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Ep 140 Barriers to Maximum Physical Capability - We Are Driven Podcast
17 Plays3 months ago
Arun and Dan tell stories of how they overcame barriers to maximum physical capability.
Arun "The Driver" Coumar is an automotive entrepreneur, car enthusiast, and motivator, CEO of Driven Automotive Companies. Shop apparel, Join the Driven Network: wearedriven.co
Want to watch the video of this podcast as well as episodes of the Driven Diary? Check out our Youtube channel!
https://www.youtube.com/@drivendiary/videos
Follow us on social media:
@arundcoumar
@dan_larou
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Transcript
00:00:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'd like to have all day to just sit chat with you. Yeah, we can we can we can do that. Maybe like a Sunday. one these days Yeah. And honestly, I just need to like plan a trip and come out to San Francisco to come hang out for a couple of days. Don't come to San Francisco. Come to Fremont. It's where I'm in right now. Yeah, tomato tomato. No, no, San Francisco, San Francisco. You say, hey, i'm I'm coming to Lincoln and be like, no, you're not. You're coming to Omaha. Well, but is Lincoln like one of the most crime and homeless ridden places in the country? Oh no. Yet somehow still highest cost of living in the country because that's San Francisco. Gotta love it.
00:00:57
Speaker
Someone got shot outside my my apartment once and I got to see prostitutes working every single night when I lived there. And I couldn't access my car for six hours a day because it was locked up in my $300 a month valet parking garage. Oh yeah. Fantastic. Anyways, good morning. Welcome to the We Are Driven podcast where cars meet motivation. This is episode 140. My name is Arun Kumar and I am the driver and I'm here with my co-host on a Friday, Dan LaRue. How are you, Dan?
00:01:28
Speaker
I'm doing great. It's Friday. It's a good day. You found the little. Yeah. So one of my coworkers was messing with me and put a beeper in my office for like the last three days. So now I found it, I've deactivated it and I have kept it in my possession. I'm going to have a better day, especially when you go put it in somebody else's office. I don't know. I was pretty stern in my text to the crew saying no more. Oh, OK. Then yeah we buy example. Now, will I mess with my wife? Absolutely. Fair enough. You're inspiring me a little bit. but Evelyn doesn't even listen to these, so I could get away with it. Your dog's gonna be like turning his head every time it goes off. Oh, yeah. Poor guy. That's fine. He could he could use with a little mental stimulation in his life.
00:02:21
Speaker
All right, anyways, we are here with this podcast to build a community of driven people around the world. So what this podcast is, is a mix of automotive banter and heavy hitting meat and potatoes, motivational topics ranging across the spectrum on the pursuit of excellence in business, fitness and cars. That was the original purpose of the We Are Driven community. And that is what it remains today. And there are a couple other ways in which the We Are Driven community exists. We have the podcast. So if you think that anybody else that you know in your car club, at your gym, in your business, wherever, would like to listen to this synthesis of excellence, share the show with them. Just send them a link. We're on Apple and Spotify. I'm sure they can use one of those platforms to listen to us.
00:03:16
Speaker
We also have a YouTube channel that is where I publish a weekly vlog that is capturing a day it in the life as I build a billion dollar automotive services empire driven auto co. And that YouTube channel is called Driven Diary. And lastly, we have a Discord server. This is where the We Are Driven community truly exists and lives and breathes. And we have a group of driven individuals from around the world who are congregating on the app Discord.
00:03:48
Speaker
to discuss the pursuit of excellence in business, fitness and cars along with holding each other accountable to the iterative goal setting framework which we use to achieve every goal we've ever set. Now, why are we doing all of this? Well, driven people, these people who are relentlessly compelled by the need to accomplish a goal, they are extremely hardworking and ambitious, We are the next leaders of society, so we're here to bring everyone together so that we can unite to make the world a better place. And with that, Dan, you have an icebreaker for us today. Yeah, there's some fun dealership news going on. Is it CDK? It's the CDK stuff. Yeah, which I was trying to see what CDK stood for.
00:04:36
Speaker
I don't know, other than it is the software that most dealerships in the US, every big deal, a thousand dealerships. Yeah. just living my he orange just i buy for um Yeah. So, so there was a cyber attack that happened through Wednesday. Yeah. Wednesday. Uh, which is affecting my business because I work with pretty much 100% dealerships. So essentially, they can't do anything. They're locked out of all their systems. I'm assuming it's probably some form of ransomware. So these dealerships have to essentially shut down. They can't sell cars. They can't buy cars. They can't do anything because, you know, we're trying to get paid and they're like, well, we can't. So and it's it's dealerships all across the country. we' We're just hearing about it. There's some here local in Omaha that got smacked by it.
