Planning for 2025: Unfolding the Great Adventure

Has 2024 rushed by in a blur of to do lists and goals? What if in 2025 we focus less on chasing goals and more on living our values? In today's episode, we're going to explore practical ways to prioritize what truly matters. I'll talk about my goals. I think Kurt will talk a little bit about his. We'll talk about giving back to our community and creating balance between living in the moment and and planning for the future. I'm Joe. My amazing pal over there is Kurt, and we are dudes in progress. Well, hello, Kurt.

Hey, Joe. Good morning.

Good Morning, my friend. 7:00 on a Friday morning. Probably my favorite time to record with you, pal.

This works out really well. We're morning people. I like getting things done in the morning and I got a lot to do. I have been busy preparing for a surprise vacation to Disney World.

What values does going to Disney World fulfill for you?

Well, you said it in your intro, making memories. You know, I prioritized vacation long ago. Even back when we were going down too. Taking the family and even my wife and I when we were going. Balance has always been a big thing of me. Work hard, but play hard too and set that vacation time. That was important. That was a big inspiration for me starting my Disney World podcast, quite honestly, and her love for it, my wife's love for it, our family's enjoyment, my daughter and all of us. Something we always talked about, that vacation that's coming up that just happened. My wife is definitely the type of person when she finds something she likes, she digs in deep and goes deep in it. She doesn't experiment a lot in other different places, so she loves it as much as I do. But yeah, that was a huge motivation to build a community, make friends, have a social life. And my gosh, it is paid off in dividends I never even dreamed of. Joe.

Yeah, I know. You value. You definitely value downtime, you value having fun in life, you value community and you value deep relationships. And that is all wrapped up in your connection with your Disney fans, your connection with your podcast fans, your connection with Disney World. It's all wrapped up in that nice little bundle. So you living out those values can be an example for everybody.

Thank you.

I usually go through some kind of planning process for the next year. At very minimum, I look at my calendar and I get my big wall calendar and I map out when I think I'm going to take some time off. I put some milestones in there, of course, kids, birthdays and things like that. But it seems that I do that during the, the break that I take at Christmas time, kind of that week between Christmas and New Year. And I wanted to do it a little differently this year. I want to plan my 2025. When I say plan my 2025, this is not exhaustive because I rarely set goals in the truest sense. And in the purest sense, I focus more on values than goals. I want to plan my 2025 before Christmas and really have that in place and enjoy the downtime with my plan already done. So that's why I want to talk about it today. Typically, you and I would talk about kind of a look back on 2024, and we still might do that. Lessons we've learned, things we, Things we accomplished, things we wish we would have accomplished, stuff like that. And we still may do that. And then we'll. Then we'll have an episode about what do we want to accomplish in 2025. But I want, I want to talk about just planning it. What am I going to look at and what I invite everybody else to look at when they're planning their year? Now, this is mine, right? These are my four or five things that I'm going to focus on. Everybody has their own thing. I'm not, I'm not bashing goals. I'm not in the purest sense. But I don't, I don't focus on goals. I focus more on values. So I want to talk about five things, specifically, understanding and prioritizing your values. Get those juices really flowing thinking about those things. Talk about building habits for consistency. Make sure you have some consistency built into your life. Because I kind of like to bill myself as a kind of a free flowing, go with the flow guy, but without my habits and without consistency and without some structure, I'll flake out like a bowl of cereal, dude. It'll be an absolute mess. So I want to make sure that I'm building consistency in my life. And there's a time management element to that too. I want to, I want to align my time with my values and make sure that, hey, if am I spending the time, my time on the things that I claim are most important to me? And the final two things are critical because it's about mindset. I want to make sure that I maintain motivation and accountability. And I think those go hand in hand. They go hand in hand for me. So how do I. How do I maintain energy and maintain motivation throughout the year? And how do I overcome change challenges? What is the mindset that I need to have when I overcome those challenges. So those are the five things that I'm going to focus on. I know that last year I if we do a year in review, I wanted to do way too much. Last year I put way too many things on my list and I accomplished very few of those I think professionally other than make making sure I do a, a good job at my primary income producing activity. Right. My day job, other than making sure I continue to grow and contribute to the company and make them profitable. My personal professional life. I want to continue to build my coaching business and let that flourish and be intentional about letting that flourish. But if there's a goal that I have, that's probably my primary goal that dovetails into all of these values because I have some future things that I want to accomplish. But building that coaching business is really something I want to concentrate on this year. So let's talk about understanding and prioritizing our values. My primary value we just talked about memories are better than stuff. I want to focus my spending my time with that underlying theme. How am I making memories? Is the money I'm spending is that making memories or am I just buying more crap? I bought more crap this year than I have in years past and I don't know how I got caught up in it. Amazon just may had some amazing sales. But I'm even as important as podcasting is to me. I'm minimizing that whole process. I've got microphones and recorders and all, all kinds of stuff that I think I'm going to just sell it on Facebook or whatever it might be. I just want to focus on, truly focus on Memories are better than stuff and minimalist principles, decluttering physical and mental space. So that's, that's one of my values. My other value is community connection.

