This episode dives into the concept of doing the work for its own sake, drawing inspiration from Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. It emphasizes the importance of showing up every day and committing fully to the task at hand, regardless of the outcome. Whether it's sweeping floors, building a business, or pursuing personal growth, the focus is on consistent effort and mindfulness. By detaching from results, one can stay grounded, avoid burnout, and eventually reach meaningful achievements—sometimes even beyond the original goals. It’s about putting in the work, day in and day out, and embracing the journey.
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So I was just finishing listening to the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and I
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think I talked about this recently, but the book is mainly about a force he calls resistance, and it's what stands between you and getting the shit
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that you need you know needs to get done, done. And
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at the end of the book. I don't remember
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who said it, or exactly, probably misquoted a little bit, but the idea was like,
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do, do the work for the work's sake,
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and not for, you know, whatever else. So it got me thinking about
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work and why we do work and all this kind of stuff, and then being super connected to the outcomes of what we do. So like, if you work at a company and
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you're doing the work and all you're doing it for is the paycheck, like this is just a means to an end.
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In theory, and I'm sure not everybody's like this, but in theory, you're not going to do you're not going to put as much into the work as you would if
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you were doing the work for the sake of the work. And the idea behind that, my understanding is like,
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sort of along the lines of what
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can't remember his name, the guy that wrote the Untethered Soul, he did a, like a lecture series, where he was talking about the work as as sort of a form of
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meditation, and how,
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how all work is important.
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And
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he said something like,
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you know, even when you're sweeping the floor, if that's your job, is just to sweep the floors to, you know, put everything you got into that
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into that job, and do the best job possible, because it's important. It's important work. And so some people may look down on that, that kind of work,
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like, oh, all he does is sweep the floors around here. Like, I'm an executive, and you know, my job is way more important. But like, the guy that sweeps
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the floors, his job is also very important. Like, he's making the place nice for the next people to come in. He's making the place nice for the customers and
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all this kind of shit. And the other people on the team, it's important work. So if you're putting in,
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you know,
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if you're, if you're doing, if you're gonna do the task anyway, regardless of what it is like, why not put everything you got into it? And when I say that, I
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don't mean like, fucking
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like, go crazy about it, but, like,
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I guess, kind of, like, don't half ass it, if you just go, go all in and make sure the floor is swept perfectly, and
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kind of, on this floor sweeping thing, but that's not really the point.
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But it's like a form of meditation, you know, when you're doing, when you're when you're getting fully into the work, like it's
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it's another way of practicing mindfulness. So when you're, if you were sweeping a floor and you didn't allow your mind to go in all these other places, and
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you really put your focus on what you're doing, regardless if it's like a mundane task, then
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that is a form of disconnecting, and, you know, from your own shit that's going on in your head. So that's, that's one thing you could put into the
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work. But then the other thing is, like,
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the way that Steven Pressfield is talking about it is he wasn't really talking I'm kind of mixing up different shit here, so hopefully I'm not messing it
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up. Too bad.
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The War of Art, the book is more about following your calling. So he says, you know, this former resistance is keeping you from doing the thing that you know
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you're you're sort of meant to do. So
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it could be anything from
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like he's talking about it a lot of
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being an artist or being a creator or something like that,
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and resistance also shows up,
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you know, when you're trying to better yourself. So if you're trying to create better habits like reading every day or getting exercise or getting in
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better shape, or, you know, things like that. There's, there's going to be a great deal of resistance there.
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I'm losing my train of thought.
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Oh, I know, I know what I was getting at. So all of this sort of make me think about being connected to the outcome. And that's what I
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think, that's what I was really aiming to talk about, is like,
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like, I do a lot of work, and a lot of times I've been very connected to the outcome. And so when I'm doing this stuff, I'm thinking of, what's the.
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Of this thing going to be, and a
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lot of times it kind of holds me back a little bit, so I won't put out certain things because, well, that's how it used to be. I'm not quite like I don't think
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about it this much anymore, but
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disconnecting from the outcome and just going all in on the work, because the work needs to be done,
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I find it's a lot. It's very helpful to move forward. And you could think about it on a lot of different ways. So
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some of the more common ones is like, if you're growing a business and you're doing all this stuff you need to do, especially in the beginning
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stages. Most businesses, they it takes time. It takes a long time for a lot of your efforts to start,
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you know, to to start showing results.
