Transcript
Jim Crider: All right, Cade, this is the sort of the final conversation on the series of conversations you and I have been having for the last few weeks on more of the the qualified side of what is money. So walking through this, we have our the the flow chart through which we analyze financial decisions and come to conclusions as far as actions to take.
Jim Crider: And that flow chart being values, goals, decisions, and actions. So today's conversation is focused on the the action side of things. And once we've wrapped up this series, we'll move in more to the qualified side of money. So like money as a means of organizing economic activities.
Jim Crider: But for right now, money being more of a means of communicating what it is that you what what is that you value. So yeah, today we're going to talk through specifically taking action.
Jim Crider: And if you've if you haven't listened the other conversations, we've already had conversations on establishing values, establishing goals, making decisions. Then finally, again, today we'll be talking about taking action.
Jim Crider: So let's let's jump into... the conversation of how do we take action? And as you actually had mentioned this before we started, and we we say this all time to clients is if we've done a good job on the first part of articulating what's important to us and then tying in goals related to those values and then have already preemptively thought about probable decisions and how we want to react and respond to those decisions that come up,
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: then by the time it actually comes to taking action, that should be in theoretically a simple thing to do. Now, it's not necessarily always easy per se, but we've done most of the work.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: Now we just do it. So yeah, let's let's let's jump into that. Do you have any you have any thoughts or anywhere in particular you want to start at?
Cade Grimm: no, I mean, the first, I was thinking before you said it about what we talked about before we started recording, as far as the, the taking action should theoretically be the easiest part if you've done the other steps.
Cade Grimm: but no, I don't have anything else. We can start wherever you want.
Jim Crider: Sweet. Well, let's, it's interesting. We think of actions and the impact that the actions have. And obviously like your actions are consequential. And there's, there's two
Jim Crider: drastically, two drastically different types of actions. And those, those being for the purpose of this conversation, we'll talk about small actions that compound and then big, like this sort of goes in the decisions conversation, but like big one time monumentous type actions and how those like fork in the road type actions.
Jim Crider: Okay. But let's, let's start off with talking through the, the small side of things, because even having a good track record of small decisions will allow you when it comes to those big decisions to be able to process through those better.
Jim Crider: Ideally. I guess if you've done a good job on the small ones, at least if you stewarded those well, when you come to big decisions, you should be ready to step up to those. there's There's a book I read a few years ago and actually sort of re-skimmed it in preparation for this.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: It's called The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. And I mean, the whole, the premise of the book is the idea of small actions compounding over prolonged period of time. His equation is essentially like small actions times consistency times times equal times time equals radical results.
Jim Crider: So we can't expect for the like you do something small one time in this drastic impact, but rather these micro decisions and the compounding impact it can have over a prolonged period of time.
Cade Grimm: You mean like small decisions as simple as oh it makes me think of, we've all heard, like get up first thing in the morning to make your bed, like start your day with some kind of productive action.
Cade Grimm: And then that generally would lead to more probability that you're going to continue taking action and being productive throughout the rest of the day, like a compounding effect of these small productive actions.
Cade Grimm: that Is that what you're referring to?
Jim Crider: Yeah, like small things you do, like the small things of taking action consistently over a prolonged period of time.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: So let's let's put it in in a simple way. So contributing to your company's 401k plan, even if it's quote unquote, just doing the company match, let's call it 3%. You just do that consistently, that can compound drastically over a prolonged period of time.
Jim Crider: I should have come with these numbers prepared.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: But are you familiar with the whole thing of like, would you rather have a million dollars or a penny that doubles every day for a month.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. I don't, I don't know the specific numbers, but I'm familiar with that study or that story. And it's like, I forget what day you, by day 30, you've got just way more than a million bucks.
Jim Crider: Exactly. So that's, that's the premise of this compound effect is like these small, like, these small consistent compounding, uh,
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: factors that can have these gigantic impacts over a prolonged period of time, obviously going from one penny to two pennies to four pennies is not giant, but the compounding impact of these decisions you make eventually can lead to massive consequences.
Cade Grimm: Yeah, I looked it up quickly here. So starting with a single penny and doubling it every day for 30 days results in almost $5.4 million dollars at the end of that 30 days.
Jim Crider: There you go. That's all you have to do is start with a penny and just double it every day.
Cade Grimm: but
Jim Crider: Like, why don't we all just do that?
Cade Grimm: Easy as that. There's your retirement plan.
Jim Crider: and Oh gosh. Okay. Well start tomorrow.
Cade Grimm: What?
Jim Crider: Well, that, that also feeds into like these small, again, we'll call them, well, you have these choices you make or decisions for the, for the purpose of our, our, our verbiage value goals, decisions, actions. so these small decisions or choices you make influences the way that you behave. So your behavior And your behavior done over a consistently over an amount of time then translates into habits.
Cade Grimm: Yep.
Jim Crider: And then you have those habits, then you can carry those habits over a prolonged period of time, then sort of starts defining in a sense like your, your character. and mean, heck habits themselves.
Jim Crider: Everyone has habits. you know i've I've been pointed out. i actually sort of did this on purpose. is whenever if you're If you're watching me, whenever I'm thinking, I tend to sort of trigger, like double tap trigger my fingers as a means of like...