00:05:29
Speaker
And essentially what happened was is that these scammers or ransomware people, whomever they are, they came in as fake CDK reps and got into the system. They had credentials and passed it off. Wow. And that's how that's how they got in. Dang, huh? Yeah. So it's pretty wild. It's shaking up the ah the automotive industry this week, and it may not be resolved until early next week. Maybe. So this is a very, very key thing to every company out there that relies on technology to survive. And I am no exception to this. If my shop management software went down,
00:06:14
Speaker
I would be significantly hindered in my ability to do business. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I have a backup to everything. So technically, I could get by, but it would be way worse. yeah If my if my proposing and invoicing system went down right now, my phone would not stop ringing until Monday. Right. And yeah, I'm I'm affected as well. And in the fact, that we can't buy parts from the dealerships. Oh yeah. So every time I call, I'm saying, how's your system doing guys? And they went, well, still down, still down. And then, and then, uh, I basically have to clarify, can you actually give me a quote? And at least their cataloging system seems to be okay, but they can't save quotes. They have no CRM basically. So this is, this is an extremely widespread problem.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's bad, it's nasty. Not good for the industry that's already not doing so hot right now. Right, so to any of our dealer buddies, anything, any of you out there listening and you use CDK and you're hurting from this, we wish you well and hope everything can restore soon. In the meantime, use this as an opportunity to set yourself apart as an organization and figure out a solution, a solution. I don't really care what it is, but there will be something you can do that will make this work again. And you can set yourself apart for your customers. And just based on some articles, it looks like some of CDK's rivals are like trying to fill in the gaps. Reynolds. Yeah, Reynolds and Reynolds.
00:08:02
Speaker
Funny enough, Reynolds and Reynolds bought the first company I worked for, Battle Who AutoWare. Do you think they're still visualizing stuff? Oh, God, no. ah No, that's it's done. Yeah, that's done. ah Reynolds and Reynolds also had an interesting tax fraud case. It was the biggest tax fraud case ever in the United States against the the CEO or owner at the time. It was like a billion dollars. It was insane. That's big. Yeah. It was huge. It was like three, four years ago that came out and we're like, yeah, it makes sense. Okay.
00:08:37
Speaker
yeah all right why does it make sense yeah oh just because of the relationships we knew and okay it's just it is what it is right yeah all right i see all right with that let's move on to the appraisal segment this is where dan and i will give each other auctions i'll bring a trailer and we have to guess the hammer price and whoever is closer gets bragging rights and maybe at the end of season one which we're going to call the first 52 competitions that we've done. We started off with an episode about bring a trailer itself. And on that episode, we did three auctions each, but since then one a week for 49 weeks, it was, and we are, we're coming up here. We're on week 48 right now. So season one playoffs about to conclude current standings.
00:09:31
Speaker
Arun, average percentage off 21.19%. Dan, average percentage off 24.18%. So this has to go real bad for me in the next four weeks. If ah you- Man, I just started making some obscure shit for you. Well, I picked an obscure one for you, so I wouldn't mind if you did for me. you Yeah, you know, it's crazy that Celine from last week didn't even hit reserve, which I bet it's a million bucks. I bet it's not. I bet it was seven. Well, OK, so the thing is with bring a trailer, is it it technically has to only be within five percent of reserve to sell. Oh, so reserve would have been more than 750 because 750
00:10:24
Speaker
is ah the actual bid plus what would have been 5% of reserve. So I guessed 780,000. It actually went for 715,000. So I was off by 9.1%. And then I gave Dan a Jaguar Super V8. I was close. I tried hard on this. yeah I'm sorry. Dried hard. So you guessed 22, it went for 18, so you were off by 22.2%. Yeah. Freaking low dollar cars. You're going to hate me this week. You really are. But I'm going to go first. Just because I'm a little scared you picked the same thing. You didn't. I'm telling you, you didn't. This one, I caught your eye. It's it's yellow.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's not yellow, I can tell you. All right, it's yellow, it's boxy, and it has side exhaust.
