mitch 21:13

Yes, and then the intersects of each of those.  

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Dane 21:15

Right. Very quickly, if something is not important, you shouldn't be paying attention to it or so you should be, if it's not important, like just remove it. But oftentimes we have things that feel urgent, but actually aren't important, not helpful. 

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Dane 21:31

Uh, if they're of course not urgent and not important, nope, you know, whatever, that's just a waste of time, but then there's like, it's, it's in that, that, um, important, but not urgent thing often that we get drawn to, but to your point, all of that cognitive gymnastics to put it in the right matrix or box doesn't matter a lick if you don't get your body involved in a, in a visceral way in the direction of the hard thing and away from the easy thing, or as I like it, To quote M. Scott Peck a lot, the psychiatrist who, who wrote The Road Less Traveled and People of the Lie, in all of his practices, what he kept discovering over and over again is from a developmental perspective, humans who don't have the ability to delay gratification are stunted in their growth for the rest of their life. 

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Dane 22:17

It's, it's a fundamental developmental. Kind of thing they need to get over if they want to have success in their existence is to learn how to delay gratification and yet The delayed gratification is antithetical to the culture. We live in everything in our culture Look at the marketing whatever you're paying attention to from a marketing perspective All of it is saying no, no, no, don't delay gratification you deserve it have the thing take it on enjoy the easy way and All of it will result in this the sense of you know Regret and like that wasn't really what I wanted  

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Dane 22:55

and it's interesting the last thing I want to just point to in this conversation is not only is it difficult from a cognitive perspective like if we just think like I get my thinking right that's going to take care of it and I don't involve my body but the other part of it is when I do it alone. 

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Dane 23:12

It's particularly difficult, like if I, if I'm not like, if I don't have a Mitch in my life to talk about these things, I'm really prone to like, not set my life up in such a way that I give myself the shot that I'm really looking for, where I can actually go after the hard thing. And, and I, there's a lot of Mitch's in my life. 

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Dane 23:31

In fact, most of the people in my life, especially in our community are who I check in with every single day are people that. Um, I have similar ambitions. We all want to do the hard choice to get the easy life, not the easy choice to make the hard life. Uh, to quote Jerzy and, and, and yet even then it's difficult, but to do it solo strikes me as like just torturous, uh,  

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Dane 23:57

yeah. 

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Mitch 23:58

Unnecessary difficulties.  

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Dane 24:00

Yes. Yes.  

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Dane 24:00

Yes.  

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Dane 24:02

Yeah.  

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Mitch 24:03

Yeah. And it's not the kind of, and quickly just to spend a little bit more time on this kind of community aspect or relating with another person aspect. It's not because, you know, you and I checking in, like you're not making me do anything. I think if anyone's ever run a race with someone or done some kind of athletic feat with someone, you typically perform better. 

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Mitch 24:24

Any child that has played up a level. Tends to be a better player because of that added challenge or that added, uh, you know, growth that comes with doing it with others and doing it, uh, with others that are pursuing it at a certain level. So I think like that's just one thing I wanted to speak on is like,  

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Dane 24:45

well, yeah, and there's a couple of things that you're talking about. 

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Dane 24:47

I think there, one is having people who are comrades, you know, people at your side, um, Doing the thing and also when there's some sense of like measurement or, uh, scoreboard of some sort can also help, uh, when you're tracking, you know, whether you're doing the thing or not that, you know, that'll also help raise the stakes and your kind of engagement level with it. 

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Dane 25:13

But in both instances, it's still, what we're still talking about is an individual finding mechanisms by which they can be more engaged as an individual, but leveraging a collective is a, is a really resourceful way to do that. Organized group of people who have similar intent and are after the same sorts of things. 

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Dane 25:30

You surround yourself with those kinds of people and they're all together trying to choose the hard thing, even though they're all individual choices, is remarkably resourceful. It's a smart thing to do. And that's why we organize the way we do. That's why, you know, all groups do. Um, and yet even folks who are part of those groups, it's amazing to me how they often, I know I can experience this, people in our community experience this, they look for little nooks and crannies to go hide. 

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Dane 25:59

They don't, they don't take full advantage of the community. But again, if you're, if your whole life is like on your own, oh my gosh, you will be your own accomplice in the wrong direction.  

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Mitch 26:11

Yeah.  

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Mitch 26:12

I do want to spend some time talking about some of these Practical action oriented things that we can do as an antidote or as a active kind of push against this kind of bright and shiny draw. 

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Mitch 26:26

We talked a little bit about, you know, putting things in place, like whatever, turning on, do not disturb, putting something in airplane mode, not opening the gift until after having a designated place and a trusted time when you're going to do that thing. Uh, we talked about community. What are other things in this category? 