Can I ask you about the experiences you're thinking about for next year? Because I know I was thinking of the amazing Portugal vacation you guys did this past year. Do you have plans or what are some of the memories you want to make specifically next year? Have you thought of that yet?

My wife and I talked about our vacation and we've planned one in October of next year. Last week, a two week vacation, the last week of September and the first week of October. And we'll, we'll probably plan our family vacation sometime in early summer. There's a principle that I want to talk about at the end, so we'll, we'll certainly get to that.

Well, I just want to say I love the base that you're making here. When you start thinking about things that are going to be important for. For next year, you're talking about values. So I absolutely love. This is the best place to start. Instead of just throwing out a bunch of goals that you're going to achieve next year, bring it, come back, take a step back and really focus on what is it that I value, what's going to get the best impact for me.

I want to stay flexible in 2025. And the best way I can describe it is I want 2025 to be a great adventure. And I want every year, every part of my life to be a great adventure. I want to have. I want to have that mindset and I had it. I had it last on my list here, but I think it's a good time to talk about it now. I want 2025 to unfold and just see what happens. Let's go on this great adventure. Let's. Let's have some values in mind. Some things I want to accomplish. Right. There's definitely some things that I want to accomplish. I want to build my coaching business. I want to make sure I spend time with the people who love me and the people who I love. I want to make sure that I have a community connection, that I volunteer on a regular basis with human beings and that I have that connection with human beings. I think there's a difference between volunteering somehow where you're. You're kind of by yourself, but you're volunteering your time. But I want to have interaction with human beings. And whether it's at a. At a soup kitchen or Habitat for Humanity building houses, whatever it might be, I don't know what it's going to look like yet. But I want to have a community connection where I'm volunteering on a. On a regular basis, probably on a. On a monthly basis. And I want to act now and build for tomorrow. So those are the. Those are the kind of the three values I'm going into into 2025 with act now and build for tomorrow. Because sometimes we can be so tomorrow minded that we don't do anything right now.

I like those. They're really good. And I'm thinking, even though you say let 2025 unfold, you're talking about. You're saying adventure. You're going to explore different things and see where that takes you.

Take some risks.

Yeah, I like it.

How are you with risk, Kurt? Do you tend to like, like safety and predictability or do you like maybe stepping out there a little bit?

Kind of middle of the road. I definitely take risks in my professional work. Absolutely. I mean, to become a podcaster and get your voice out there, those are things I'm pretty calculated in those risks, though I think I analyze them quite a bit before I really go for it. Think about the billionaires. One of the traits that they all have, they are fearless. Now, if you think of any great accomplishment, they are all fearless. Well, they at least look at it. They're afraid, but they do it anyway. I mean, in a way, once you're a billionaire, hey, you got FU money. It looks easy then. But how did they get there? They really put it all on the line. So you got to do a little bit of that for sure.

And you're right. That's something to understand as well, Kurt, that they weren't fearless. They acted despite fear, Right? Yeah. I've read a few biographies, and that is consistent in successful people, the millionaires and billionaires, that they didn't go into life fearless. They didn't go into these projects fearless, but they act it despite fear, and they act it consistently.

Yeah, they just keep going.

Right.

They just, yeah, put their head down and they take their bumps and they just push on forward.