00:11:25
Speaker
that stick up like Bosuzoku exhaust, but this is very, very, very, very far away from Bosuzoku Priuses. This is a 1968 Chevy G10 panel van. Just scrolled by that, as I was trying to figure out what you would have picked. So we have seven. We need to get left on that. One day left, current bid $3,000.
00:11:51
Speaker
This has 77,000 miles on the odometer. It's still powered by the original 250 cubic inch inline six, which is just not something that should have been measured in cubic inches. Three speed automatic. awesome Oh good, I'm glad you like it. I like it, it's fucking awesome. So yeah, apparently this was owned for 25 years by one person before the dealer bought it, who's now selling it. du You would like break your back if you sat in those seats.
00:12:26
Speaker
If you like my half way up your back, so You're not wrong This is this is a very interesting vehicle. I don't like it at all But I'm glad you do. Yeah, I absolutely love this thing. Why such a big exhaust pipe? for are engine So what it needs it needs some tractor flaps on that bad boy dual exhaust on each side subtractor flaps I think would be What about just a 454 big block with a super big. Absolutely. if you What if you put a blower, one of those, those hat blower things that go on drag cars and put it through the roof and you had, you had just that big snout. All right. Now I think you're crazy, but yeah. ah Hey, sometimes you gotta to be, you gotta be crazy to win Dan. Don't you know what year is this one?
00:13:26
Speaker
68? No, okay. yeah Are there comps for this? There is a 64 that was sold. For how much? 79. 79? Yeah. Thousand. The current bid on ah this one is three. Yeah. 7900. Yeah. Okay. For the 67, but this was a window van, not a panel that went for 20 and a half.
00:13:55
Speaker
This is kinda dumb, I gotta admit. It's a dumb car and I don't like it, but I picked it for you. I'm gonna need a mulligan on this one.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah, man, there's, let's see. It's at three, let's just go with $4,263.
00:14:23
Speaker
You got it. I think, I think you're going to be spot on.
00:14:31
Speaker
What if I just, what if I just bid that right now and then see if I fucking win.
00:14:37
Speaker
I would hate myself. I dare you. I dare you. I absolutely dare you. Can I sell it to you if I win it for that price?
00:14:49
Speaker
ah or yeah and yeah I don't have four grand to throw around like that right now. I have way better things to spend money on. I spent $3,200 earlier this week on sales tax. Oh, boy. Yeah. Count it.
00:15:10
Speaker
Anyway. Oh, yeah. What am I doing? Funny thing about bringing a trailer. So. Uh, Kyle Loftus, I had dinner with him last night and we were, we were talking about, uh, the next giveaway car that he's doing. And he made an oops because he didn't know that when you bid on a car, it displays your name or your account name. So it showed 13 20 video dot.com just bid on a CTS wagon. He goes, Oh no. no ah like yep yep it was a wag when like four days left is 60 white manual and i was like this a hundred thousand dollar wagon right there
00:15:48
Speaker
So that's what I'm getting? No, no, no, no, no, no. This thing's got two days ago. It's about the same size as this panel van. 2008 Hummer H2. It is not the same size. as It's blue. These are normally yellow. Yeah, this one's blue. It's all-terrain blue. 6.2-liter V8, 87,000 miles, six-speed automatic ebony leather upholstery. looks actually fairly factory outside of tires, which doesn't really matter. Not even tinted. Well, maybe a little tinted cheap. It's clean. Yeah. This thing's at 20,000. I remember when these things were hot and they're like expensive as shit. It looks like everything's there all intact.
00:16:37
Speaker
whole intact. good We actually in my shop, we worked on one of these and it needed a head gaskets. Oh, I can believe that. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. But the thing is, is the H2 not a bad vehicle when you compare it to the H3 that came out after that just perpetually broke. Yeah, the H3 was terrible. Now the H2 is not an H1 by any means either.
00:17:08
Speaker
H1s. I know those are very expensive. One of my shop neighbors here has an H1 that's Rhino lined black on 40s. Oh, yeah. It looks it looks ridiculous. I'll send you a picture of it. Yeah. All right. Here's what I'm seeing for comps. 2008 H2 April thirty six thousand dollars would have dropped. Yeah. So 87,000 miles back in April, $36,000, 83,000 miles in January, $32,000, but thousand oh seven oh eight 84,000 miles in December, $33,000. Oh, now that Duramax one that sold a couple of years ago. Bit better. three Dad wheels, but I'd be all in on that.
