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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name's Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today. You know, and I'm gonna do my best to make your time worthwhile.
You know, my dad used to say that, you know, birds of a feather flock together. Most of us that's heard that, I think. I think that he was talking about the kids that were doing things that he didn't agree, that he didn't approve of, you know, and he was encouraging me to be intentional about choosing friends when I was in school.
And must, like I said, most of us has heard that. We've also heard that we are the average of the five people that we spend the most time with. And both, think, are both are definitely good advice. The thing of it is, is most of us, most people, we just don't have a lot of intention around this, you know, it's just, we just don't.
And here's what I mean. Most people go to school. We didn't select the school. We just ended up there and that we just kind of wandered into and happened to chance made friends with people that felt, I don't know why, you know, there wasn't like a lot of intention around it. It just kind of happened.
We fall into groups and friends, the people around us that seem to be comfortable. Then we, after school or college, we got a job and we ended up being friends with people who work there and acquaintances, and sometimes even outside of work, we develop relationships just because we're there, not because of a choice other than the choice to work.
And then we move into houses or apartments or whatever, and then we end up with, you know, being friends with our neighbors just because that's where they live, not because that's where we necessarily would have chose the people to spend our lives with.
And what about family? I mean, we didn't really choose that. You know what I'm saying?
And some of them, I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know about your family, but I mean, you know, I think we all have some family somewhere down the line in our pedigree that might not be the best use of our time. I'll just say it. Okay.
So we spend so much time with our relatives and most of us don't even give it a second thought as to why, if it's a good idea, for if it's not, or we just think that it is. We just think that it is, even if it's not.
So just remember this, our natural brains, our natural wire default brain, our amygdala, or yeah, I think that's how you say it, the part of our brain guides us to do three things. I think they call it the emotional triad. It's called seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. Okay?
So without awareness and without thought, without intention, without purpose, our brains guide us to do whatever seems to be pleasurable, whatever seems to be not painful, and whatever is easy. Conserve energy. Don't exert, you know, don't, don't, if it's fearful, if it's hard, if it requires effort, you know, minimize. Don't do much of that.
Now, that kind of seems harmless in deciding what people to be around, but it can actually be harmful to us to not be. We're just not getting, I mean, we only get so much time to live. So, if you, if the more that we become to know what is available to be had, I think it makes it easier to want to have some intention around this.
You know, if you're completely happy with your life and you have no desire to stretch or push or improve, you know, first of all, you probably wouldn't be here. You would not be here listening to this podcast.
If you listen to this podcast, you want to become more. You are on your way to becoming you more. You want to move towards reaching your goals and stretch and develop more of your potential and more of your gifts and your God-given talents and all of it.
You're my kind of people. That's why we're here, you and I right now. You are who I want to spend my time with.
I was just recently, I was talking to my wife about this, and I was wondering, I kind of gave myself an audit. I was wondering if I was shortchanging myself in this because of the people who I chose to spend my time with.
So I went through my friends and acquaintances and my family, and I took a closer look at who I was spending my time with and decided to do it a little bit more on purpose, not just because it happened or because it was easy or because it was comfortable, but I made some adjustments, okay?
One of the things that my coaching clients say when we talk about this is, is that, you know, “Hey, Shane, you know, I just feel selfish if I only spend time with people who are going to benefit me.”
Now, I'm not talking about not helping people who are in need, okay? Just to be clear, not at all. Okay.
What I am saying is, is that most of us are spending way too much time with people and media that's dragging us down.
Okay, people who add weight to our journey rather than lighten our load. And a lot of it is subtle. A lot of it, we're, you know, we just don't know what we don't know, and we're not paying attention. We don't even know what to listen for, but there's little comments that are complaining, blaming, not accepting responsibility, not future-focused, not open, you know, not like open to learning, not humble, not teachable, not willing to learn.
And this is kind of the norm. It really is. If you listen to the language in the world, just in society, in media, you will hear a lot of this, right? Irresponsibility, entitlement, all of it.
And here's the deal. I do not feel guilty at all for not spending time with people who don't put effort, who don't have the desire to put effort into being their best selves, okay? The very best version of themselves. None of us are perfect. We’re on the way, but it is a requirement.
If I'm gonna commit very much of my time with you, I want you to be on your way, to have some desire to want to improve yourself and not be a complainer and a blamer. People that are, you know, defeated.
Complainers and blamers, and they're everywhere. And you know, I know all about it because I used to be one. I used to be one for sure.
“Hey, Shane, how's it going?”
“Oh, you know me, just live in the nightmare.”
You know, “I'd complain, but nobody will listen.”
Listen to the words people use. Listen to your own words. Okay. And if you're stuck in a pattern yourself, hey, no problem. No shame. No big deal. You just don't have to be there. You don't have to stay there. You can change your pattern anytime you want to, and I know because I have. Okay.
A lot of us get used to, a lot of us get what we consider just to be stuck. We're stuck in relationships that don't serve us. We think that we owe people our time for some reason. We're doing stuff that we don't want to. We're spending time doing things that we don't want to be doing because we haven't demonstrated quite enough self-respect. Self-respect and self-regard to set a boundary.