And talking about consistency, you know that I kind of look at habits as almost magical when done right. And I want to make sure that I continue to build good habits in my life, primarily focusing on maintaining a high level of energy, maintaining my health and consistency in building my business. Those are the real things that I need to make sure I have good habits in. Because some of the other stuff, I've got good habits. I mean, I habitually stay in contact with the people who love me and the people who I love. I have a really good community connection. I want to grow that. But those two areas, health and building the business is where I need to build some good habits. So I want to make sure that I. I concentrate on those principles. And when I talk about building habits, I'm talking about very small actions every single day. Now, that's as close to, I think, a goal that I'm going to. That I'm going to talk about. My goal, for lack of a better word, is to figure out what small actions I need to take every single day to accomplish the values that I want to accomplish in 2025 and make that my quote unquote goal. Those tiny little steps every single day.

Yeah, I enjoyed our look into transformative practices too. And it's very similar habits. They're very closely related. Because when you're talking about Your values. If you're doing these habits or transformative practices, they're connected to those values. You're doing those things every single day that move just a little bit further down the road the more consistent you are with them day by day.

Part of that is simplifying life, keeping it simple and actionable. And there's no reason to overly complicate your life, even in business. And this is something that I'm. I have a real talent for, Kurt. If I can be a little braggadocious, I do have a knack for looking at a process, looking at business, looking at an organization and simplifying that organization or that process to actionable items that. That we can do every single day. But it's all about simplification. So when I. When I think about my coaching business, not only is it going to focus on some podcasting business development, but it's also going to focus on helping organizations, helping small business people simplify their process to focus on those things that are most important. That'll really move the needle.

Yep, focus is really important.

So that brings me to time management that's aligned with my values. Not time management just for the sake of doing stuff. Time management that's aligned with my values. So as I go through my week, as I go through my month, as I go through my year, I want to have my values in mind. Not so much goals in the purest sense, but my values. The values being memories are better than stuff as a theme. Community, connection, and act now while I build for tomorrow. Those are the real. Those are the three values that I want to take into 2025. When I plan my month, when I plan my week, when I plan my year. And again, I want to take a step back. This is just me. The principles are firm and the principles are solid. You can take these principles and develop your own plan. This is just me talking about my plan. When I plan my week, when I plan my month, when I plan my year, I need to make sure that I align my time with my values, put in, put in dedicated time blocks to build the coaching business, reserve monthly slots for volunteering, and make sure that I have the big rocks in place, those big rocks that. That are. That I'm calling my values, and keep those in mind and eliminate the time wasters, dude. Eliminate those things that don't bring value to my values.

You know, one thing we do pretty successfully, we're going to be celebrating this. We've had some meetings already at work about this, but in the technology group, they set a training goal of 40 hours for every employee and it's tracked really well. We have a nice system where you can log it and keep track of it. And you know, that's one of my values. To put that time block in my schedule to do the training. I have something very specific I got excited about. One of the things that I'm looking forward to in the coming year and you'll love this. And it's becoming even clearer with some things that we're doing at work and even things that Joe and I can be doing is artificial intelligence.

Right.

So I spent, I did a five hour course over end of last week into this week. I was lucky people were leaving me alone this week that I could. I just said, I'm going to sit in this chair and I'm going to finish it off. And it was a great. I wonder how you feel about that too. I felt it was pretty motivating to have that 40 hour goal to match it, to make it. It felt like a sense of accomplishment when I hit it. It definitely was a little bit of a carrot for me. It shouldn't have to be, but I felt like it was.

Sure.

I don't know if you, I don't know how you feel about that, but it really felt good to do the training, start to understand this. I'm working in Amazon's artificial intelligence, the AWS and some of the programming involved with this so we can connect it to some of our processes. Speaking of processes, it's really interesting stuff and it's going to be, it's something that the company values. It was spoken about in our year ending with our CEO, just how much and all of the men and women who are leaders in all the businesses that we have the impact artificial intelligence is having. I mean, it's going from concept to real and I mean real fast and making inroads in the, in your productivity and creativity for sure.

So, yeah, my company is very progressive on AI. They've created their own internal AI process, their own chat bot, their own AI chat that's decent. It's nowhere near as good as Chat GPT and the latest version of Chat GPT, but it's decent. Yeah, it does, it does the job. And I'm, I'm grateful to work for a company that, that has that kind of vision. I was talking to somebody yesterday about AI and using AI to help write letters to help defeat the blank page. That's the, that's, that's how I use AI the most, is just a, whatever I'm doing.

Oh, yeah.