Cade Grimm: yet
Jim Crider: making sure that I have a nervous, like not a nervous tick, but some sort of outward expression of a, Hey, I'm thinking that isn't weird, but also doesn't seem like I'm just zoned out.
Cade Grimm: Yep.
Jim Crider: So that's a habit I created purposely that now sort of, it, it tracks my head to say, Hey, like, Body, you're on auto autopilot. All systems are go on the cerebral side of things.
Jim Crider: And the the listener also knows that I'm I'm there. I'm not just spaced out.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: So that's a habit I created purposely. I mean, other habits, maybe you have a habit of like, you I know, like weird habits, like scratching yourself all the time or something like that. like Like that's weird. i'd I'd rather do something deliberately than like constantly like scratch my, scratch my arm because I'm nervous.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: So developing habits, how do you, how do you create, how do you take bad habits and translate them into into good habits? There's a, there's a organization. It's called couch to five k And the whole premise or theme of couch to 5K is not like, you know, taking track athletes and then turning them into world star athletes, but rather taking people who were, well, hanging on their couch and not exercising and getting to a place where they are people who identify as like, at least they they exercise, they can do a five k
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Yeah. yeah
Jim Crider: So instead of saying, hey, you've been a lazy bum last nine years after where you got out of college and hey, you're in your early thirty s now you're putting on the pounds, it's time to go run marathon. You're trying to introduce slowly introduce habits.
Jim Crider: So day one of couch to 5K is like set your alarm. Day two, set your alarm, get up and fast. put on your shoes.
Jim Crider: Day three, you get up, you go put on your shoes and you step outside. Day four, get up, put on your shoes, step outside, run to the end of your block.
Jim Crider: that's it.
Cade Grimm: Yep. Yep.
Jim Crider: And you're slowly building these behaviors that then translate into habits that then compound over time to your, so you've, you've in a sense, form your identity someone who they get up in the morning, they don't hit the snooze.
Jim Crider: They don't sit on the couch.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: They become a runner, but it's these small decisions you have to make and actually taking the action itself. I always thought that was pretty neat.
Cade Grimm: Yeah, I imagine you have to be pretty purposeful about how you approach that. Because if if you try to go straight from couch to 5K and you strap up your shoes and go outside and start running and you get halfway down the block and you're you can hardly stand up because you're so out of breath, like...
Cade Grimm: you're probably going to get really discouraged and feel even worse about yourself than you did before you started. And now you're not gonna keep doing it. So yeah, that making really small, impactful decisions every day. Yeah, that's a huge.
Jim Crider: Yeah. And allowing, giving yourself grace and allowing for time for, uh, for momentum to build. So momentum builds slowly at first, but then it accelerates from there.
Cade Grimm: Yep.
Jim Crider: So allowing for you to get that momentum built up is it's fine. And that's, I would much rather be the, uh, the force that continues moving versus with with heavy inertia than the piece of paper, newspaper that's driven by a gust of wind that as soon as the wind dies down or as soon as I hit any point of intervention, I'm just going to get hung up and not be able to carry on.
Cade Grimm: Yep.
Jim Crider: So... Yeah. Having momentum. there's, it's, I was also, reading elsewhere. It's talking just about, how do we like, how do we build habits and habits that are easier to, like the idea of taking actions consistently, even if they're maybe not habits, but rather like things you just need to do And it was talking about, people who have to take like vitamins or to take daily medications.
Jim Crider: It's, It's better to have, you want regularity and frequency on these things. So for instance, like statistically speaking, if if you had to do something every like three times a week versus seven times a week, you'd say, well, gosh, it'd be easier to it three days a week than it would be seven.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim Crider: i'm more I'm more likely just to get them because there's less opportunities to miss. You know, if you think about just the opportunity, like just doing something, do it less and there's less chance of messing it up.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: But if you have to take a, if you have to take a pill every day, when you wake up, you're more likely just to do it daily than if you have to do it every other day.
Cade Grimm: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: So it's that consistency and regularity allows for actions to be, so in a sense, turned into habits. And I sort of, that sort of moves into like, so Kendra and I, a few months ago, our town, they switched the garbage pickup.
Jim Crider: So garbage is weekly on Mondays. Recycle used to be weekly on Wednesdays. Now recycle is every other week. And garbage is super easy.
Jim Crider: Every Sunday night, I move the bin out and it goes. Flipping recycling, I can never figure out what week we're on. And half the time I miss it or I'm running out in the morning because I've lost that.
Jim Crider: guess it is still regular. It's just less frequent. It's harder for me to go on autopilot, aka form a habit.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. and don't i don't know what the, what's the, you may know, it's like you do something 21 days in a row or 21 times in a row and at eight it officially a habit is formed.
Cade Grimm: But it's like, kind of speaks to that whole, the the more frequently you can do something, the the quicker it becomes a habit and it's easier to just continue repeating that thing.
Jim Crider: Yeah, just do it over and over again. And there's a place of like, well, gosh, again, everyone has habits. Identifying what those habits are and understanding are those good habits or are they bad habits? And if they're bad habits, replacing them with good ones.