Okay. Or we haven't mustered enough courage to do it. Okay. Because let me tell you something, if you're doing something that you know you don't want to be doing, if you're spending time doing something that you don't want to be doing, or that you know that it's not really, it's not good for your long-term, it's not good for your progress, it's not good for your overall future, it's not helping you get to where you want to be in this lifetime, and if you're doing and spending time like that, it's okay, but just not to keep doing it.
And it's hard if you think that people get to where they expect it or they have this expectation and we don't, we're trying to control how the other people think about us. So we want to keep doing this activity and keep doing what they want and keep spending time over here and keep doing all these favors for certain people and all of this and that and the other that we don't, we know is not good and A, either we just flat don't want to do it, or B, we know it's not good for us.
And the thing of it is, it's hard. You have to exercise courage. You have to have some self-respect to set a boundary for yourself. You must. It's part of the deal. And I'm just encouraging you to take a look at yourself, value you, and value your time enough to say to people and then have the courage to do it.
This is the hard part. Okay. You might be trying to muster the self-respect, but then mustering the courage to actually say, “Hey, I love you, man, but I can't do this anymore. And here's what I'm going to do if this happens, or here's what I'm not going to do if this happens, and here's what I'm not going to do anymore, or here's what I am going to do in the future.”
Whatever, right? To have the courage to do it. And a lot of times the people, we've been putting all these thoughts in their mind and they have no idea, okay, that what you're setting a boundary over, that you even never wanted the boundary set because of the way that we've been acting in the past.
So I encourage you to just take a look at yourself and how you're valuing yourself, and take a look at how much courage that you can muster and have those hard conversations with people. You can love those people. I'm not saying to throw them out. I'm not. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying you can unconditionally love someone easily that you set a boundary with. It's not like, “I've had enough of you and all the stuff I'm doing for you and blah, blah, blah.” Not like that. Okay. It is, “Hey, I love you, man. This is what I need to do for me in the future going forward.” That's a boundary. It's not boundering somebody else. It's what I'm doing for me.
Okay. There's three steps. Well, before I get into that, just let me say this. It's hard but worth it. But just consider the consequences. Okay. Consider the consequence. You and I only get so many minutes. So many minutes of this precious breath to breathe. Okay. And then we're going to be gone. No do-overs. None.
So what I want to give you is the three steps—the three steps to input with purpose. Intentional input from my Proud Parenting course. There's three steps.
Number one is take the time to perform an audit. Okay. It doesn't have to be like an IRS audit or a sales tax audit or some big accounting project. What I'm talking about is, it can be as big and complex and as simple as you want it to be. But what I'm asking you to do is to take the time to consider what you're doing with your time.
Go through the what, who are you spending time with? Who are they? Okay, who are you gonna, who have you been spending time with so far this year? Okay. And how much time each day, each week, each month, and each year?
What about the media? What media? I don't know if anybody listens, reads books, probably not, but maybe some of you listen to audio, you listen to podcasts, right? And so, what are you listening to? What are you scrolling through on your media? What are you seeing? How much time you spend doing that, and how much is it serving your life?
How much is it helping you get to where you want to be? At the end, when you look back and you say, boy, this is what I did this month, this day, this year, or in my lifetime, are you going to say to yourself, “Ha, I did well. Well done, Shane. Good job.” Or are you just going to shake your head and look at the time that you wasted?
This is not about not having recreation. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying to take the time to take an honest look at yourself and make an honest judgment. You're the one judging it. It can be whatever the hell you want it to be. You decide. Just do it. Okay.
All the media, all the TVs, all the movies, what ones are you watching? How do you feel at the end of that movie? Okay. And how long is that feeling carrying with you and the thoughts about whatever it was? Are they helping or are they hindering wherever you want to go? That's a really good question.
Okay. How do you feel at the end of the time that you've spent scrolling through reels? How do you feel? That's a pretty good indicator as if this is something that you want to be doing or not. Perform the audit. Okay. Just take the time. Make it as big or small as you want, like I said.
Are the people in your life and the media that you're checking out every day, every week, are they affirming your value and your goals and your progress? Yes or no. Okay. What about family members and coworkers who are dragging you down?
Because here's the thing well-intentioned people, they don't even know. Okay. And some of us have been those people before. We don't even know what we're doing, and we have good intentions, and our good intentions are dragging you down. They are holding you back, and they are crushing your ideas and your goals, and they're having so much influence on you that we don't even really realize it. Okay.
But those people are well-intentioned. That doesn't mean that they're helpful. And then what are we gonna do about that? How are we gonna plan? Make a plan to do it.
That's number two, is to plan your time on your calendar. Okay. We talk about this in our time scheduling and time management and everything that goes into that. We talk a lot about this, but plan time on your calendar. Okay. Don't wait.