Help me defeat the blank page. And it's funny that people. How people feel like it's cheating and using AI isn't. It's almost cheating. I can understand that. I wonder how people felt when the first calculators were developed. Right.

Yeah.

Where you can hold a calculator, have a calculator, an adding machine or whatever it is on your desk way back in the day.

Oh yeah. All kind of computer processes have. Yeah.

People resist change and AI is just a tool, man. Now we can get into a whole weird conversation about it becoming self aware. Right. But it's just a tool, dude. And this is a little bit of a tangent on AI. It is going to have a dramatic impact on the way we do our jobs in the next two years for sure.

And you know, I gotta tell you, I had a great experience with it. Just to piggyback and I know we're, we'll get back on track here, but doing my annual review, I, I gave it all of the thank you notes that I got. I saved them all in an email. I threw it. That's how I started. That's how I defeated the blank page. I said I'm gonna do my annual review. Here's all the feedback I got from people. And I had a bullet. Do bullets. But I had a conversation with it. I said, I don't like this. Oh, I forgot to add this, can you rewrite this? And I put my own spin on things. So it was a collaboration with AI, but it cut down that time tremendously that normally it would take to do. And that's a hard thing to sit down and do until you get. Sit down and start doing it. That's something I could procrastinate all day long.

There are two key principles to use with AI. The first principle is talk to it like it's a. Like you're. Like it's a human being. Yeah, I know it's weird, but write to it like you're writing to a friend.

Right?

Write to it like you're like you're writing to an assistant. If you have a personal assistant at your disposal 247 and you don't have to worry about hurting its feelings or asking it to do too much.

Yeah, I don't like what. Yeah, sometimes he'll go the wrong way. He'll go in the wrong direction. No, no, no, that's not what I meant.

Do this and it's okay. Talk to it. Just talk to it like it's like it's a human being. I know it's Weird, but he's not offended. That's a tremendous rule to follow. And the second thing is, if you don't know what you need to ask or how you need to work with chat, GPT or AI, ask it. Hey, I'm trying to write a letter here. Can you help me?

Right. Start somewhere.

Right? Exactly. Exactly.

Very helpful.

So we talked about aligning time management with our values and eliminating time wasters, prioritizing values when we schedule. I definitely need to make sure I do that on a regular basis. These next two are more mindset issues, maintaining motivation and accountability. The way my mind works is if I have somebody that I need to report to at some level, if they have an investment in my success and they're a person, I'm motivated by that. So I want to maintain motivation through accountability, which means that I want to reflect weekly on the activities as they relate to my values. This is a personal exercise that I need to make sure I continue to engage in on a regular basis. Not sporadically here and there like I do now, but reflect on weekly wins and reflect on my core values and make sure that what I did the past week and what I did the week coming up reflects those values. Am I spending my time, my energy, my resources in those values and then continue to have accountability partners, not only at work with a boss and peers and coworkers, but what we do every Saturday to talk about what's going on, what's the progress that we're making? Are you following your values, Joe? And have accountability partners to help me do that, beyond what we do Saturday, Involve my family, involve co workers, involve those people that have. Have something invested in the values that I hold dear and have an accountability relationship with people.

Yeah, you did a good job with that beginning of this year, and we've kind of gotten away from it over the last couple months.

I agree. There certainly is a social part of what we do on Saturday mornings, and I don't want to take that away, but I do want to make sure that we cover the things that will move all of us forward. Finally, I. I have to figure out how to overcome challenges. And this is a mindset issue with me. When I face those challenges that hinder me concentrating on my values or hinder the things that I really want to do in life, how do I handle those things? And it's all a mindset issue for me, Kurt. And I think it's a mindset issue for most people. How do I handle setbacks? How do I stay flexible? Those are the two things that I. I want to concentrate most when it comes to my mindset, handling setbacks and staying flexible. And when it comes to handling setbacks, I need to take my own advice. Progress over perfection. If it's not happening in the. In the time that I think it's. It should happen, am I making Progress? If I'm 200 pounds today, and I was 210 pounds yesterday, that's a good thing. If I'm 200 pounds today and I was 190 pounds yesterday, that's not such a good thing. Right. Just continue to make progress. That's the best way for me to handle setbacks is to continue to make progress. Progress over perfection. And the last thing is stay flexible, man.