Jim Crider: And you can't just immediately replace a habit. You're replacing actions and trying to create new habits. And understanding again that momentum builds slowly and then accelerates.
Jim Crider: And also understanding like, It's probably gonna be a lot harder at first. You're gonna have to use a lot more energy. You're gonna exert a lot more energy upfront to take that action than you will later on.
Jim Crider: i was I was reminded, maybe this is made up, but I believe this the case that airplanes use about 80% of their total fuel for a flight. They use about 80% of it on the takeoff.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: So it's the initial push to get momentum going that is the hardest part.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: And I would say it's probably that's probably how we are. Like, all right, i've I've made the decision. I'm going to get off my my bottom to go and start training for a 5K.
Jim Crider: It's the initial setting the alarm those first couple of days. Then after a while, it's on autopilot and you actually enjoy it. You enjoy getting up.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: It's part of who you are. And yeah, at that point, you're on sort of coast.
Cade Grimm: Yeah, it makes sense. I keep thinking in my head an avalanche as I'm picturing this these scenarios you're running. of like At first, it starts off probably pretty small the very top of the mountain. A little bit of snow starts to slide, and then all of a sudden, that momentum just carries into this massive amount of force that's moving down the mountain, taking out trees and anything in its path.
Cade Grimm: That's what I keep thinking of.
Jim Crider: Yeah. Classic snowball, snowball and avalanche.
Cade Grimm: Yep. Yep. yeah
Jim Crider: What are other things even when I was thinking about this? Like, all right, what are other things that impact our ability to actually take the actions that we want to take?
Jim Crider: Again, a a lot of issues come about when we have incongruency between our words. So what we say we value, what what our goals are,
Cade Grimm: Thank you.
Jim Crider: And then somewhere between values and goals and then actions, there becomes this misalignment. We could argue is that the decision, it is a decision. It's also actions in this flow chart. It gets sort of muddied.
Jim Crider: But how do we have this inconsistency there? And part of is... is outside and other influences.
Jim Crider: So those influence could be your environment. So we talked about this in our prior conversation on making decisions and how a lot of times decisions could be on put on autopilot, like changing your actions.
Jim Crider: If you're saying, Hey Jim, I want to stop eating junk food, but then you stock your fridge and your pantry with drunk food. It's going to harder to take the action that you say that you want to take. So priming yourself, with, uh,
Cade Grimm: Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: with oh priming yourself to allow easier flow for the actions you want to take is going to be sort of a help. It's very helpful.
Jim Crider: So there's what's called priming, which is like in a sense, like preparing foreign action. And then there is channeling and channeling is, the, uh, the means to it, the action will come. So if we can prime ourselves, I'm going to do this.
Jim Crider: I'm going, I want to begin eating healthier, talking about it, thinking about it. and then channeling, having healthier food and getting rid of bad food and allowing for easier means of actually doing that thing. If we can prime and channel,
Jim Crider: consistently with what we say is important to us, the thing we want to take, then, uh, actually taking said action will be a lot easier versus, uh, accidentally priming ourselves or accidentally,
Jim Crider: making lazy decisions. Like we talked about last time, having a bag of chips in front of you, You know, you can accidentally keep eating chips, but your autopilot is simply to eat those many chips as that's sitting in front of you.
Jim Crider: And you, so you've primed yourself and you've channeled yourself to a way of making decisions you don't really want to make.
Cade Grimm: Yeah, that takes like, first, you have to actually pause and and recognize how you're taking action today and what what factors you're using to influence the actions you're taking. Like if you're just taking random action, then it's a lot more difficult to step back and analyze like what's happening here. So just being mindful and aware of how you arrived at the action that you're taking, that's so important.
Jim Crider: even there's There can be things that are subliminal that are impacting the decisions you make. So for instance, I was reading about this and it was saying there's a study that was done a few years ago and it was over car sales.
Jim Crider: And instead of like pushing for a strong sell to people, they would simply ask a question as a primer. So they would ask a large group of people, do you intend to buy a new car in the next six months?
Jim Crider: Just by asking that group of people that question, they were their car sales increased by 35%. So you're planting, you're priming that person, planting the seed of maybe I will need a new car soon versus that being out of your mind.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim Crider: yeah it need i don't think about new car, but suddenly, hey, you think you're gonna buy a new car? do you intend on it? Maybe I could. You've introduced this outside factor. So even considering what is influencing the decisions you're making on the, so that's, that could be bad if you don't need a new car, or maybe you're buying a car that's more expensive than you should buy, or maybe it's just not aligned with what's important to you.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: but also there was another study to show like, how do you get people to to start flossing more? And the question was not, Hey, you need to floss or there wasn't a, a command two floss X amount of times, but rather in a, uh, it was a priming.
Jim Crider: So they they would simply ask how many times do you anticipate to floss your teeth this week? If you're just simply asked that question, you're more out apt to increase the amount that you flossed because now flossing is the top of your mind and you have that ownership. We talked about that a few conversations ago is is taking ownership of a decision you make and making into your own goal versus doing something because someone else told you to do it.
