By now we have all heard of using the SMART method for setting goals to be more productive. But what if there was an easier, less rigid way to be more productive and happier?
In this episode of the Mental Health Toolbox, we are taking with personal development and fitness coach, author of Stop Setting Goals, and creator of the Lyceum method, Cody Limbaugh.
*Some of the links found here are affiliate links: As an Associate I earn from qualifying purchases by way of commission at no additional cost to you. See full disclaimer here:
Table of Contents
BIO: Cody Limbaugh, author of Stop Setting Goals and the Lyceum method.
Cody Limbaugh has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. For seventeen years, he owned and operated Personal Excellence Training, a close-knit community gym in Portland, Oregon. He writes and publishes art at LoveAllYourLife.com. Cody and his wife Tali are now thriving on their own little slice of paradise, their family ranch high in the Wallowa Mountains.
We’ve been taught an industrialized method for living our best lives. We’re graded in school, given quotas as adults, and benchmarks to reach for retirement. This book turns conventional success principles upside down. It shakes them out, takes a look at what’s valuable and what we can discard, and what we can do better.
The Lyceum Method was born out of my frustration with traditional goal-setting. “SMART Goals” (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Time-bound Goals) left me on a roller-coaster of ups and downs in my life. My relationships suffered. My business suffered. I suffered. I decided to trash the whole idea of setting goals and I’ve never been happier!
This is not a call to give up on success or achievement. Quite the opposite, it is a fresh new approach to achieving more while stressing less so that you too, can Love All Your Life.
http://loveallyourlife.com/books/
Learn More About
SOCIAL:
-Website: www.LiveAllYourLife.com
-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CodyLimbaugh/featured
-Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lyceum-network/id1641027624
-Book: STOP SETTING GOALS: Learn the Lyceum Method
Get The Book: STOP SETTING GOALS!: Learn the Lyceum Method to achieve more, stress less, and love all your life.
Watch The Interview
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Listen To The Interview:
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Transcript: Stop Setting Goals, Do This Instead, With Cody Limbaugh
00:00:00 Cody Limbaugh
Along the way, during that, you know, 20 year marriage I.
00:00:06 Cody Limbaugh
We’re sort of an absentee father and not really knowing that I was, you know, I found that.
00:00:11 Cody Limbaugh
I was involved with the kids.
00:00:12 Cody Limbaugh
We homeschooled their kids.
00:00:13 Cody Limbaugh
They were around the house a lot, and they even helped me in the business.
00:00:17 Cody Limbaugh
You know?
00:00:18 Cody Limbaugh
They’d come to the gym and they’d help out.
00:00:19 Cody Limbaugh
With things and I.
00:00:20 Cody Limbaugh
Really tried to live this integrated life.
00:00:23 Cody Limbaugh
But what I mean by absence is that I was always in my head, living in the future.
00:00:29 Cody Limbaugh
I was always goal oriented, which is, you know, it’s taught as this very positive thing to be goal oriented, but I was so goal oriented that I was really missing out on being present and available for my relationship.
00:00:45 Patrick Martin
By now we’ve all heard of using the smart model to set goals to be more productive.
00:00:49 Patrick Martin
But what if there was a less rigid, easier way to be both more productive and happier while then stick around?
00:00:56 Patrick Martin
Because in this episode of the mental Health Toolbox, we’re talking with personal development and fitness coach, author of stop setting goals.
00:01:04 Patrick Martin
And creator of the Lyceum method, Cody Limbaugh.
00:01:08 Patrick Martin
You can learn more about his work by checking out the show notes and the description below, where you can find his book and relative links.
00:01:16 Patrick Martin
Alright, so let’s go.
00:01:22 Patrick Martin
Hello, Cody, and thank you so much for making time today to be on the mental health toolbox.
00:01:30 Patrick Martin
I’m really excited for everything you have to share with our audience today, and let’s go ahead and jump in.
00:01:36 Patrick Martin
You want to tell us a little bit about who you are and what it is you’re passionate about and what you do.
00:01:42 Cody Limbaugh
Thank you for having me.
00:01:44 Cody Limbaugh
I’m, I’m excited to be on the show.
00:01:46 Cody Limbaugh
And yeah, so I have been in the fitness industry for around 20 years altogether.
00:01:52 Cody Limbaugh
I owned my own gym for about 17 years and so I really come from a fitness background and.
00:02:00 Cody Limbaugh
In many years of coaching, because it’s been a hands-on project, my gym was for most.