As you're talking about handling setbacks or overcoming challenges, isn't that the zest of life?

Yes.

You think back on the things that you had challenges over the last year. I think about the bathroom renovation that I had. I'm reflecting back on that. My gosh, it's so good to sit on the toilet right now, Joe. I know. It's a good thing anyway, when you've built it.

That's hilarious.

And the ladies in your house don't even use it. I can't tell you the satisfaction I'm having every time I go.

Yes, absolutely.

Can you feel me?

Absolutely. I'm with you, brother. I'm with you.

But I'm talking also in the challenges that I overcame. I never did a home renovation project like that. Gosh, it feels good to overcome a challenge and to win. But you're right, there were a lot of setbacks along the way that are hard, and it didn't go fast any stretch of the. There were things out of my control that I could not do anything about. I could not get my wife to make a decision on the flooring, which was driving me insane.

Yes.

Stuff like that. But in the end, and when you get to that final, it's amazing.

The things that we've accomplished that had the most challenges are the things we're most proud of.

Absolutely.

And the thing that brings us the most satisfaction.

Right.

So welcome challenges, man. Welcome setbacks. Welcome. That stuff gives you an opportunity to grow and to mature and to make yourself better. But when you're facing a real setback, if you can just have the mindset of progress over perfection, hey, I'm just. I'm just moving forward, man. I'm just moving forward. And we say that every. Every episode. Right. I just need to make sure that I own that myself as well. And really let that become a deep principle within me. And the next mindset for overcoming challenges is staying flexible. I want 2025 to unfold, not to have a strict plan that I'm following in a black and white way. I want to set my values. I want to understand who I am and who I want to be and the people that I want to be around and the values I want my life to be about and let that unfold. Right. This is the great adventure.

This is the one I'm struggling the most with of all your things, because I like to plan ahead and have some idea of what I'm doing. But, you know, when I think of the new age pal, I've listened to and read his books and they talk about don't worry about the how. And I struggle when I read or watch videos about that. Don't worry about the how. Just. Yeah, just keep focused on those values and what's important to you. How you get there is not really that important. So this one I struggle with, but I feel. I understand what you're saying.

This advice was. Was given to me years ago. And quite honestly, if I reflect back, I wish I would have heeded this advice more. And the advice was given to me specifically on raising children. So many times when we're raising children, we want to mold those children. We have an idea in our mind that we want them to be like. And it sounds good, right? Our job as parents is to mold our children. And I get it, it's honorable on the surface. But what was told me is stop trying to mold your children. Let them unfold and be there to help them unfold, to blossom.

It's great advice, you know, because we rarely know what we're doing. We rarely know the. We rarely. We know what we want. At least if we've done this, we've reflected on our values. We know what we want to get, where we want to go to. We just really don't know what it is or how it is that we're going to get there. And it could surprise you. I think that's what this is saying to me about being flexible. This impression we get in our mind is rarely right. The first try and be okay with that.

Right. That's the important thing. Be okay with that. Be comfortable with that.

Yeah, this isn't working. Try something else.

As long as you're not sacrificing your values. Yeah, that's the important part. As long as you're not sacrificing your values. Now, there may come a time that you have to Reevaluate your values. You have to take a look and say, hey, are these. Are these values that I have? Or are these values that were given to me that I think society wants me to have, that I think my family wants me to have, that culture wants me to have, or are these really my values? There are people in this world, and God bless them for it, that would look at my value of memories are better than stuff and say, that's crazy. You know, you need stuff to kind of get through life. Right. Or that's what we're doing. We're just collected. We're here on Earth to collect stuff. That's what we do.

The guy with the more toys wins, right?

Yeah. And I think. I really think culturally we're moving beyond that. It feels like it. We. It feels like we are. But you may have to reprioritize your values. But once you've set. Once you've settled on your values, don't sacrifice them. As long as you're. As long as you're living your values and they're your values, all this other stuff will fall into place.

And I just want to say, Joe, this has been a great episode, as usual, and determining your values, it's really important to do it. And it might not be that easy to do to really get to the core of what it is, but be a little bit flexible. Something may. Even in your values, you may discover something into the middle of the year that you want to pivot to.

So Those are the five things I'm going into 2025 with understanding and prioritizing my values, make sure I'm building habits for consistency, align my values with my time management, maintain motivation and accountability, and have a mindset where I'm overcoming challenges. That's what I want to take into 2025.