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Mitch 26:45

Again, it takes action and we're going to get unpacked that a little bit more, but like, what are some of these other things that we can do to kind of set ourselves up or give ourselves that best chance?  

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Dane 26:54

Yeah. I think the first is to have an accurate view of the, the nature of the world. And we we've talked about this a little today and beyond today, when we talk about things like the nature of the drift or the whirlwind of being human, or. 

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Dane 27:06

Yeah. Perpetual comfort being around us or the truth that every room we walk into has things that are shiny and new if you don't start with that perspective, for example, if you have a different perspective, say that, oh, no, it's like, um, we don't, we don't live in a world where energy is dissipating or. 

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Dane 27:25

Bad things are going to happen. Like, uh, and, and I, even when I say that a lot, it sounds almost comical, but people live as though that's the case, right? They make short term decisions. Like there aren't long term consequences all the time. And it's because we don't experience our future selves as present self. 

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Dane 27:43

Um, it's almost like it's a different person. So as a result, we can, we can trick ourselves into worldviews that are just incorrect. So I think it starts with having an accurate worldview of the nature of ourselves and how we are. The world we're in and what's perpetually coming, being clear on that and reminding ourselves over and over again, like this is actually the world we live in. 

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Dane 28:02

I think the second that can be very helpful is to really consider your environment, setting up your environment in such a way that it's in sync with what your commitments are. So if, if you're aware of the shiny and new things, don't put them out in front of you in advance of your day. Hide them. Put them, put them in a time release like lockbox that only unlock once you've done the hard thing. 

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Dane 28:28

Um, all of those kinds of efforts are smart. How you set up your life, how you set up things like notifications, all of those are environmental decisions. But the environment is insufficient because shiny and new, it's, they're very clever. Uh, they will find their way into rooms, even when you lock those things out. 

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Dane 28:46

And if you're an accomplice to the shiny and new, you don't have the right worldview relative to the environment, you'll very quickly find yourself in a, in a tough spot. And again, the, and the third, and, and I, it might sound like I'm being redundant, but I, I, I don't want to overstate it, or I don't want to understate it. 

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Dane 29:00

In doing this in community, like doing it in, in a world where the, People like, uh, you know, to quote Seth Godin, people like us do things like this. We're in the space with people who have, who understand the nature of the world we live in, who are setting up their environment, but are also wanting to do something with their bodies to take advantage of it in concert with each other, talking out loud, accounting for your participation in your environment and in your world. 

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Dane 29:28

All of these are mechanisms. To help delay gratification, and that's really what we're going for is for people to get to their end of their day and go, I'm so satisfied with how I related with the people and things in my day. And if we could do that more days than not, we will have remarkably satisfying lives. 

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Dane 29:48

But if we don't, it feels like the worst kind of groundhog's day, like, oh, well, another day burned. Maybe tomorrow will be better. But if we don't account for these three things, I, I wouldn't bet on you. I wouldn't bet on me. But I actually, when I do account for these things, I'm a good bet. You're a good bet. 

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Dane 30:07

Um, uh, not about perfect, but we find ourselves far more satisfied than not.  

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Mitch 30:12

Okay. I'm going to be clever here. We've got the, we've talked about kind of three Ps perspective. Like this worldview, this understanding of how the just the nature of things, yes, place environment. You're having a right place for things, setting up your environment. 

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Mitch 30:30

You've got people community. I think there's 2 other piece though. And that is  

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Dane 30:34

going keep going  

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Mitch 30:35

practice and patience. 

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Dane 30:40

Yeah. Let's talk about both.  

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Mitch 30:41

Let's do it.  

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Dane 30:42

Yeah.  

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Dane 30:44

So I love that. You're pointing out both of these things. I really resist number 5 but it's so right.  

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Mitch 30:53

Well, if we put it off long enough, we won't even have to address it. 

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Mitch 30:56

Like just keep procrastinating.  

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Mitch 30:58

That's the other P.  

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Dane 30:59

That's great. Yes. Yes. So, so practice. So what we mean by practice at men and women of discomfort is basically you start with a minimal viable habit or two or three that you stack up against each other and you'd go, I'm going to be the kind of person who doesn't miss a day on these handful of things. 

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Dane 31:16

For most people, that habit stack shows up like a routine, at least initially. And that routine. It's incredibly powerful. You hear about like morning rituals or morning routines, like when the morning, when the day, all these kinds of ideas. And, and those are very, very helpful. But as many have pointed out, um, routines on their own only are powerful when you control all the variables. 

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Dane 31:41

If you, if you don't anticipate the shiny new coming in, like shiny new come in all the time and ruin a great routine. That's really the theme of our conversation today. So at some point, what we want to do is graduate from just routines to a practice. And the practice in our world is the immovable object that can context within which we do our lives. 

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Dane 32:02

It's a scaffolding that we hang the details of our life on. It is informed by our worldview or our perspective. It is informed by... what was the second P around?  