Jim Crider: So just understanding how you're impacted by your environment. Also, we could argue if it's part of your environment, but would also be like the people you're around. So, I mean, gosh, we're all obviously we're familiar with, keeping up the Joneses, you know big problem with like social media is the Joneses used to people be the people like what across the street and next door catty corner from you.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: You had a few Joneses. don't, you know, you only, you only knew so many Joneses. Now the Joneses is like anyone on any social media resource that you choose to partake in. So now we have like thousands of Joneses instead of six.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Cade Grimm: Yeah, that's really tough. That whole comparison game, social media is so toxic in that way or can be toxic in that way. But I think that really comes down to, like you see people doing these things. Number one, who knows how much of what they're posting is is reality versus just this facade.
Cade Grimm: But you get on social media and you see people doing these things that all of a sudden you you think you want to you think you want to do the things they're doing, but maybe what they're doing isn't even rooted in something you value at the end of the day. You're just doing it because you see someone else doing it. So again, coming back to just stop, go to that first step of like let's find out what's important to us. Because then if you really have a solid understanding of what you value in life, you'd be less less less tempted to try to keep up with the Joneses because the Joneses probably have completely different values than you.
Cade Grimm: It just makes it easier, I think, to keep you on track.
Jim Crider: Maybe it was. It might be Morgan Housel. I read it a few years ago and and took a note on my phone because i thought it was a good quote. It said the the Joneses aren't nearly as
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: Uh, the Joneses aren't nearly as happy as you think they are.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: also with how your peers impact you in a sense, sort of like the environment, it can be sort of subtle. So, I mean, I'm not going name names, but I've, I've certainly noticed this with like friends of mine from when we were in our teens and twenties, a lot my friends have gotten out of shape and it's honestly, sort of frustrating.
Jim Crider: Yeah. And if maybe you've noticed this, if you're out of shape, typically people who are out of shape have friends and family who are usually out of shape as well versus people who are in good shape are surrounded by people who are in good shape.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim Crider: So being aware of how you're being impacted by your surroundings.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: I had to call some friends out. It's like, hey, man, when we were 20, we used to talk about being able to play football with our kids when they were 18. your kids too. when you're already too fat to go and able to go and play football. Like, what are you gonna for the next 16 years to be able to change that?
Jim Crider: I'm not mad at you for being out of shape. I'm calling you out for, I know you, the way you are right now would be disappointed, uh, is disappointing, to yourself a few years ago. And you're letting yourself down for what you said is important to you.
Jim Crider: And it's slowly, it creeps in. You're surrounded by people day after day who are out of shape. That becomes normalized. Now you're out of shape. You can't go play football with your like, with your two year old, let alone when they're, you know, 18, like they're going more athletic and you'll be at this rate way less.
Jim Crider: And it's that what you're surrounded by. There's also a study I looked at. If you eat, so if you sit down you have a meal with one other person, people tend to eat 35% more than if they had eaten a alone.
Jim Crider: So just having a meal with someone else, maybe it has to do with like, maybe you're occupied. you're a conversation, you're talking and whatever you're excited.
Cade Grimm: Yep. Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: You draw out the meal. Maybe you draw out the meal longer. Cause you to sit there and like really chat it up versus on your own.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: It's just like, you're eating for the calories. And then, so by yourself versus with one other the person, 35% increase. by yourself and then to a group of four or but so a group of four or more, you ate the average person eats 75% more.
Jim Crider: And then you have a group of seven or more, the average person eats 97% more. So just again, it can be subtle, like these influences around you. Now on the other way, you can have these nudges.
Jim Crider: Again, nudges being these, these outside factors that influence you to take certain actions and nudges can be good or bad and you can be nudged other way.
Jim Crider: So for instance, let's say you go, you go to lunch with your, with your aunt who is a like picky eater. and she just eats,
Jim Crider: Kale salad with balsamic and that's all she'll eat.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: Like you're probably not going to sit down and have a bunch of appetizers and a porterhouse and then dessert.
Cade Grimm: one
Jim Crider: That'd be weird. You'll probably tend to have a lighter lunch. So, uh, you'll probably eat less around that person. You'll be nedging nudged in the other direction. Now, it's assuming your aunt has high convictions on how she eats versus allowing you to step in. You're like hey, I'll take the molten lava cake and large fry and blah, blah, blah. And so they're just like, you know what? That sounds great. So you can influence one another based off of convictions.
Jim Crider: So you don't have you don't have to be a a victim of your surroundings, but you do need to be aware of how it can impact the decisions you make and the actions that you take.
Cade Grimm: Thank you.
Jim Crider: And again, but going back to what you're saying earlier, like that's, that is high priority. It's just a pause, say, hold on. What is important to me? What am I trying to do?
Jim Crider: How's this going to impact what I'm doing right now? The decisions I'm making and actually taking action in line with that versus just like, know, going on autopilot and maybe eating more or less than you actually wanted to. Maybe you should eat more.
Jim Crider: Maybe you're bulking up for, you're trying to put on a lot of muscle. and nice it down to lunch with your aunt and you eat a salad, it's like, man, you should have eaten more calories that day because you're trying to bulk.
Jim Crider: So being aware of what are you actually trying to achieve?