00:02:05 Cody Limbaugh
Of those years.
00:02:06 Cody Limbaugh
Across at gym we did a lot of personal training, weightlifting, powerlifting, lots of specific niche type of coaching like that.
00:02:15 Cody Limbaugh
I coached various sports teams and even uh.
00:02:19 Cody Limbaugh
One of my students went on to the Olympics eventually and so I’ve been a very hands-on coach and in those years of coaching I’ve noticed quite a few patterns of.
00:02:30 Cody Limbaugh
How people respond to various forms of motivation and it really made me begin to rethink a lot of the ways that we are taught to set goals and sort of the the process that is the right way in quotes, air quotes, you know, to approach goals and lifestyle changes.
00:02:51 Cody Limbaugh
And so I can’t claim to have, you know a high.
00:02:55 Cody Limbaugh
Theory of education when it comes to psychology or anything like that, but just hands on like, you know, boots on the ground kind of experience of helping people make life changes has made me rethink a lot of the things that were taught in typical motivational settings or business or self-help.
00:03:11 Cody Limbaugh
So right now I’m refocusing our business a little bit.
00:03:15 Cody Limbaugh
To be more of a personal development company that just happens to use fitness as a tool to introduce people to these concepts.
00:03:23 Patrick Martin
Wow, thank you so much.
00:03:25 Patrick Martin
I’m, I’m glad that you are, because I I’m definitely one person who could benefit from that and definitely could use more fitness as well.
00:03:33 Patrick Martin
That’s an ongoing dream.
00:03:33 Speaker 4
Yeah, we all. Yeah.
00:03:36 Patrick Martin
I lost a pandemic weight but then slowly creeping back on so I need.
00:03:39 Patrick Martin
To get back.
00:03:39 Cody Limbaugh
With it right, that’s how it is.
00:03:42 Patrick Martin
Yeah, so yeah, I 100% agree with you. You know, we can be very highly minded, but have no earthly good, so to speak, if we are all philosophy and no action and no experience, right, because we learn through doing. We learn through imperfect, messy action and every.
00:04:00 Patrick Martin
A self help book I’ve read, it’s pretty much echoing the same thing, right, James? Clear right, 1% better practice. Do we do what we we improve what we measure? Right?
00:04:13 Patrick Martin
So yeah, absolutely.
00:04:16 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, so about 10 years or?
00:04:19 Cody Limbaugh
So ago I was journaling one day and I was just at a.
00:04:22 Cody Limbaugh
Point in my life where I was really frustrated because.
00:04:25 Cody Limbaugh
At that time I was probably in my early 30s, and I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit about me.
00:04:33 Cody Limbaugh
I was.
00:04:34 Cody Limbaugh
I remember selling Obsidian rocks when I was about six years old.
00:04:37 Cody Limbaugh
Know trying to sell him door to door.
00:04:39 Speaker 3
Right.
00:04:39 Cody Limbaugh
And so I I’ve always kind of had this entrepreneurial bent and because of that I.
00:04:45 Cody Limbaugh
Had been exposed to.
00:04:46 Cody Limbaugh
A lot of personal development books and business books and that kind of.
00:04:49 Cody Limbaugh
Thing and was really entrenched in the smart goal paradigm.
00:04:54 Cody Limbaugh
So for those of you in the audience who might not be familiar with smart goals, it’s an acronym that stands for specific measurable.
00:05:05 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, or actionable, depending on your acronym, relevant and then time bound and.
00:05:13 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, being entrenched in that, you know, I kept.
00:05:15 Cody Limbaugh
Setting goals, but I.
00:05:17 Cody Limbaugh
Would often fall short or miss the mark.
00:05:20 Cody Limbaugh
Or if I set goals that were really attainable, sometimes it would be a kind of a shallow victory, you know?
00:05:27 Cody Limbaugh
I’d feel like well.
00:05:28 Cody Limbaugh
That didn’t even need to be a goal.
00:05:29 Cody Limbaugh
That was just going to happen anyway, you know?
00:05:31 Cody Limbaugh
And and so there’s a.
00:05:33 Cody Limbaugh
It was always this weird tug of war, of setting goals, that were really inspiring.
00:05:39 Cody Limbaugh
But that would.
00:05:40 Cody Limbaugh
Cause a lot of anxiety or they would be too attainable and just not feel like I have any victory, you know, in it.
00:05:50 Cody Limbaugh
And this constant yoyo.