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Mitch 32:11

Place.  

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Dane 32:12

Place, like the places we walk into and how we set those up. And it is supported. and challenged by the people who are in our lives, but the practice itself is exclusively mine, and it's custom to how I'm wired, um, the season I'm in, there's a sense of flexibility with it, so that if something does interrupt it, I can still get back to it, but ultimately, I become the kind of person who doesn't miss a single day. 

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Dane 32:40

Of my practice. And at the beginning, that practice can be modest, a handful of things, a handful of habits, but over time, and when I say over time, I mean, like, not days and weeks, but like months and years, you can be pretty dependable and several, it becomes a trait to you. Um, you know, not just a, a moment. 

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Dane 33:01

Um, Uh, and you're, you're kind of famous for those kinds of things. So that's what we, we help people create in their lives as a practice. And we go through the process of, um, prescribing habits and then routines, and then inviting people to really build out a practice from those experiences. Um, and that our practice for me, I've said this many times is, is probably the most important asset I have in my life. 

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Dane 33:24

It's, um, it's the framing of my every single day. Every three months, I kind of reassess it and kind of tweak it a little bit, but for the most part, it's pretty steady and, and it's actually giving me the guides for who I'm becoming on a daily basis. And this is where it gets kind of fun. A practice, if you have an ideal, let's say you're not totally happy with who you are as a person, if you build a practice, you just engineer it in the direction of who you want to be, and you actually end up getting the reps that are required. 

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Dane 33:57

in order to become that person. So practices are magic. Every professional, any standout, any someone, anyone that you look at who you hold in high esteem, if you look under the curtain, they probably are practitioners. They are excellent at the thing because they become the thing through their habits, routines, and practice. 

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Dane 34:17

So that's the key practice. And then the patients that relates very closely because, uh, oftentimes, Our practices are incredibly frustrating. They're, they're, we, we don't see the fruit instantly. It's, it takes time. And, um, an example of this comes to mind of one of my best friends, a guy named Drew Bray, a man of discomfort who also happens to be a world class musician. 

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Dane 34:45

And I remember coming to him one day and asking him, you know, how can I. Learn how to play guitar. And, uh, and he kind of smiled at me and he said, you know, just don't miss a day for the next 20 years and you'll, you'll get it. Uh, cause what I was actually asking for was a shortcut to being good at playing the guitar and he was saying, uh, you develop a practice and get the reps in. 

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Dane 35:06

And that is the long person's game that, that is, that is the game that actually gets us the satisfaction that we're really craving and, and to make no mistake, you skip that part, all you have is a fantasy in your mind. That's all you have. Um, but if you are the kind of person that is touching the thing every day, working your practice every day in the direction of where you're headed, there'll be days where you'll wake up and look backward and go, Oh, I actually am that person. 

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Dane 35:37

That's so for me. Um, and by the way, you probably won't be spending much time doing that because you'll be too busy on that day doing the thing. Doing the practice itself, but just know patience is part of the equation and I tend not to want to think about it because It takes so long But but to be fair the other side of the equation is we can actually see significant gains quicker than then We might Guess the amount of people who've gone through men and women of discomfort, who've lost like 20 to 50 pounds in 12 weeks, like three months of work, and then that weight is off them for the rest of their life, uh, is because of the leveraging of their practice. 

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Dane 36:25

You can make. Grand gains, but what we're talking about today is like, no, what if you could build an entire life in a certain direction that is really an interesting kind of thought experiment. How do you want to build a life of flourishing, not just get a three month hit of losing some weight? And this is where the value of what we're doing, I think, is exponentially higher than just some short term goal or project. 

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Dane 36:52

Totally. Yeah. And the reason I wanted to kind of highlight patience as its own standalone bullet point, if you will, is because that is crucial. There's so many times where a lack of patience just becomes that great discouragement or, or something that becomes that kind of opposing magnet that does push me towards the easy or pushes me to throw out my hands and give up. 

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Dane 37:17

Um, if you just persevere a little bit longer, just hang on. Like, then, uh, Man, there's, there's so many better, deeper comforts and rewards that come on the other side of that.  

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Dane 37:29

There's so many metaphors to pull from, but I think one of the most helpful ones is to think about those like athletes who are engaged in endurance sports in particular. 

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Dane 37:38

So, um, I've had a chance to do a handful of longer runs on trails and, and, you know, What I've discovered about really long runs is how my feelings in a moment can change so radically like in a 10 minute window. I can get to a place of like, I just want to die. I can't move any further. It's over. I'm done. 

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Dane 38:04

And yet, if I just don't quit, 10 minutes later, I actually have a totally different physiological experience. It's radically different. It almost reminds me of like that again, a nod to Seth Godin. I heard him give this in a talk where he asked everybody to raise their hand as high as they could. And then he said, now raise a little higher. 