I love it. I'm going to do this, too. That's a good time period between now and the first of the year to do this internal work.

Well, thanks for the discussion, Kurt. I appreciate your input and always good stuff.

Thanks for inspiring me.

How about your win for the week?

Well, I've been collecting. Speaking of stuff, I've been collecting tools, but it's part of my values, isn't it, to be able to build things? It was something I want to get back into doing. And I was doing some YouTube research, thinking of some things, some things that would be useful to build, and my budget was kind of low. And as you know, I've done some things with wood pallets, and I had this thought. I felt like this was this great moment of a eureka moment. What about a storage ottoman? That would be on casters when I'm sitting in my office. It'll have dual purpose. It will hold some vinyl record albums. I can put my feet up on it. It'll be the desired size that I want and it'll be a fun project to do. And I built it this week. It's a pretty quick project to do. I love the fact that I scavenged a couple more pallets. My resource went out of business, my main one. But I did go out on Facebook and there's a woman I work with and her husband works at this place and he had a post I remember from a year ago, I talked to him about it went down there. And when you're looking at these pallets, it takes a little. You gotta put a little imagination. Will that meet the project that I'm trying to do? The size of the wood that I'm looking for, trying to figure out the measurements. I found a YouTube video that was really a storage box is what it was, a crate storage box. And if you think of rustic, which is kind of the reason why I like it too. But I said, yeah. And so I'm comparing building an ottoman that's going to have like a pillow pad on top of it, where my feet are going to be, for instance, on the top. I even used. I used. What is that MDF is it called? It's like a cardboard. A really heavy duty cardboard we had received that was part of the packaging for the sink and cabinet that we bought. There were two pieces.

Okay.

That's the bottom of my ottoman.

Oh, wow.

The only thing I bought was two by twos. Is it two by two? That is kind of in the corners. And also on Amazon, I got these wheels and the size I wanted to be about 16, 17 inches high. So if you. You gotta kind of think of the wheel height, the. What was great. The palette that I. I got for the sides and the front. If when I cut it in one cut, I got the front and the back and the sides from that one cut because I think it was like 40 inches or whatever. But that one cut, the measurements were perfect. And I did use ChatGPT on this project. This was actually pretty fun, Joe. Like, I had some measurements from the YouTube video which were not what I wanted from the storage trunk and I would feed in the different components of what I wanted and said, okay, what's. And the video was all in metric, so I was having it convert to inches. And I Iterated back and forth with that several times. Cause I wanna make sure that the length and the width and the depth were gonna be consistent enough that it makes a nice box, if you will. But yeah. So about $14 invested. I still have to put the, the padding that'll be on the top. I'll do that when I get back. But it's working. It's. I got the caster wheels. They're little wheels too. So.

I can't wait to see the finished product. Man, with your. Make sure you take the picture with your.

It's right behind me here.

Well, I want to see it with the, with the top and everything. Right at the top and everything.

I'm very excited about it. It was, it was a fun project to do.

Very cool.

Useful. I'll use it every day.

Well, I had my grandkids over this past weekend. We, we went to the winter celebration at Kings island for a few hours called Winterfest. They have a parade and they have. Right. Some rides open. And we had hot chocolate and all kinds of good stuff and just hung out for a few hours at Winterfest. And what's so much fun about the kids getting older and going to Kings Island? They're starting to really appreciate the adult rides. So. For years we spent in Kittyland. Right. But these kids are fearless, man. My granddaughter more so than my grandson. But these kids are fearless and they'll go on just about anything. And I'm digging it. I'm digging it.

Yeah.

And I follow. We followed up Winterfest, we went to the Bengals game. Now the Bengals lost. And that's a whole different subject. They're, you know, they're, they're the highest scoring losing team in football.

What a rough year your Bengals are having.

So went to Winterfest with my grandkids and then went to the Bengals game with my daughter, my son in law and the grandkids. So what a blast.

That's great.