00:05:52 Cody Limbaugh
And it’s interesting because I was entrenched in these concepts but really blaming myself like oh I’m procrastinator.
00:06:00 Cody Limbaugh
I’m lazy.
00:06:01 Cody Limbaugh
I lose focus.
00:06:02 Cody Limbaugh
I dislike that and just a lot of self deprecating thoughts on why I wasn’t achieving and living the type of life that I really wanted to live.
00:06:11 Cody Limbaugh
And I think the worst part of all of that was how it affected relationships.
00:06:18 Cody Limbaugh
I have distinct memories.
00:06:20 Cody Limbaugh
So I was married once before.
00:06:22 Cody Limbaugh
I had since divorced and remarried, but I had three kids with my first wife who are all adult children now and all doing well.
00:06:32 Cody Limbaugh
And it’s it’s a happy ending, but along the way during that, you know, 20 year marriage.
00:06:41 Cody Limbaugh
We’re sort of an absentee father and not really knowing that I was, you know, I thought that.
00:06:46 Cody Limbaugh
I was involved with the kids.
00:06:47 Cody Limbaugh
We homeschooled their kids.
00:06:48 Cody Limbaugh
They were around the house a lot, and they even helped me in the business.
00:06:52 Cody Limbaugh
You know, they’d come to the gym and they’d help out with things, and I really tried to live this integrated life.
00:06:58 Cody Limbaugh
But what I mean by absence is that I was always.
00:07:01 Cody Limbaugh
In my head, living in the future, I was always goal oriented, which is, you know, it’s taught as this very positive thing to be goal oriented.
00:07:12 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:07:12 Cody Limbaugh
But I was so goal oriented that I was really missing out on being present and available for my relationships.
00:07:19 Cody Limbaugh
And, you know, I just remember I write about in my book that there’s this one memory I have that’s just very.
00:07:26 Cody Limbaugh
Good illustration where we’re actually spending some time at the beach and I’m playing soccer with my son, and my daughter at the time was just a baby, like eating sand and that kind of thing.
00:07:37 Cody Limbaugh
And and and from an outsider’s perspective, it probably looked like this happy family enjoying the beach. But I remember specifically that I was so stressed out in my head.
00:07:48 Cody Limbaugh
All I could think about the whole.
00:07:49 Cody Limbaugh
Time I was.
00:07:49 Cody Limbaugh
There was I.
00:07:50 Cody Limbaugh
Should be working.
00:07:51 Cody Limbaugh
I should be doing this other thing.
00:07:53 Cody Limbaugh
I should be recruiting some people for my business.
00:07:56 Cody Limbaugh
I you know.
00:07:58 Cody Limbaugh
Worried about bills?
00:07:59 Cody Limbaugh
You know, we’re behind the do or, you know, financially struggling and all this.
00:08:02 Cody Limbaugh
Kind of stress was really.
00:08:04 Cody Limbaugh
Where my mind was, even though my body was there with the family, you know?
00:08:09 Cody Limbaugh
So this kind of reflection, I just remember sitting down and I have the journal thankfully from it’s probably more than 10 years ago now I come to think of it, I’m, I’m older than I think 47 now, so.
00:08:20 Patrick Martin
It’s funny how time goes by.
00:08:21 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, but in my early 30s I I sat down with a journal one day and I thought, you know, what if I just stopped setting goals altogether?
00:08:28 Cody Limbaugh
Like, how can I reframe?
00:08:31 Cody Limbaugh
My intentions and my vision for my life in a way that is not so restrictive and and have this repeating pattern of setting goal missing, feeling defeated, setting goal missing, feeling defeated.
00:08:46 Cody Limbaugh
And so I just begin to play with ideas of, well, maybe I can just focus.
00:08:51 Cody Limbaugh
On daily practices, like if I want to be somebody who is fit, for instance, then I just focus on today’s workout.
00:09:01 Cody Limbaugh
I I focus on building the practice of working out if I want to be financially successful, then I can build daily habits around.
00:09:10 Cody Limbaugh
You know, smart management of money and that type of thing.
00:09:14 Cody Limbaugh
And it took quite a while to distill these ideas.
00:09:18 Cody Limbaugh
But finally, about three years ago, I wrote a book about it and I decided to call it the Lyceum method. And the Lyceum is Aristotle’s school, so.
00:09:27 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, yeah.
00:09:29 Cody Limbaugh
So, so Aristotle school is.
00:09:32 Cody Limbaugh
Very eclectic and I’m a very eclectic.