Cade Grimm: yeah
Cade Grimm: Yeah. slide Slide your table over to the stranger's table next to you. Now you're now you eating with four people and you're going to eat a lot more.
Jim Crider: There you go. It's easy as that.
Cade Grimm: It makes sense. like And these are these are small, simple examples of like if you, in these little areas, something as simple as recognizing how the how your eating habits are different depending on the size of the party you're eating with. like as you start to recognize and and change your actions based off this information, like that will, as you mentioned before, those small decisions will start to compound and you'll be more aware of these outside influences on bigger decisions.
Cade Grimm: So it'll just help help you take more consistent action and more meaningful action on other things as well.
Jim Crider: sometimes we talk about habits and building things and doing things and trying to curate a way of doing stuff. It's like, sometimes you just have to do hard work. And again, we could say that like, maybe that has to do with the, you know, 80% fuel upfront that I talked about earlier, but sometimes it was like, dude, you just gotta do it.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim Crider: You have to, the the book, there's called a book called eat the frog. And it's just like doing the hard thing early in the morning, get up, you eat the frog.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: Yeah. yeah Sometimes you just have to do things whether or not you want to do it. Just, B, be an adult and do it. Heck, even if you're a kid, like my kids all the time, like I don't want to i don't want to make my bed.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: It's like, you don't life is not dictated based off of just what you want to do. Sometimes you just have to do things.
Cade Grimm: yeah.
Jim Crider: when i was in When I was in college, I try to trick myself to do things by finding the motivator that's most likely going to make me do the thing that I want to do.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: I don't if right. I try, i try to find what's going to motivate me best in order take the action want to take. And a lot, sometimes that, that motivation is a carrot.
Jim Crider: Sometimes that motivation is a stick. And I'm going to introduce the most, uh, obvious carrot or stick that I can to continue taking action.
Jim Crider: And this goes back to our prior conversations on this is like, uh, taking like regularly making decisions, taking consistent action. yes, you can set goals, but you probably need to have like micro goals inside of it.
Jim Crider: So when I was in college, I was a really bad student and,
Cade Grimm: Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: like when it came to writing papers, I could, i could set a goal of, I don't want to fail. And we have this paper that's 40% of our grade. So I need to write the paper.
Jim Crider: But for me, that goal was big. Whereas like, I really just don't want to do that. I need to introduce smaller goals. And the smaller goal could be, i need to write one page every few minutes.
Jim Crider: So then what I would do is like, all right, that is that is a goal, but there's not a motivator really behind that goal because all my friends are having fun and I could be doing anything else right now besides writing this flipping paper.
Jim Crider: So how do I make myself do it?
Cade Grimm: Now it's a game.
Jim Crider: Yeah.
Cade Grimm: It's a game.
Jim Crider: It's how do you exactly? How do I, how do I gamify this? That's what I do.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: i'm like, but i used to have people when I was in high school and stuff, I had people who get mad at me.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: because I, I have, because I have fun doing everything like Jim, you, you emphasize enjoyment and fun too much. It's like, dude, if if you can trigger yourself into gamifying things or way, finding enjoyment or, or pleasure or value in anything you do, like, why would I not do that?
Jim Crider: And I'm not saying everything should be about you and just make everything like where you're self-serving.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: It's like, yeah, if I can, if I can make it where it is, like I recognize the good in something and align myself. Like, of course I'm not going, I'm not going to introduce unnecessary barriers. Like let's make it enjoyable. So anyways, so what I, this, I could, I gamified it the best I could.
Jim Crider: So what I did, if became a, it became a thing.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: But at first i remember one day i was, i had a paper to write. I could not get myself into the mood. And one of my, one of my roommates, his name is Michael. And Michael's an awesome guy, just really, really nice guy. And I told him like, Hey, Michael, I need help writing this paper.
Jim Crider: So what I need you to is every 10 minutes, I want you to set an alarm. And every 10 minutes, if I don't have another page written, I need you dump a glass of water on my head.
Jim Crider: And Michael said, dude, don't want to do that. Like that's sort of mean. And i don't want to do that to you, Jim. was like, no, trust me. You'd be helping me if I know that you're going to do it because you're going to help me keep, you're going to keep me accountable. So please do that.
Jim Crider: He's like, fine. if if If you say so, I'll do it. My goodness. He got a, he got a taste of that after, after a while I started slowing down and it was like, you know i I was like almost done the page, and the timer went off, and he reluctantly dumped a glass of water on my head.
Jim Crider: Then he got he got a taste. He got blood drunk at that point. and like The next time the timer went off on and I wasn't done, he was over here like putting ice cubes in the water.
Cade Grimm: Yes.
Cade Grimm: nothing
Jim Crider: then like but Within a few hours, this is a big paper I had write. And then within a couple hours, like he was going nuts. I i was afraid he was to start boiling the water.
Cade Grimm: well
Jim Crider: But that was that was a good way to motive myself. And it became fun. like Getting a paper to write, not going to act like I loved writing papers at that point, but it did become a thing in our in our apartment of like, hey, Jim's got a paper to write. Who's going to figure out the next the new way to torture, I mean, incentivize Jim
Cade Grimm: and what
Jim Crider: To do his work. So yeah, sometimes you just have to do it. But even then, can you find a way to like trick yourself into making it fun? I with my kids all the time. Like, all right, guys, we need to clean up the house.