And this is, this is part of what we talked about. Living out our values. There's lots of things that I could have done with that time and there's lots of things that I could probably thought about that I would call my win for the week. But this was indeed my win for the week. Hanging out with these people, you know, my favorite humans. Right. And it's interesting you bring up chat GPT because 1, 1 failure that I had with the kids coming over. Usually when I, when they're coming over, there's a whole prep time. You know, we make sure we get the good cereal in apple Jacks being the good cereal. And make sure we have the snack box all filled up and the prize box all filled up and I have a whole thing. Dude, I'm telling you, kids love to come to my house, but we wanted French toast for breakfast and all I had was a few items that I knew were French could go, could be used for French toast. So I plugged it in the chat GPT and I said, I want to make French toast. Here are the items that I have, here are the ingredients that I have. I have toast, I have a few eggs and I named off a couple things. Give me a simple French toast recipe and it spout, it spit out four French toast recipes for me. Right? And now French toast isn't a game changer. I mean, it's pretty easy, right? Eggs and you dip them in and fry them. But I wanted to see what it would do and what it would do with the. With these few ingredients that I had. And it spit out a couple recipes and went over really well. But my win for the week Winterfest and the Bengals game with my grandkids and my daughter and son in law.

You do inspire me and the effort you put into this. And I get this with my Disney World podcast of parents experiencing the same thing as the kids grow and they move into those bigger rides. And it is really exciting. And what's inspiring me too, of course, with my grandson. What are those memories I'm going to make with him? How am I going to do this because of the distance is a challenge that I got to overcome. What will be the things that we'll do with him? Will it be camping or. I don't know what it's going to be, but yeah. That's fantastic. Is it easy to get to a Bengals game, Joe?

No, not. Not really. I mean, the games are all sold out.

Okay. StubHub or something. You're using a ticket?

No, my son in law. My son in law has season tickets.

Okay.

And I'll probably go to three or four of those games with him.

I know you've said that.

That's great. It's awesome. You know, it's interesting because the two oldest grandkids, they live about two and a half hours away, so it's not easy.

Right.

But we have a system, we have a process. You know, we kind of schedule it out in advance and.

Right.

Yeah.

That's what I'm talking about. That's what I got to do.

Absolutely. You do have to do that, man. Be mindful of it. How about your resource?

Yeah. My resources learn woodworking and build useful furniture and things from wood pallets. YouTube. Fun of learning. And I say with pallets because it's cheap. You make a mistake, who cares? It doesn't have to be a really expensive. You can start with simple tools, and then it's kind of fun to grow the tools that you use. I've been getting toolboxes and organizing myself. But that creativity that you put into it, because you rarely find exactly what you're. You're thinking about. Like I said with this storage ottoman, I thought it was a unique idea in a way, but I started looking around, so it's not that unique. But I couldn't find exactly what I was trying to do because I wanted to be of wood pallets and I wanted to be the certain size and how are they putting it together? Is that something I could do with the tools that I have? Like, I don't have a planer. I don't have some of. I don't have a. What's the one where you. With the blade sticking up by the desk? You know, I don't have one of those, but yeah, so. And I've asked Santa Claus, you like this, Joe? For a Brad Nailer.

Awesome.

Now, I could have used that for my bathroom project, but I got the projects in mind. I'm going to think about how I could use a Brad Nailer to do that. So that's going to be fun. I've been researching how to use a Brad Nailer, especially the one I have in mind, which is the one from Home Depot.

Yeah. I have a Ryobi nail gun.

Yeah.

That I didn't realize all the things that were loose in my house until I bought a nail gun.

Do you have the cordless one?

Yeah.

Oh, good. That's what I'm. I'm asking Santa Claus for. That one works.

Works really well. Works really well.

Good to know.

Like I said, I didn't realize all the things that were loose in my house until I bought one. I'm going, I can fix that. I can fix that. Look at that. I can fix that. Sometimes you'll feel like you're killing an ant with a sledgehammer, bringing out the nail gun to put a poster up on the wall. But, hey, whatever it takes.

I have this step from my main house into the family room, which was an addition that was built before we came here. And the little step there always wiggled. So I finally. I was like, I was buying a bunch of drill bits. I'm like, oh, let me put a couple of screws in here and lock it down. I'm so proud of every time I walk over it now it doesn't move. I might put two more screws in there but anyways I'll just leave this one thing too. I had a challenge with the height of this because as there were a lot of parts going into it but I thought I was going to get the caster wheels that were about two and a half inches was like the smallest ones I could find until I came across these really low profile. They're only one inch. They're called Plus Rock. I bought a four pack on Amazon. They're only one inch and they're just like a little rollerball and it's perfect and it will hold the weight pretty good. And it's for you can self adhesive with the 3M sticker but it does have a couple screws but those wheels are there and they're kind of made for furniture anyway so. And it's working. I put them on last night. Working good. So. So the link is in our notes. What's your resource, Joe?