00:18:01
Speaker
This one's got a brush guard, it's got a spare tire. Interior looks so GM, that's ridiculous. ah Yeah, it's early 2000s GM, man. It's the most GM shit ever. This one is a one owner, probably adds a bit of value, maybe.
00:18:23
Speaker
kind I don't remember when they were putting those stupid clocks in the dash. No one wants to read a hand dial unless you're buying a Cadillac. They did that on Lincoln's too. Yes, they did. All right. Do I go as high as some of these other ones? They still do it in the new trucks. I was just in a buddy's truck and he had that hand dial thing up on the screen. I think I'm going to go with 33, 32, 32. I hope it's 22.
00:19:00
Speaker
I'd be sad. Be off by 50 percent. Now I watch mine and go for like eight grand. So relax. That my bid would be safe if I made it, but I'm not going to make it.
00:19:16
Speaker
All right. You got anything? Any other comments about bring a trailer? Let me. I love it. We can go stock 1320 video. yeah I don't think he's been on it anymore.
00:19:32
Speaker
Past bids three only on this wagon Yeah, he just joined he joined this month. Yeah, he was looking for giveaway cars. That's really funny. Yeah, I Mean that's pretty cool. You should have given me this one. It is a beautiful car I don't like interior that's his problem with it. It's the interior I Because he would it was a you he'd want to keep this one. Oh, and this one also, I believe one of the ones he was looking at had a history of rear end damage. Not this one. Yeah. Anyways, that's all we got for bring a trailer today. Let's move on here to some meat and potatoes.
00:20:23
Speaker
So this topic today is specifically on the mental barriers that we put on ourselves around one of the concepts that we explained very early in the history of We Are Driven. One of the things that I was talking about extensively at the beginning in 2022 of We Are Driven. was the concept of the new American dream. Now, for context, the old American dream is a stable job, two kids, happy family, and a white picket fence with home ownership. That is the historical American dream.
00:21:12
Speaker
Now, if you ask me, despite what Dan and I were talking about before we started recording about how expensive in certain parts of the country, like where I live, homeownership is. In general, this old American dream is fairly easy to accomplish. just is if you go to school and you get good grades and you go to college and you get good grades and you get a job and you do your job but and you get raises all regularly and you live in not California, you will probably be able to afford a house. You'll probably meet a spouse. I'm not going to rhyme this whole thing, but
00:21:59
Speaker
you'll probably be able to keep a stable job or at least continuously find better and better opportunities and rise the corporate ranks. And I was presented with that reality back in 2017 and 18 and 19. I worked for a company. I graduated from college. I got the certifications I needed. I did everything I was supposed to do. And there i was a year and a half into my job absolutely miserable and having no desire to be at that higher level of the people i worked for i looked up at all my bosses and thought no way that is that doesn't interest me in the slightest.
00:22:44
Speaker
So I have for the past seven years at this point sort of blazed a different path and at first it looked like side hustles and then it looked like quitting my job completely and going into entrepreneurship and then it looked like fucking conventional wisdom on what we should tolerate for our health and where I thought I was 10 pounds away from a six pack all the time and I woke up early and I went to the gym every day and I thought I was you know a hustle grind meat head that was doing it right. It turns out I lost 50 pounds and retained nearly all of the strength I had before
00:23:29
Speaker
and find myself today with a six pack and I am significantly healthier and better off as a result of improving and breaking through the barriers of what I believed was possible for my physical health. And lastly, the old American dream says security. It doesn't say abundance. It doesn't say excellence, but security is easy today. That's the world we live in. So the last piece of this is security is something that you kind of have to do things that you tolerate as opposed to things that you love in order to
00:24:15
Speaker
retain that security. you know if you are What's a good example of this? if If you get laid off, maybe you have to go live at home with your parents, but then you could just stay there. Your parents own a four bedroom house and they've paid it off. This is you know my kind of situation. And you could get away with just going and living at home and your parents might like having you around and you may not even need to go get another job and then you find yourself. Three four years later just sitting there doing jack shit all with your life and you're gonna be extremely depressed.
00:24:52
Speaker
I do know a few people like that. Same. Now, granted, I would 100 percent have my dad as a roommate just because I love him. Not to sit on my butt, though, but I would love to to hang out with him all the time. Yeah, but that's that's not a parental relationship at that point. you're Right. But yeah, OK. So the last piece of this is that is that you have the opportunity in this world to not just achieve security, but to really find something you're passionate about and use your life's time and legacy and whatever you want to call it to make a valuable contribution to society by working passionately on things that you care about. So that is the background. That's the context of what the new American dream is.