Jim Crider: Let's time ourselves. Let's put a song on and we have to be done cleaning up the playroom before the song's done. We're all going. It's all fun.
Cade Grimm: yep.
Jim Crider: I spent my teens. I spent all my teens in my twenties. Now I, now I can't do it. Well, I, I just don't do it because kids are usually running around, but I probably, I put, I spent 20 to 25 years of my life.
Jim Crider: Anytime I unload the dishwasher, I would time myself. I still that today.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: I do it. I, there's too much going on in the kitchen. I still do it with, uh, doing the silverware. It's fun. Like I enjoy putting up the silverware. It's like, all right, I have 19 seconds to put, I bought how long, how long and how can I, how can I compress it to challenge myself? Just, just make it fun.
Jim Crider: Just take action though. Eat the frog. Sometimes it won't be fun, but you gotta do it anyways.
Cade Grimm: We do the exact same thing over here with dishes. Bethany will, she's usually a lot faster than me at dishes. So we always like right before somebody's going to start, it's like, all right, it's 6.30, 6.30.
Cade Grimm: You got to have the whole everything done by 6.37 or whatever the time is. And all of a sudden, like you said, it's now it's gamified and you forget the fact that you're doing dishes. Like you're just having fun trying to beat the clock.
Jim Crider: Yeah.
Cade Grimm: and It's, it reminds me too of you and I, when we used to, you know, when we were working together and you we had to take whatever, 30 calls a day and it's late in the day, we're both sitting at 25 calls and we want to go work out or want to go do whatever. It's like, all right, hey, first one to get to three calls, you know, and so now we gamify it and it's like, you're you're drained, you're so tired, you're so done with the day, but you turn something simple like that into a game and all of a sudden it's fun again and action becomes a lot easier.
Jim Crider: Yeah. Even just framing things. You think of the classic, uh, Oh goodness. Tom Sawyer, you know, he's painting the fence that he tricks all the neighborhood kids into thinking that painting fence is fun just cause it's the way he framed it.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: Like how can we trick ourselves in a sense to just taking action, do it. Sometimes that you have, sometimes action really stinks, but you have to go way back. What am I trying to accomplish here? What's the value, not the goal, but rather the long-term value.
Jim Crider: Okay. If it's framed in that context, What's the associated goal? I'm deciding to do this. Therefore, I'll do X. Sometimes it's great. Sometimes you can make it fun. Sometimes you can't, but it's going to lot easier if you've done all this hard work up front.
Jim Crider: I will lastly say that education itself is not sufficient to initiate action.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: So we can all know things. Like I know that last night I almost ate like two pints of ice cream while watching a movie. And I know that that's not good.
Jim Crider: But knowing something and doing something is different. You have to take, you like obviously say like becoming vastly overweight is unhealthy.
Jim Crider: And I think 99% of global population would admit that hopefully.
Cade Grimm: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: Most people know it. But there's a difference between knowing it and doing something about it. And that's taking the conviction upon yourself. Like, okay.
Jim Crider: This comes back, like, i mean, you and I were both Christians. And we could argue, like, there's a difference between, as a Christian, believing that There's God.
Jim Crider: Jesus Christ is the son of God. He is God. He died for us, rose again, all these things. You know those things. And we would say as Christians, we would say that, well, goodness, even Satan knows that.
Jim Crider: Even you know the angels and the fallen angels and Satan knows who Jesus is. They know that he died on the cross and rose again the third day and he is God.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: But there's a difference between knowing it and submitting to that.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: and saying, okay, you like in that, i mean, to finish that all analogy, it's like, okay, I don't just know it in my head. I've accepted that and said that your will be done. You are Lord and it's your way.
Jim Crider: I come under you. So we can say like, all right, I'm overweight. Overweight's bad. That's not sufficient to take action. You have to say like, all right. I need take some sort of form of ownership in order to initiate the need to take action, or at least not the need, the means of taking action there.
Jim Crider: and you have any thoughts there?
Cade Grimm: would you Would you say that a lack of knowledge or lack of education is usually enough to completely hinder action?
Jim Crider: Hmm. Lack of knowledge is sufficient to hinder
Cade Grimm: so feel
Jim Crider: Action.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. if If knowledge is not sufficient enough to take action, is the lack of knowledge usually sufficient enough to hinder action?
Cade Grimm: So I feel like A lot of people, at least in the financial sense, like they if they don't you know they don't enroll in their 401k or they don't do whatever it is, it's it's a lot of times because they just they don't understand, they don't have the knowledge to know why taking that action would be beneficial.
Cade Grimm: So that's I guess that's the question. there I guess you can be autopilot and do things just arbitrarily without having any knowledge of why you're doing it. But yeah, I'd be curious.
Jim Crider: you can accident, you can accidentally do things right.
Cade Grimm: Curious if, yeah.