00:09:35 Cody Limbaugh
Interest person.
00:09:37 Cody Limbaugh
You know I my careers in fitness and in leadership, but I’m also a pencil artist and you know, I live in the country and we do some ranching and farming and.
00:09:48 Cody Limbaugh
I saw it’s very eclectic mix and I wanted to live my life.
00:09:51 Cody Limbaugh
Sort of all.
00:09:52 Cody Limbaugh
In one basket instead.
00:09:54 Cody Limbaugh
Of all these disparate things, so.
00:09:58 Cody Limbaugh
So anyway, that’s why I called.
00:09:59 Cody Limbaugh
It the Lyceum method is that I.
00:10:03 Cody Limbaugh
Developed an approach that instead of setting specific goals that are time bound to measure progress on a trajectory, am I heading the right direction?
00:10:13 Cody Limbaugh
And if I’m heading the right direction, then I know I’m heading toward the vision that I really want for my life.
00:10:19 Cody Limbaugh
But in the meantime, I’m experiencing a sense of victory every day because I I know that this practice or this habit or this intention that I’m living out day-to-day is in the right direction.
00:10:32 Cody Limbaugh
And that’s a sense of victory that you know you don’t necessarily get with a goal because until you’ve achieved the goal, you haven’t.
00:10:39 Cody Limbaugh
Really achieved it, right?
00:10:40 Cody Limbaugh
So it’s kind of like work, work, work, work, sacrifice, sacrifice, delayed gratification, and then I’ll be happy when I finally lose 20 pounds or whatever that.
00:10:48 Patrick Martin
Isn’t the truth, yes.
00:10:51 Cody Limbaugh
So I just wanted to break free from that paradigm of I’ll be happy when.
00:10:55 Cody Limbaugh
And just choose to go ahead and be happy now and and get on that, right?
00:10:59 Patrick Martin
I love.
00:11:00 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, that right trajectory.
00:11:02 Patrick Martin
It’s great because oftentimes that is the kind of rigid.
00:11:07 Patrick Martin
Kind of setup, right?
00:11:08 Patrick Martin
We set ourselves up for and no fault of her own, that’s what.
00:11:11 Patrick Martin
We’re taught, right?
00:11:12 Patrick Martin
As in you know, high producers for example, is that or if we want to quote, break the mold or think outside the box or do your own thing that.
00:11:21 Patrick Martin
Or even if you’re in a, you know a 9 to 5 and you know you want to be, you know, the linchpin right of your, of your, of the line staff or your your role as an employee.
00:11:33 Patrick Martin
Oftentimes we think we have, you know, we’re taught to think or we teach ourselves to think in these very rigid terms, like you said, delayed gratification.
00:11:41 Patrick Martin
Audacious goals and that we can’t really.
00:11:45 Patrick Martin
We have to kind of hold our breath.
00:11:47 Cody Limbaugh
Right. Yeah.
00:11:47 Patrick Martin
And keep your head down until until we until we knock that off and we can breathe again until we set the next one right?
00:11:53 Patrick Martin
And then.
00:11:54 Patrick Martin
Hold our breath again.
00:11:55 Patrick Martin
That kind of works, right against what you were saying is the the importance of being present, right?
00:12:01 Patrick Martin
’cause we’re in future tripping as a therapist oftentimes use that term for anxiety.
00:12:06 Patrick Martin
That anxious mind is future tripping, right?
00:12:10 Patrick Martin
And if we if we think of.
00:12:12 Patrick Martin
About anxiety, right, in any form, oftentimes we think of it as a as a bad thing or some kind of skewed schema or how we view the world or or, you know, as as a future.
00:12:25 Patrick Martin
Tripping is always like worst case scenario, but that’s not necessarily true right from what I’m hearing from you.
00:12:30 Patrick Martin
And the great reminder for all of us is that sometimes.
00:12:33 Patrick Martin
Future tripping can be wrapped up and packaged into a healthy, presumably healthy goal, but it can have the same implication, right?
00:12:44 Patrick Martin
And that it robs us of the ability to be present.
00:12:47 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, in my case, I unwittingly developed the skill of of this sort of future tripping in a positive way as a means of escape or coping with some disparate, dissatisfying aspects of my current life.
00:13:03 Cody Limbaugh
So rather than deal with relationship issues or being present issues.
00:13:07 Cody Limbaugh
Or or even health related issues I.
00:13:12 Cody Limbaugh
Would sort of put myself in this future version that’s better and sort of live this fantasy in my head of this better life.