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And so I think that's why a lot of people get frustrated, is because they're so connected to the outcome. So they're like, Okay, I'm going to put in 12
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hours a day,
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which you know it is what it is. I don't, you know, there's different ways of looking at it, but if you're building a business, you're putting in all
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these hours, and you're not seeing really a whole lot of growth, people tend to get frustrated. And I think that's where people give up when things
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get hard, because they're really connected to the outcome. And then you can look at it from like a physical health standpoint, like, if you're
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overweight,
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you know, you could be eating healthy and exercising for several weeks before you really even notice anything. And so being connected to the outcome,
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like looking at the scale all the time or or looking at yourself in the mirror and
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not really seeing any changes, that can be frustrating and that kind of derails you. But when you disconnect from the outcome and realize like,
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this is the work that has to be done, like, I have to do this amount of exercise, I have to eat this kind of food, whatever it is that you're doing to get
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yourself to where you need to be, that's the work that needs to be done. Regardless of what happens, like what the outcome is,
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you're gonna have to do that work anyway. So even if it takes longer, or if you hit these plateaus, or, you know, it takes a long time to ramp up
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every day, you just have to do that work. And if you're sitting there focused on the the end result, it's it tends to be frustrating. And I kind of, I
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feel this, actually, I feel this all the time, like, mainly in business, but I guess in physical health also. But it's like
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when I when I'm connected to the outcome, and I'm looking at like,
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like, in my business, like, I put in this, and then I look at the sales numbers, and if the sales numbers aren't what I want them to be, I get frustrated,
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and it it makes it harder to do the work, because I'm, like, really connected to like,
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you know, is The business growing? Is this stuff that I'm doing working? But if I'm doing things that I know works, you know, like, there's certain
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levers that I can pull in my business that I know works, but it doesn't mean like I'm going to pull the lever and then all of a sudden, all this money is
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going to start coming in. It's like you're going to pull the lever, you're going to wait, then tomorrow you're going to pull the lever. The lever is a
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metaphor for the work. Obviously, you know, so every day you do the work, and
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you may not see results for a while,
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but we're at a stage now where, like, I've been doing that for a long time, like this business,
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I've been really grinding away at this business for
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almost 10 years now, like we opened the first machine in 2015
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I started the company in 2002 as a motion graphics company, and I've talked about that. 2015 I opened the graph shop,
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and I still feel like we haven't even started, like I still feel like we're warming up, like we're getting we're getting things figured out, and then
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we're really gonna fucking hit the ground running. You know, it's like,
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Andy Priscilla talks about this, like every day is day one. No matter how far down the line he gets, every day is day one. I feel like that's like a really
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good way of being disconnected from
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the outcome, the the end result. Well, in business, there is no end result like you're
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just going to keep
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well, maybe for some people, not for me, but
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yeah, every day is day one man. I mean, I think that's the the best way to look at it, and every day you're going to have to put in the work. And as
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cliche as it sounds, that's just, that's just the reality of any kind of endeavor that you want to do.
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And just, you know, I don't know, there's a lot more that you could talk about, like what worked, what's the right.
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Work to do. What's the wrong work to do? I don't know. I mean, I that's, that's a whole nother conversation. But if you're doing the work you know
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need, that needs to be done, like an easy one is the physical health. If you know you're eating healthy, and if you're counting calories or counting
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macros or whatever, if you're hitting those numbers and you're exercising every day, that's the work you need to do.
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And if it takes two months to start seeing results, then it's going to take two months to start seeing results.
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But if you keep doing it every single day for years, there's no way you're not going to get to where you need to go. You may need to adjust things and tweak
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things like you're building a business, if you're trying to get better at graffiti, or better at art, or any of that kind of shit. If you do the shit
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you need to do, like if you're trying to get better as a graffiti writer, if you're practicing every single day, and you're you're doing all the shit
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that you need to do,
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the results are gonna come. But when they're gonna come, it's not really up to you. It's just sort of like
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it's gonna it's gonna happen when it happens. Or if you're trying to become a famous graffiti writer, and you're just getting up all over the place,
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and people still don't know who you are,
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you know, it doesn't change the out the work that's required doesn't change, you know, it's you're still gonna have to go out, you know, however many
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times you can and do the work that you need to do. And then eventually you're gonna, you may not get that's the other thing. I mean, I don't know if I want
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to start a whole nother thing, but you may not get to where you think you're gonna go, but like, you're gonna get somewhere, you're gonna achieve something,
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so,
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yeah, disconnect from the outcome, do the shit that's required, and
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there's no way that you're not gonna achieve. I
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don't want to say that you're gonna achieve what you want to achieve, because I don't know. But like you're gonna achieve something, and maybe it'll even
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be better than the original idea
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you never know.
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All right,
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appreciate each and every one of you guys who are supporting the cause and continue to spread the love and yeah, stay up.