Jim Crider: And there's also, i mean, just go back to like biblical analogies. There's, there's varying degrees of revelation. So we could say like, all right, well, again, if you're an atheist listening to this conversation right now, you maybe you're thinking like, well, Jim, how do you even say that? Like there's, there's tribes around the world who don't even know who Jesus is. How would you expect them to believe that Jesus God? They don't know the name of Jesus.
Jim Crider: And a biblical argument to that would be that you have, that everyone has some degree of revelation to, to there being a God, to there being some sort of moral compass, like something alluding to outside of yourself and humanism.
Cade Grimm: Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: okay
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: Now, the degree of revelation also dictates your degree to or ability to act on said revelation or take action on it. So if you don't know who Jesus is, i couldn't necessarily i couldn't expect you to call the name of Jesus for salvation.
Jim Crider: But I think that everyone has a conscience. And there's a book in the Bible. It's the book of Romans. The book in Romans, it says that your conscience bears witness against you. for people who who didn't have like the law from the Old Testament, their conscience bears witness against them because even then it's saying that you have some revelation of right and wrong.
Jim Crider: Therefore, the fact that you even know that has you have some some ability to take action.
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim Crider: So going back to like a financial thing, you you can you can accidentally take the right actions.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: One. So there's people do that all the time. i mean, goodness, I know people who have made a fortune by accidentally or they they bought Bitcoin or something, early on, not because it was a good financial instrument, but because they wanted to use it for goofy reasons and they forgot about it.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: And now they're a bazillionaire. That was not intentional. That was not based on education. That was accidental. So it can't have good outcomes. That sort of goes back to, not directly answering the question, but in our last conversation, we talked through, Oh goodness.
Jim Crider: It was
Jim Crider: resulting, you remember resulting any Duke talked about that. So resulting is making sure you're not, you're not equating the quality of a decision by the quality of outcome. And the illustration I used for you last time was Cade, you're running late to somewhere. So you run a red light and you don't get an accident and you make it to your place on time. Now that was a bad decision despite having a good result.
Cade Grimm: yeah yeah
Jim Crider: Okay. So we can, we want to make sure we're not falling prey to resulting, but also we want make sure that we're not again, pigeonholing ourselves into becoming a,
Jim Crider: I don't know what's the word I'm looking for. You, a victim of lack of knowledge is interesting now.
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: Like even like in the financial world, financial planners, brokers, people like that in industry used to be the gatekeeper to information. That's why you'd have to have like a stockbroker like, hey, what's fun?
Cade Grimm: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: You know, what's the market doing and what funds should I buy?
Cade Grimm: yeah
Jim Crider: And then you Then you introduce like online trading and stuff like that. So you didn't need those people. And now you have apps and YouTube and books and a plethora of information.
Jim Crider: And you have means of buying these things on your own or going information. now it's not a lack of information. It's a matter of distilling what information won, what information is true, what information applies to you, and then how to take information buy it.
Jim Crider: one, use it wisely and actually take action on said information. Again, because information and itself is not sufficient to take quality action.
Cade Grimm: yeah.
Jim Crider: So how do you take all this information, distill it down to wisdom, take that and then take proper action on it? Even if there's there's a lot of good things you can do, but what what good things should you do versus they do?
Cade Grimm: yeah No, that's good. I think that also, again, comes back to understanding why you're about to take this action to begin with. Like, don't just see something online and decide to do it and take action against it without first understanding, does this fit in with what my values are, what my goals are, and have I thought through the decisions that are going to impact the action I'm about to take?
Cade Grimm: You know, we we've probably, i think we've said it in this conversation. I know we've said it before of like so many people will just jump straight to taking action and not thinking through all of these steps to help make sure that action is the right action to take.
Jim Crider: Okay, I think we're gonna wrap up the conversation there. What, guess if you had to leave with a key takeaway, what would that be today?
Cade Grimm: I would say
Cade Grimm: take action, like just just go. Obviously, under assuming this is under the assumption that you have gone through and under you know values, goals, decisions, but actually take action.
Cade Grimm: Most people get so caught up in the action, the actual step of taking action. I think if you just can take action in some way, it's better than not taking any action at all.
Jim Crider: Yeah, you're saying this is under the this is under the assumption that it's the proper action.
Cade Grimm: Yes.
Jim Crider: and don't just Don't just do things.
Cade Grimm: and Don't just go.
Cade Grimm: That's what we've been saying. Don't just skip straight to action this whole time. So no, assuming that you've done all this, I think there's a lot of people that probably have taken the time to understand their values. They set goals. they They think through decisions, but then they just, they fail on the action side of things.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: and we could argue again, is is inaction inaction itself? Like you mentioned in our last conversation, you we were talking about deciding on what vacation home to choose out of the thousands in Colorado. And you said, man, after all those decision factors, I'd probably decide, I probably just wouldn't make a decision.
Jim Crider: And then i challenged you and said, well, that itself is a decision to not go on a vacation with your family.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Cade Grimm: Exactly.
Jim Crider: So inaction is in a sense inaction.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: Of course we could, there's, you can go a long ways down that, but in general, that is, you are by not doing anything, you are doing something. And again, that goes sort of back to our prior, the prior thing in that flow chart values, goals, decisions.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: You have to consider opportunity cost. when you choose something, you are giving up something else. And, uh, that thing you're giving up, maybe inaction, the thing you're giving up is the, the, what if, the,
Cade Grimm: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jim Crider: you know, had I done X, what could have been? So just understanding the, the, the trade-off there, I would say mine is, just find ways of re removing or reducing resistance to taking action.