00:13:19 Cody Limbaugh
And because it was more comfortable there, I’d spend a lot of time there, you know, but then just like it’s very similar to a drug where you might use a drug to escape reality, but the comedown from the drug.
00:13:32 Cody Limbaugh
It’s way worse than where you went in at.
00:13:33 Cody Limbaugh
You know, you you like use up all those dopamine levels, and then you’re crashing harder than before.
00:13:39 Cody Limbaugh
You took the drug.
00:13:41 Cody Limbaugh
And a lot of times I think my goal setting fantasies were react were really a similar mechanism where I would use it as a coping mechanism to set goals and feel better about myself because I’ve got this positive thing that I’m fantasizing about.
00:13:57 Cody Limbaugh
But then when I wake up to reality and realize that I wasn’t really.
00:14:01 Cody Limbaugh
Doing the work or being effective at achieving those goals, the crash would be even worse than where I had started before.
00:14:10 Cody Limbaugh
And you know, it’s funny because I stumbled upon these ideas myself, just like out of basically a sense of desperation.
00:14:20 Cody Limbaugh
Like I want out of this cycle of ups and downs, ups and downs.
00:14:23 Cody Limbaugh
And so I started thinking of these things myself, and then after that I began to listen to some of the philosophers like Alan Watts.
00:14:30 Cody Limbaugh
And rondas and.
00:14:32 Cody Limbaugh
These these Western culture people who brought eastern philosophy.
00:14:37 Speaker 4
Uh to the.
00:14:38 Cody Limbaugh
West and it’s funny because you think of Buddhism and some of these teachings that say, you know your attachment to specific outcomes is what causes your suffering.
00:14:48 Cody Limbaugh
And then we’re taught to set a goal.
00:14:49 Cody Limbaugh
That’s very time bound.
00:14:50 Cody Limbaugh
And specific.
00:14:52 Cody Limbaugh
It’s like, wow those those.
00:14:53 Patrick Martin
And never the twain shall meet, right?
00:14:53 Cody Limbaugh
Things don’t seem to match up.
00:14:55 Cody Limbaugh
Right. Yeah.
00:14:57 Cody Limbaugh
So I just wanted to sort of melt various philosophies together where we can achieve, we can strive for.
00:15:05 Cody Limbaugh
More, and there’s nothing wrong with striving for more.
00:15:09 Cody Limbaugh
But maybe approach?
00:15:09 Cody Limbaugh
It with a sense of wonder and curiosity about.
00:15:13 Cody Limbaugh
Like if I.
00:15:13 Cody Limbaugh
Develop these practices to become this type of person.
00:15:17 Cody Limbaugh
Where will I end up in two years?
00:15:18 Cody Limbaugh
You know, and and instead of phrasing it as a time bound.
00:15:23 Cody Limbaugh
Specific goal really phrased it as a sense of wonder like what could I achieve if I implement this practice on the daily.
00:15:32 Patrick Martin
I really like that.
00:15:33 Patrick Martin
I’d like you to say more about that, because something that I personally get caught up in is that contingency thinking that you’re talking about I I, you know, or getting caught up in that fantasy.
00:15:45 Patrick Martin
You know, I really want to be present and do XY and Z with my family, but first I need to.
00:15:51 Patrick Martin
Finish blank or I’ll make time for that after blank.
00:15:54 Patrick Martin
Or I can’t give myself permission to be happy and present until XY or Z is done right.
00:16:00 Cody Limbaugh
As a chief, yeah.
00:16:02 Patrick Martin
How do you how do you combat that?
00:16:04 Patrick Martin
How do you really real yourself back in, but not not feel like you’re?
00:16:11 Patrick Martin
Quote failing.
00:16:13 Patrick Martin
Letting yourself down.
00:16:16 Patrick Martin
Quitting right ’cause I.
00:16:18 Patrick Martin
A lot of that stuff comes up for me when I think about oh.
00:16:21 Patrick Martin
I set this expectation.
00:16:23 Patrick Martin
Up for myself to to you know whether it’s even put out a weekly podcast, right?
00:16:28 Patrick Martin
For example, something is, you know, as theoretically simple as that can become encompassing.
00:16:35 Patrick Martin
It takes up a certain percent.
00:16:37 Patrick Martin
Of RAM in your head.
00:16:39 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:16:39 Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:40 Patrick Martin
The more commitments we take on long term commitments without end right or long term goals and so then something usually has to give.