The one thing about human beings is that we can make decisions for the future. Okay. If I'm correct, and I am, no other mammal can make a decision, can plan for the future, and set a goal and make a decision of what they're going to do in the future. That's us. Okay.
And if we don't do it, what happens is that natural brain wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. That part of our brain is the one, almost all the time, that makes the decisions and wins. Okay.
If you make a decision with your thinking part of your brain, the reasoning part, the one that is that's after your prefrontal cortex, right? The one that's gonna help you make intentional, purposeful goals to be able to get where you want to and live the life that you want to and have the relationships at that part of your brain that you want to. That part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, helps you, allows you to make those decisions in the future and increases your odds of you actually following through with the decision that you made already because you made it for the future.
So, plan your time in advance and then follow through with how you decided to plan your time. It's pretty easy to get it all in your calendar of what you want to do with your time. The difficult part is actually following through with it when it gets there. Okay.
Because it's amazing every single time it gets easier, but when I get to those ones, the events on my calendar, every single day, I'll get to something, you know, exercise or whatever it is that I don't want to do. And my back part of my brain, my natural brain, is like, “Hey, that's not important. Hey, you can skip today. Hey, that's a difficult conversation. Hey, don't you have to do this thing over here? It's a little bit easier and more instant reward. Hey, do you want to clean out your email? Hey, do you want to make that easy phone call?”
All these things are just, it's easy to not do it. But if you go through the little bit of discomfort and do what you decided to do upfront, it is amazing at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month. And you know what? At the end of your life, because that's the results that we're creating.
Only spend time with media that affirms your value and your goals. Okay. What about recreation? Decide how much recreation you want. You decide. It's your life. I'm not saying don't have recreation. Just choose what that's gonna be. It motivates and affirms, okay.
And then step three, so quick recap. One is to perform an audit. Take the time and think about what's going on with you. Two is plan on your calendar what you wanna be doing with your time, okay? Because if you don't, here's what happens. If we're left to our own, it's like, man, I didn't get that done today.
Oh, I spent it—so-and-so came by and I took that call. You know, my phone rang and there they were. And you know, two hours later, I'm telling you. Or somebody stopped by—unscheduled guests, unannounced guests, you know, happened during the day. Or I did this, or I have so many things and I just can't get them done. You know what you can get done when you put it in the calendar. You know what you can get done.
You know, ever start just glance at something. There's a notification. Oh really? Who said what on Facebook, on Instagram? Well, hell, let me just take a look at that. A half hour later of laughing my ass off at these Reels, okay, I'm like, whoa. All right. Never had anything remotely like that happen.
So if we don't do it on purpose, that's kind of how our life goes, you know. And again, I just want to be clear. I'm not saying don't take time to laugh and look at Reels. I’ve got nothing against Reels. I'm on Reels all over the place. I hope you see them too. So the message is to do it on purpose. Do it in advance on purpose. That's number two.
And then number three is to seek out those who lift you up. It's not going to happen for you. All the total badasses in the world that you want to build you up and promote you and help you get the things that you want in your lifetime, they're probably not lined up at your door waiting to come in. Okay.
It's our responsibility to seek out the movies, the podcasts, the media, the people, the companies that we follow on media, and the books, if you're a book reader or listener, all of it, okay. And probably most importantly, the people who you choose to spend your time with.
Because it's getting chosen for you. Your primitive brain is choosing for it, and the circumstances of other choices, for example, where you moved, what school you went to, and where you got a job all of it's being decided for you because of circumstance in your natural brain, seeking the easy way, the comfortable way, the comfort zone, the not push, not stretch, not try, not do much part of our natural brain.
Which is fine. It's just like, don't, but I don't want to be there. You don't either. You wouldn't be here. So seek out the people. We must seek out the people.
You know, one time when I hadn't been to a church, I hadn't been to a church regularly, occasionally, like every few years, maybe I'd set foot in one for something or other that somebody would be doing as a member of my family.
Anyway, I went of my own choice for my own good one day, quite a few years ago, and I got active in my church again. And I walked into that building, and I sat in the back, and I looked around in this full building full of people. And I thought to myself, all of these people, with all of their faults and all of their attributes, all of these imperfect human beings just like me, are here for one thing: to try to do good, to try to do better, to try to improve, to strive to live to their ideals or to God's ideals the way that they understand them.
And so people like that, wherever they come from, some of mine come from my church, a lot of them, because they have the same values and they're going for it, but wherever you find those people, just take note and seek them out.
Three is seek them out, because they ain't coming for you. That's the three.
Simple steps. Here's the deal, okay. Just let me tell you this. I'm going to ask you to believe this, okay. You're worth the effort. Your time on this planet is worth the effort. If you're not sure if that's true, take my word for it, okay.
It's like my grandma used to say, you can't make chickenshit, you’re, excuse me, you can't make chicken soup out of chicken shit. You know, well you can, but it just doesn't taste good. And the same thing is, you can't live an extraordinary life without living it on purpose. Same kind of deal.
Appreciate you taking time to be here with me today. Remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin’ It.