00:25:39
Speaker
Now one of those pieces when I summed this all up in a 4th of July blog post that I published in 2022
00:25:50
Speaker
One of the tenants of the new American dream is that we achieve our maximum physical capability. And if you go all the way back to, what was it? Episode four or six? Yeah, it was four. I could believe. Yeah. So if you go all the way back in this, we are driven podcast feed, you will find an episode where we discuss maximum physical capability. Because if you are in your life right now tolerating aspects of your physicality. That are hindering you it's pain it's overweight it's gastric issues it's mental issues it's sleep issues whatever it is if you find yourself.
00:26:35
Speaker
in a position where your body your physical being is a holding you back or you are letting it create excuses for you as to why you're not achieving the things you want to achieve with your life then you're doing it wrong simple as that You're doing it wrong. You have no need to set those sort of limitations on yourself, given what the world today and modern medicine and everything that we know about what's possible along with the security that we have for you to go out and buy whatever the fuck you want from the grocery store, not just the bare staples. You, you should have the capability to go out and buy exactly what you need to run your body effectively.
00:27:25
Speaker
And so there's no excuse to not pursue maximum physical capability. So where I want to take this episode now that I've rambled for all that time is you have and you have had mental barriers in your life that you've set. that limit what you think is possible for your own physical capability, that keep you from striving to achieve even more, even higher levels in your maximum physical capability, part of the new American dream. So Dan and I each have a story that we want to share with you to essentially
00:28:04
Speaker
help you understand what we're talking about here, potentially identify your own mental boundaries in this area and figure out how to work around them, how to see what's possible, and generally just have some other people that you decided to listen to today tell some stories about their lives that you might get some information out of. So with that, Dan, what you take it away. I want to hear what you came up with for this one. Really making me go first this week. Yes. 100%. Get after it. but Since you stole mine, because I'm the same way as you, but we'll let you talk about that instead. Definitely not like I wrote that outline.
00:28:54
Speaker
So for me, and this is something that I had come to a realization about a year ago, maybe, maybe a little bit longer, that I was really trying to force myself mentally to remember everything that was ever presented to me, whether it was in writing, verbally. uh, text messages, phone calls, whatever it was, you know, if it was handed to me on a piece of paper, like, Oh, I'm going to remember to do that. Like, I'm going to remember that this conversation happened. I'm going to remember what this manager told me in my mental barrier. And I'm calling that a ah ah barrier for me because trying to have that photographic memory and thinking you have it will not help you grow at all. So for me,
00:29:51
Speaker
I have started rigorous note-taking in trying to remember everything that has ever said to me during a day, whether it's important or not. you know And then at the end of the day, I review it, and then I have you know priority levels of what do I have to do tomorrow. So for me, that was, you know, my struggle. So now every day I have like, I have my notepad, it's up here, right here, right in front of me, a rune can see it. And I have one in my backpack and I have one at home. Just, you know, in case anyone see a runes got his too. This is what it sounds like. Right. Right. So in a way,
00:30:40
Speaker
If you're trying to force yourself to memorize and remember everything that's been communicated to you through a day or you see a task that needs to get done, you're gonna forget it, especially as you get older. Like I don't find my memory as clear as it used to be. So even at 30. Here's what I would say. What was the realization that caused you to change your practices on this? I was starting to notice I was missing some things when it came to ah orders with my sales reps. So like like something would come in and I would move it to a different inbox and I would just forget about it. And I was getting called out for it. I got called out for it a couple of times and I also was
00:31:33
Speaker
So like before before we got purchased by Keystone, I used to have it all in my head of account numbers, location numbers, phone numbers. like I had it all had it all in my brain. and I still have some of the phone numbers, but now I have to keep a list that Arun can see of all of my. Location numbers, which is a ton. I know a few of them now. I couldn't tell you the whole list like I could of a year ago. Where I could mindlessly just type it in and go. Yeah, I've lost I've lost that ability.