Now I don't know if I brought up this resource this summer or not, but while I was in Portugal, Portugal, I read a book called Things that Matter by Joshua Becker. Now Joshua Becker is a pretty well known person in the minimalist world. He's a blogger and he's written a few books. And I don't know if he has a podcast or not, but he should. But he really is one of the founding fathers of the recent minimalist movement. And he wrote this book, Things that Matter and I read it while I was in Portugal. This is a short read. It's an easy read, but it talks about minimizing your distractions, clarifying your values, saying no to lesser priorities, and how to face your fears. And it really gives you some simple, practical advice, helps you provide focus. I like this book a lot and I've and if I've mentioned this as a resource in the past, I apologize for repeating myself. But it's well worth it. Things that Matter by Joshua Becker. Very easy read.

Well, I saw this on your notes and I'm kind of searching right now. I definitely have read this book. I was looking at my Kindle. I've got highlights in this book. Yeah, it's a great time to bring this up as a resource. I think I'm going to look through my highlights on this book.

It is a good book. Things that Matter by Joshua Becker.

Love it.

Let's roll out with our quotes.

Your beliefs become Your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.

Our pal, Gandhi, that's the progression from beliefs to destiny. And when we really take a step back, that's how our life happens, man. Yeah, that's how our life happens. And I love that you brought up destiny because it's really connected with my quote as well. But, I mean, Gandhi is chock full of quotes and wisdom and things that help you concentrate on the important things in life. It's funny that you bring up Gandhi, because Gandhi is renowned for choosing poverty. Right. And choosing a life that is in. Completely in service to others and for all intents and purposes, in poverty. Mine. My quote comes from Warren Buffett, who has not chosen poverty well. He has chosen service to others.

He simplified his. I know a little bit about Warren Buffett. He really lives a pretty simple life compared to his wealth.

I think he lives in the same house that he's always lived in. Well, before he became one of the richest men in the world.

Something like that I've heard, right? Yeah, it's pretty basic. It's not like Mar a Lago.

Right. But my quote comes from Warren Buffett, and I like this quote because it. And I like how you. You chose this. This Gandhi quote because this Gandhi quote ends with, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny. And this quote from Warren Buffett talks about destiny in a way that sits with me and makes me really ponder on my own destiny. And what. What small contribution can we all make to the comfort of others? Someone sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. Somebody may have planted a tree a hundred years ago, and you are benefiting from that action. And you don't even know who this person is. They don't know who you are. They didn't do it with you in mind, and you didn't give it another thought. That you're sitting underneath a tree that somebody may have planted 100 years ago or 50 years ago or 20 years ago, whatever it might be. But you may be sitting in the shade because of something that somebody did a long time ago. Someone sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Yeah, it's amazing you don't think of it at the time. Some of the things that you're doing, especially if you're working in the area of your values. And I've had people, even just recently, I love this. When someone from my podcast community says, thank you for building this community. And they'll give me a very specific example. I wouldn't have been able to do this or that. And it's going to happen a lot with what we're doing this week. The fact that I got a free room tomorrow night, Sunday night if I want it, also awesome. I'd have to cancel one of my nights. And it's at the best, one of the best accommodations on property. That's for me. But all the friendships that were made were because I started talking into a microphone about Disney World.

Because you took a risk and did something uncomfortable.

Stuck out. Yeah. Stuck my butt out in the line.

That's awesome.

Even though I'm not an expert compared to some of them. But yeah, this is great. Great quote, Joe.

Let's wrap up right there. Our website is dudesinprogress.com dudesinprogress.com if you want to email us, you can email [email protected] dudesinprogress.com will respond quickly. We would love to hear from you. If you have some thoughts about the show, thoughts about a future show, we would love to hear from you. And I talked about this earlier in this episode. I talk about this every episode and I mean it. We have to keep in mind that progress is better than perfection. And all we got to do is keep moving forward.

Thanks for this, Joe. I'm going to. Let's all focus on things that matter this week and into the next year.

Definitely talk to you soon.

Cal.