Jim Crider: So, be it trying to create habits, or gamifying things. So reduce friction to taking good actions and introduce friction for removing bad actions.
Cade Grimm: Yeah, that's good.
Jim Crider: All right, Kate, now for our silly question. I will ask you this where it's I'm not going to pretend it's Christmas yet, but we are now in the holiday season.
Cade Grimm: OK.
Cade Grimm: Hmm.
Jim Crider: So do you do you do you like do you enjoy the drink eggnog?
Cade Grimm: Bethany introduced me to eggnog for the first time a couple years ago, and I really enjoyed it, actually. I couldn't tell you what, yeah I don't know enough about eggnog to know if it was just like a plain eggnog or if it was eggnog mixed with something else, I don't know, but whatever I had was was amazing, and I intend to have more of whatever that was this year.
Jim Crider: Okay. Yeah. I was, at I was at the store last night and, they had, they had eggnog out for the first time I've seen it and there's really good. oh goodness.
Jim Crider: Well, anyways, can't think of the brand. There's a, there's a kind of eggnog that's really tasty and they had four of them. So I bought all four. I checked it's good till February. So I bought all four cartons they had just to have it stocked up. Cause I mean, I think it was last year. I only, I bought like one at a time and ran out by like mid December.
Jim Crider: So yeah.
Cade Grimm: Yeah, and I'd have to and' have to ask what what I have.
Jim Crider: promise land promise land they make awesome chocolate milk but they have really good eggnog too
Cade Grimm: I'll get him right down.
Cade Grimm: Promise.
Jim Crider: i would say if you're gonna drink eggnog do something i would i would encourage to do organic i found a few years ago i bought a ton of different types of eggnog and all the ones that were not organic tasted like chemicals And then i saw next to promised land, promised land is actually not, it's not organic, but it's just quality.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: but look something. It's going be like probably organic, at least high quality. Like don't buy the cheap stuff. It will taste like chemicals most likely.
Cade Grimm: okay
Jim Crider: and then I saw yesterday they had like organic, but it was like reduced fat. It was like, dude, eggnog should be really thick. Like, I don't want your, I don't want my eggnog runny. That's weird.
Cade Grimm: yeah OK, I'll stick with the Christmas theme. And when when is the appropriate time to put up a Christmas tree or start decorating in general for Christmas?
Jim Crider: You can begin partaking in Christmas festivities once you have finished Thanksgiving meal.
Cade Grimm: Okay, I agree with that.
Jim Crider: but up until Up until and through Thanksgiving meal, it is Thanksgiving.
Cade Grimm: Yep.
Jim Crider: It is, it's, it's fall. And I love fall. And maybe I'm a, don't know, basic white girl. I love fall. Fall's the best. And if you say otherwise, like that's weird. Fall's obviously the best season.
Jim Crider: And so the moment it's like fall, it's like, yeah, I'm giddy.
Cade Grimm: so
Jim Crider: And then you lead in like just general fall excitement. And then you move into like, Hey, Thanksgiving, like holidays. You can't go into Christmas immediately. You got let, let Let fall and Thanksgiving hads have its moment. But yeah, once the Thanksgiving meal is done, you can flip gears going to Christmas prep.
Jim Crider: We have a rule in our house. Our kids, we only watch, we don't really do much TV. So on Friday nights, we have family movie night. But besides that, we don't really watch TV or movies. And with the exception of this rule is from post Thanksgiving meal up until Christmas, our kids can watch as many movies as they want, as long as like, they're done the work or whatever.
Jim Crider: We can watch a movie every night, but it has to be a Christmas movie.
Cade Grimm: Yeah.
Jim Crider: What about you when when you?
Cade Grimm: Oh, man.
Jim Crider: When do you deem it appropriate to begin participating in Christmas activities? so
Cade Grimm: I agree 100%. You got to get through Thanksgiving, whether it's Thanksgiving night.
Jim Crider: and Is it the day after Thanksgiving? Okay. Sorry.
Cade Grimm: Yeah, I don't know.
Jim Crider: It's
Cade Grimm: thanks Whether it's Thanksgiving night or the following day, don't have a strong opinion, but you got to get through Thanksgiving first.
Jim Crider: good stuff. Glad we're on the same page.
Cade Grimm: Yep. Cool.
Jim Crider: Awesome. Yeah. I remember in college, I had friends who started listening to Christmas music like in September. i was like, dude, you're going to ruin it. And sure enough, they were all burnt out by like early December. It's like you and somehow managed to ruin a lot of Christmas celebrations because you were selfish and had no self-control.
Cade Grimm: No, you got to wait.
Jim Crider: All
Cade Grimm: Wait till after Thanksgiving.
Jim Crider: all right. Well, it's good conversation. Thanks for hanging out.
Cade Grimm: Yep, that was fun. Thanks, Jim.
Jim Crider: Yep. Bye.