00:32:11
Speaker
Well, but OK, hang on. You're kind of saying that as you age, you're just getting worse. Oh, no, like I can't I can I couldn't force myself to remember that and think that I could do that. Like I have to have the notes in front of me now. I think it's the, the limiting belief here was the fact that you thought you had to rely on your brain. Yeah. And that as your scope grew just in your life, like, you know, when you, when you started this, you weren't married, you didn't have a kid. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. You didn't have pets. You didn't have so much more information today than I was five years ago.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah. So there's no way to compare the volume of information that your brain is going through to attempt to remember all the same amount of stuff. Right. So I have to take notes. I have to have the cheat sheets. You have to use those tools as you grow because you're going to filter a lot of information. Some of it's bullshit. Some of it's real shit you need to remember. like bullshit and real shit like you don't yeah you don't want to forget it because that could be if you forget something important that could have been something that would have propelled you further right yeah and and that's a the right way to look at it is you've increased your capacity by changing this practice and now your productivity is way up
00:33:46
Speaker
Right. Because you went from I can remember 10 things to I can write down 50 things and get the same amount of work done in the day. Right. Then you're at the end of the day, I'm sitting at my desk like, I don't need that one. That one's done. This one needs a follow up in the morning. Yeah. they Then you plan your next day. Yup. Yup. And if you, do you use ah any sort of to do list manager or anything like that? I don't, I've been looking at some stuff in like within Microsoft. Like I know like my 365 has like a to do list with reminders and stuff.
00:34:27
Speaker
I probably advocated for this a million times, but after many different trial and errors with different softwares and tools and apps and all that, the best one that I found that integrates between an app on your phone and a browser that is fastest, the most customizable, the most versatile tool that I've found is called Remember the Milk. Remember the milk. Okay. And it is very, very good. There's a free version that is plenty for me. At least I've never paid for it. But it is. It is a very good tool that people should use. It's not pulled up on my browser for later. There you go. But yeah, you know, I've
00:35:19
Speaker
Put that practice in place in my professional life as well. You know, we'd go into meetings and not take minutes having the same having the same mentality that we'd all remember to do shit. And then we create an objectives list from that. That way we can hold everybody accountable, you know, just to make sure like we have it in writing. We have it on the notes. Here's what we have to adhere to. And yeah, that accountability piece is huge. but and that That goes for yourself as well as your professional work. It's just nice. like You start it for yourself and then you can transition it into helping others, whether it's in your family or professionally. Yep.
00:36:06
Speaker
Good stuff. Yeah. Breaking down barriers. Yeah, it was definitely a barrier. And like, it was just my refusal to take notes, too. Like, I just didn't want to do it. Like, why why should I have to do it? So your pride got in the way as well. Yeah. And I hate writing anyway. it's Some of the worst handwriting on the planet. I hate it. You can improve that. That's another boundary barrier. Slow down. Knock that one down. Instead of writing in gibberish. Yeah, doctor handwriting far yeah as it goes along those lines.
00:36:42
Speaker
Anyway, at least you beegible you're right but all right let's hear what you stole from from me, even though you wrote the outline. Sure. Whatever. Okay. So the the belief the limiting belief that I held was that I need seven hours of sleep a night in order to be productive the next day. And back in 2017, I evolved my waking up schedule where in college, i I could wake up early, I liked waking up early, but I had zero discipline to do it. Oh, I had afternoon classes.
00:37:23
Speaker
right and And I would take 8 a.m.s, I would take 8 a.m. classes, but that wasn't that early for me. you know i can I could wake up at 7. In comparison to now for you? No. Correct. So so I could wake up at 7, I could roll into class, I'd be early to class. That's not a problem for me. I could be disciplined and enough to do that.
00:37:46
Speaker
And thinking back to even further, you know, when I still lived with my parents, I really, really dreaded the weekend mornings when only my dad was home because he would wake me up early. But that's my dad. Yeah. But when I became an adult and I started working full time and I had to go to a client, that was a 30 minute drive away, but it was a 30 minute drive with no traffic. And so I opted to start waking up earlier so that I could beat traffic. That is a beautiful thing about here. If you're you leave the house about 7.15, you're in the golden to go anywhere. Yeah, for for me, it's like if I leave the house at 4.30 a.m., I skip traffic. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if you hit like 7.30, 7.45 here in Omaha, you're screwed.
00:38:44
Speaker
Done. So that's what I believed. but But so I went down, I fell completely all the way down this slippery slope of waking up early. And I went from 6.30 to 6 to 5.30 to 5 to 4.30 to 4 a.m. And there I stayed at 4 a.m. And actually it was 4.30 until I started doing 75 hard and then it was 4 because I needed a bit more time. And because my clock in my bedroom is fast, it's actually sitting right now at like 350 a.m. is when I wake up. a gray but you go to bed But I'm not, I'm not. this is This is the limiting belief. That's what I'm saying, man. We're catching you all different ways. ah kind of catch i'll I'm sure I can catch myself too.
