Who Are You Listening To?
‘Sup, everybody?
Give it a little bit of time for … see if anybody wants to get on. And then, we’ll get into Who Are You Listening To? Just something that I had that just popped into my head today. Hey, Josh, what’s up, man? Renee, how you doing?
It just made me think, because it’s one of those things that … there aren’t any of us that are immune to this subject. And that’s why I think it’s an important subject. Man, woman, child, grandfather, mother and father, son, daughter, whatever it is. I think this is important.
And the way I’m gonna talk about it at first is, we have all these different aspects of life. And I talked about it in the book for men, you know, as a father, as a husband, if you are either, in your health, in your faith walk, as a friend. All these different things. Who are you listening to? Who are you allowing to fill this space?
I mean, first and foremost, the voice that you hear most often is yours. And I think I’ve talked about that before. So you better make sure what you’re telling yourself, that self-talk, is decent. I’m not talking about B.S. self-affirmations that … trying to do a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know, lying to yourself. I’m not talking about that. I’m just talking about, what are you telling yourself?
So that’s number one. Number two is, in all these different areas, are you listening to people … Let’s just take as a father. Or as a mother. Or as a parent. Parent in general. Are you listening to people that’ve never had kids? I mean, this day and age, the internet is full of informational-type stuff. That’s what it is. It’s people that see … it’s a sale of information. And here’s the crappy thing about it is, not all these people selling this information have actually done anything. We see it a lot in business, these gurus, these people that say, “Hey, I can help you get leads. I can help you get contacts. I can help you build your business.” Yet, if you really look into them, they’ve never built a business.
Kind of the same thing with parents. You get these people who tell you how your kids should behave, or how you should treat your kids, or how you should discipline your kids. Yet, you ask them, “Well, how many kids do you have?” “Well, I don’t have any.” Yet, there’s people that are willing to listen to them because of some study that was done about how they should raise their children.
Here’s the thing. When it comes to all of this stuff, whether it’s raising kids, whether it’s being a husband, whether it’s being a wife, whether it’s doing business, you’re gonna screw it up. It’s just a fact. That’s what’s gonna happen. And that’s okay. I mean, when I’ve talked with my parents, they apologize for doing wrong things, or not doing the right things, or necessarily what they think they should’ve done in hindsight as my parents. I’ve already hit so many of those instances with my kids, it’s not even funny. But I’m learning moving forward. And I’d like to think that, based on what my parents told me and what I learned from them, that maybe I’m doing a decent job. Maybe I’m doing even a little bit better job, hopefully, learning from what they’ve told me their mistakes were.
So I think that’s the big thing here. Are you gonna take advice from someone who’s never been there, never done that? It’d be like if you’re gonna build a rocket. Would you take advice from someone who’s never built a rocket? Someone who’s not a astrophysicist or whatever. A rocket scientist. I don’t even know what they call them. Anyway. Would you take advice from someone who is a garbage truck driver … and nothing against garbage truck drivers … would you take advice from them on how to build a proper rocket?
No, you wouldn’t. You’d want to go to a engineer and a physicist that has experience or training in doing those types of things. And it’s no different in everything else that we do in life.
So when you are taking advice, when you are letting other people fill the space between your ears with information, do your … It’s kinda like Facebook. I give my wife a hard time because she accepts … if somebody tries to friend her on Facebook, it’s, “Oh, accept. I’ll be your friend.” And then I look at it, and it’s some dude from Nairobi that is just trolling.
And so, it’s one of those things where you have to be diligent in who you’re allowing into there because of all the different things that could happen from that type of thing, and you have to be diligent who you’re allowing to speak into your life in all these different areas.
Go to people, let people who have your best interest at heart speak into your life. Speak into these areas of your lives. Now, I’ve got different people that speak into different areas of my life. I’m not gonna let everybody speak into all these different areas. I’m gonna go to the people that I think have my best interests at heart, which means they’re gonna tell me things I don’t necessarily want to hear. Not just stuff I want to hear.
Those are my true friends. Those are the friends that, when I say “I’m gonna go do this,” they say, “Hey, idiot … probably not a good idea.” And I value those friendships. Be that kind of friend. Be that kind of husband. Be that kind of father, mother. Be the one that’s willing to say the hard things because you actually care about someone.
I tell my boys all the time, you know, if I’m disciplining them, I ask them, “Why am I doing this?” And they know the answer. The answer is, “Because you love us.” And my answer’s, “Exactly it. Because if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t discipline you. I’d just let you do whatever the hell you wanted to do.” And it’s the truth. If I didn’t love my wife, I wouldn’t speak truth to her. If I don’t love my friends, I’m not gonna speak truth to them. Because it’s really not worth the effort. Because let’s face it. Speaking the truth to people hurts sometimes. And it’s work sometimes. And it’s difficult sometimes. So much easier just to do the fake, false facade, if you will, with people you really don’t care about, right?
The other thing is I’m gonna say is, one of the things that goes along with this … because that difficulty with sometimes hearing things from people who’ve done it, hearing the truth, figuring out who you’re gonna let speak into that space between the ears … some people are afraid of it. I mean, one of the biggest things that hold people back is fear.
And sometimes, people are so afraid of either being bad or doing the wrong thing that they never get the chance, they never get the opportunity, to do the right thing or to do good things. Or to do the things they want. Because they’re too afraid of looking foolish, of looking bad, of screwing it up, of making the wrong choice of … You know, it’s like people … “I’m waiting for the right time to have kids.” Well, guess what. It’s never the right time to have kids. I’ll tell you that right now. “I’m waiting for the absolute perfect person to marry.” Well, my wife married me, so I can tell you that she knows that there was no waiting for the perfect person.
If you’re always gonna be afraid of doing the wrong thing, screwing it up, you’re never gonna get the chance to do the right thing, and you’re never gonna have the chance to see the potential that you have. So that means, trying out and listening to different people who’ve been there, done that.
Same thing with me. I don’t know everything. Let’s just call an ace an ace here. I don’t know everything. This is just my pontifications, my rants, if you will, from life experience. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to other people. Listen to other people that’ve been there and done that, too. Because what’s right for me may not be right for you. What I think is the right way to go for me, you may go, “Hm, nope. Not my thing.”
And that’s all right. Because we’re all different. But go to those who have been there, done that, for advice. Don’t be afraid to talk to them. Don’t be afraid to reach out to them. Because if you don’t reach out to them, I can guarantee the answer’s gonna be no. If you do reach out and you ask a question, you might just get an answer.
All right, guys. That’s all I had today. Just wanted to say it real quick. I gotta hop in the truck and hook up the trailer and go do some stuff, and I wanted to give this real quick one about, who are you listening to? Pay attention to that. Listen to people that have your best interest at heart. Listen to people that’ve been there and done that. And listen to other people who have made it and been successful in the area you want to be successful in. Not somebody who’s just starting out in it. They’re not stupid, but they don’t have the experience.
Have a good one, guys. Catch you later.