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Dane 38:24

And everyone in the room does. And you had that, and he goes like, why are you holding back? And, and I love that. Like we all have more in the tank. We all have more in us and can go just a little further if we're willing. To persist, to stay in the thing, to be the person. And that's really what we're, we're doing together. 

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Dane 38:43

We're calling our community up to and calling ourselves to, but really hopefully this podcast is an invitation for others to come and join in the party.  

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Dane 38:52

Yeah. And it's, it's not easy. Quick, sexy, fill in the marketing messages. It takes patience.  

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Dane 39:01

Well, it is. Here's the thing though, man. It is all those things in the longterm. 

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Dane 39:07

Sure.  

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Dane 39:08

Including sexy. I mean,  

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Dane 39:10

well, sure.  

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Dane 39:12

Like, and, and, and, uh, yeah, there's no doubt about it. I mean, I, I think that's, I don't want to like this, we're having a good time. You know, that could be a whole other episodes talking about how much fun this is, um, especially doing fun, hard things with, with people that are fun. 

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Dane 39:28

Like we, we have a, we have a blast. This isn't like, Oh, that's not what we're doing. Um, but it's because we have a vision of where we're headed, even as we're becoming the thing. And if, and if you compare the folks that are in process with the cultural norm, we're miles. And in front of the cultural norm, but that's not our metric of success friends. 

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Dane 39:52

Our metrics of success is actually who was I made to be? What am I called to, uh, for myself, like for where I would, where my future self would be grateful for the work I'm doing as a current self. That's really interesting. And, and, and what, I don't know what the educators you used were a second ago, but it really is. 

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Dane 40:11

What did you say? Sexy and fun.  

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Mitch 40:13

Easy. Easy. I don't know about easy.  

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Dane 40:16

Well, it's hard choices. You do get the easy way. You do. It's just, it's just comes in the right moment. The, the moment when you're going to be glad  

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Dane 40:26

that you did the hard.  

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Dane 40:27

Just like  

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Mitch 40:28

we talk about ironically, how men and women of discomfort, we're actually like committed to comfort in a positive way. 

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Mitch 40:36

Way more serious way than others. Same with the easy life hard choices. Uh, like we're way more committed to that. Uh, not that life's going to be a breeze or that category of easy, but man, if you put in the work and you build your practice, like there are categories of things. That are easier and, uh, and, uh, it's a pleasure to be doing it alongside you. 

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Mitch 40:58

Go ahead, Dane. You're going to say, well, just,  

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Dane 40:59

just last anecdote that occurs to me. I have a friend, his name's Chris Becker. And he, uh, he's famous for a lot of things, but one of the things he's famous for is buying Apple products. He loves Apple products. And I remember one day he, he, He pulled me aside and he's like, I so wish I had bought fewer Apple products and bought more Apple stock. 

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Dane 41:18

Um, because you think like, that's what a great example of delayed gratification in contrast with immediate gratification. And yet the value of what you get on the other side, that is the game we're up to. And that's what I so hope folks who are listening, we'll take a moment, go to MWOD.io/apply and just engage the conversation. 

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Dane 41:41

Just ask yourself. The questions that are in the application, even if you don't hit submit, fill it out for yourself and, uh, see if you don't find yourself being pulled in the direction that your future self is wishing you would go for the sake of who you're becoming. Well,  

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Mitch 42:00

thank you for the conversation, Dane. 

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Mitch 42:02

Uh, all the links and info is in the description. Uh, if you're listening to this or watching it, um, we look forward to seeing that application come through or just hearing about the experience on the other side.  

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Dane 42:13

Thanks, Mitch.  

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Mitch 42:14

Thanks, Dane. 

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Dane 42:15

Men & Women Of Discomfort is our membership community and we are open to everyone but keep in mind our tagline is it's probably not for you if we're wrong about that or if you want to find out for yourself you can find us at mwod.io. The information and material that we're sharing both of this podcast or anything connected to men or women of discomfort or flying s incorporated it's all for general information purposes only. You should not rely on this material or information on this podcast as a basis for making any kind of decision. 

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Dane 42:40

We do our best to keep everything up to date and correct, and we do a lot of due diligence, but the responsibility is on you to make sure that you're in sync with your own medical professionals that you wouldn't see what we're offering here as somehow a warranty or representation in any kind expressed or implied about this being complete, accurate, reliable, suitable, or comprehensive in any kind of way. 

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Dane 42:54

It's critical you own your agency, which is at the heart of everything we do at Men & Women Of Discomfort, we invite you to take the input that we're offering and consider it for yourself. And if it's helpful, please do take advantage of it. But if you do, it's you who is taking the opportunity and we're assuming that you've done your due diligence with it. 

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Dane 43:06

Thanks. 

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