00:39:38
Speaker
but I thought I needed seven hours of sleep at night, which meant that I would have to go to sleep if I was going to wake up at 4 a.m. I was going to have to go to sleep at 9 p.m. Strictly at 9 p.m. asleep, done for, already unconscious, and then sleep all the way till 4. but you know that's just not how sleep works. So you toss it and turn it for 10 minutes. You don't get to sleep for 10 minutes. So now you've got blue light on for too long and now you're restless.
00:40:09
Speaker
Yeah, so now you're now you're down to 640 and then maybe it's actually 915 by the time you get in bed. So it's actually what 625 and you're inching closer to six hours of sleep. And and I would tell myself, oh man, I'm going to be so tired tomorrow. This is going to suck. And then I believe it, complete self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, that is not my reality anymore. Then let me explain why. Between continuing to do 75 hard, having a better relationship with my wife than probably ever before and running multiple businesses.
00:40:54
Speaker
I don't have very much time left over in the day, not to mention taking care of a dog and three cats and doing all the rest of it. And yes, I'm aware that list of obligations is not that big at the moment. You gotta take care of Moneycat. Moneycat? money catt yeah ah cash What's that? I thought you had like an Instagram. Oh, success cat. Hashtag success cat. Yeah, that's what it is. Can't forget about that. Yeah. but so
00:41:22
Speaker
It's a, it's a big list of responsibilities that I am fully attacking to the max in my life right now. And so that means I pretty much always have shit I should be doing, which is great. Even if it is, I need to spend more time with my wife, which I'm dedicating more time to now, which is great, but I mean, thank yeah that but all told, I'm not getting to bed at nine anymore. I'm getting home at nine. Sometimes I'm starting my second workout at nine. Yeah, and I saw a Discord message from you last night that was late for me. Was it? I think it was like seven, eight o'clock for me. Yeah. Which is usually later than usual for you. For a Discord message, yeah. It was eight, yeah, eight, 11.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah. But so, yeah, I will work into the night or I will do my workout right at the end of the day into the night or I'm traveling and the flight lands at 11 p.m. and I got to still wake up at four. So there are plenty of times where I'm not going to get my seven hours. Well, yeah. So what's what am I going to do? Am I going to cut back in order to get my seven hours? Am I going to sleep in on a day when I should wake up early? in order to get my seven hours or am I going to figure it out a different way? So I figured it out a different way.
00:42:52
Speaker
So the main thing that helped me with this is the fact that I've filled my life with everything that I really, really care about doing. There's nothing that I just think, ah, I can put that off and then I sleep in. Because if I did have things like that in my life, then I absolutely would sleep in. That's kind of how that goes, right? So I'm making time to do things that are valuable for me. And the way I'm making time to do that is I'm skipping some sleep. Now, what does that What else does that look like? It means that I am still going to push to get sleep when I can. And that means I have to be more efficient with my time. I don't want to be up till midnight every night and then have to get up at 3.45, 3.50. That's stupid. That will eventually hurt you.
00:43:41
Speaker
Yeah, and I've learned what the physical limitation really feels like versus what my brain's right sort of clock limitation is. That's a very pronounced difference because where I thought that some number on the sleep duration was going to make me tired the next day, When you're doing shit you care about, it turns out you have more energy. vi So instead, what I find today is that I don't even need as much caffeine as I used to drink. And I'm sleeping less. That I can simply do high quality work.
00:44:25
Speaker
I can do it efficiently when I focus on the things that matter to me. And it turns out you can expand your responsibilities of things that matter to you with this by cutting sleep. And so where I used to, and mathematically this is going to show up as less sleep, what i what I used to do was try to aim for seven hours a night, seven days a week, and sleep in on a weekend day. So call it 35 hours plus another three for sleeping in, 38 hours a week of sleep.
00:45:02
Speaker
No, sorry. 52, seven times seven, not five times seven. 52 hours of sleep a week. So 49 plus three. Now it's five and a half times seven. So that is 35 plus three and a half. So 38 and a half plus an extra three hours sleeping in on one weekend day. So now we're at 41 instead of 52. So I cut or added 11 hours to my life every week in the last three years.
00:45:42
Speaker
And I feel better for it. it's that That's pretty good math. i like i If you think about that, how do you add 11 hours to your week every week? This is it. This is the solution. So this was a huge barrier that I felt like I got over. I mean, you spend more time in your bed as not as a person who does five and a half hours like Arun does, or like me who did six last night. If you're doing eight to 10 hours of sleep, you're spending more time in that bed than doing anything else. Absolutely. Which is wild. And I got shit to do with my life. Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
And you're right, though, like time, you know, for you, you know, you're doing less caffeine than you ever have. I'm starting to be almost done with it, even though I'm drinking a Celsius right now. But just coincidence. But ah yeah, you get that like healthy dopamine effect of, you know, you're accomplishing things and you don't really need the the energy from the artificial chemical crap. Well said. It's it's worth trying. and And it's healthy dopamine. It's not the scrolling through TikTok and getting that instant fix. You're getting long term. Achievement goes a long way. Yeah, you're getting the long term dopamine effect. Yeah.
00:47:15
Speaker
so So now that I've stolen this from you, do you have any any other comments on it? No, this is why I do five to six hours of sleep at night. I did six last night. Typical night for me. Yeah. Yeah. In in bed and by nine 45 asleep by 10. and then possibly turn a little bit, wake up before. Yeah, like, do I have a little bit of brain fog here and there? Sometimes, but, you know, take a cold shower, eat your breakfast. You'll be just fine.
00:47:50
Speaker
I will say, waking up has really never gotten easier for me, except for this idea of being compelled to like work on the mission. Right. and Yeah, soon as soon as I walk in the door at work, it's I'm turned on. um I'm good. But, but even before that, it's, it's, it's almost a subconscious, I'm going to use the word motivation, but I don't mean like a feeling of motivation. I mean, just like a compulsion to act. yeah And it is just a matter of the alarm goes off and it doesn't mean anything other than it is time to start the day.
00:48:33
Speaker
It doesn't mean it's time to question whether or not I should start the day right now or whether or not I should hit the snooze button because that's never been an option for me. But yeah, yeah, you have to actually physically get up to hit that button anyway. So once you're up, you're up. Yeah, but there's plenty of times in my life where I've gone back in bed. Oh, well, there's that, too. Yeah. Yeah, once I've woken up, I'm up. um There's no laying back down. Yeah, which is the right way to do it. That's the discipline, the approach. Yeah, I can't. I know like I physically couldn't do it. I would. but could I bet you could lay down after you get up. Look, was it two weeks ago? My dog woke me up in the early hours and more like earlier than normal.
00:49:19
Speaker
puke in a cage and I was like, well, I guess I'm awake. It's like, it's like four 30 in the morning. I'm like, Oh, I guess I'm up. Okay. I'm not going back to sleep. There you go. Now that was a shitty dog. Cause that was like three hours of sleep. If I get that little, it's that's not fun. But you can, the thing is you can survive. Yeah. Yeah. I was good it didn feel good. Yeah. But it's like you can survive and the fricking,
00:49:48
Speaker
capacity to do things actually diminishes only a very, very small amount. And it's not an excuse. Like you can't just, Oh, I'm so tired. I can't do that. Yeah, I still, I still did my thing, went to work, had the kiddo with me. And crucially, if you just, what's, what's the word?
00:50:13
Speaker
If you consciously go to make up for it after that, like you can't, what is probably unsustainable to sleep two hours a night for a week straight. I know plenty of people that can do it. I would be in hurrying. Yeah, but for the right day three, but for the right like mission, you could do it. Oh yeah. Right. Yeah. But military will do it at all the time. Exactly. But at the end of the day, that's that specific mission. You could do it. But if, if you're doing like I do a high level complex financial modeling that needs to be super accurate, that is not the time to be sleep deprived. No. So that's why you do still need to make up for it. But in general, I just cut this excuse out of my life and added 11 hours every week. So
00:51:06
Speaker
Can you do that, listeners?
00:51:11
Speaker
Corny meta podcasting. Anything else, Dan? No. What a wonderful day. I hope the listeners are having one too. Same here. I hope somebody goes and buys this panel, Dan.
00:51:30
Speaker
for $4,263. Yeah. It's like, wait, what was the number I spit out there? I think that was it. I think that was right. All right. Well, that's all we got for today. This has been Arun and Dan. We appreciate you listening. And until next time, stay driven.