00:16:48 Patrick Martin
And if I don’t know, I can’t speak for other podcasters, but that’s something I’ve tried to work toward.
00:16:54 Patrick Martin
You know, in the last year is getting more consistent, but that comes at a cost.
00:16:58 Patrick Martin
Like last night I’m like, as I’m putting my kid to bed at 10:00 o’clock, I’m thinking myself, you know, rubbing her back and I’m thinking to myself, do I stay up till 2:00 AM?
00:17:06 Patrick Martin
And finish this podcast that I meant to launch last Thursday.
00:17:12 Patrick Martin
So I practice what I preach, get my 6 plus hours of sleep, and then commit to spending some time with my kid tomorrow.
00:17:20 Patrick Martin
UM and not work in the afternoon.
00:17:23 Patrick Martin
Yeah, she goes back to school next week and I think, you know, as a parent, these are real psychological dilemmas.
00:17:32 Patrick Martin
That we set up for ourselves when we’re trying to.
00:17:37 Patrick Martin
Quote improve upon the status quo, right?
00:17:40 Patrick Martin
Trying to maintain commitments.
00:17:42 Patrick Martin
Yeah, how?
00:17:44 Patrick Martin
How does one manage that conflict, do you think?
00:17:47 Cody Limbaugh
So one thing that I’ve done that’s helpful and I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers I.
00:17:52 Cody Limbaugh
I usually repeat this over and.
00:17:53 Cody Limbaugh
Over even in my book.
00:17:54 Cody Limbaugh
That I’m throwing these out.
00:17:56 Cody Limbaugh
These ideas out into the world and hoping for feedback so that it’s a collaborative effort because.
00:18:02 Cody Limbaugh
I think that these ideas still need more developing.
00:18:07 Cody Limbaugh
To get to your specific question, one thing that I’ve done is I’ve really tried to eliminate all.
00:18:15 Cody Limbaugh
All goals that are.
00:18:20 Cody Limbaugh
Production oriented and instead look at process oriented goals and what I call practices because I just tried to get away from the whole goal.
00:18:29 Cody Limbaugh
Thing all together ’cause it.
00:18:32 Cody Limbaugh
Because a goal I think brings to.
00:18:33 Cody Limbaugh
Mind this flag in in the future, right?
00:18:36 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, and so I try to convert what I want to achieve from a goal into a daily practice.
00:18:44 Cody Limbaugh
So for instance, on the podcast, I’d like to really be consistent with my podcast as well.
00:18:49 Cody Limbaugh
And we have an episode coming out every Monday and Wednesday, but.
00:18:55 Cody Limbaugh
What I do is I commit to a certain time block, not a.
00:19:00 Cody Limbaugh
And achievement goal.
00:19:02 Cody Limbaugh
So every afternoon after work I get home and I edit for 30 minutes and.
00:19:09 Cody Limbaugh
If I get.
00:19:10 Cody Limbaugh
A lot done or a little done.
00:19:12 Cody Limbaugh
That’s not the point.
00:19:13 Cody Limbaugh
The point is, is that I committed to 30 minutes and so I yeah, so I yeah, and so I time blocked those types of parameters.
00:19:21 Cody Limbaugh
And then people who might push back on that a little bit and say, well, yeah, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get your podcast out on time.
00:19:27 Cody Limbaugh
Well, the way.
00:19:28 Cody Limbaugh
I work around that is to.
00:19:30 Cody Limbaugh
We try to set the bar really low for myself.
00:19:34 Cody Limbaugh
So that the practice.
00:19:35 Cody Limbaugh
Is easy and attainable, and it’s something that I know I can commit to 30 minutes.
00:19:42 Cody Limbaugh
But I’m so far ahead in the queue, I didn’t start publishing my podcast until we had almost two months worth of podcasts.
00:19:49 Patrick Martin
No, smart man.
00:19:49 Cody Limbaugh
All ready.
00:19:50 Cody Limbaugh
Ready to launch?
00:19:52 Cody Limbaugh
And so I can have consistency from my audience perspective of every Monday and every Wednesday, but I’m never pushed up against a hard day.
00:20:00 Cody Limbaugh
Deadline of stressed out and having to, you know, stay up late or sacrifice time, quality time with another person.
00:20:08 Cody Limbaugh
To achieve that.
00:20:09 Cody Limbaugh
Because I can just stick to my time blocks, and because I’ve prepared so much in advance, I have two months to assess that that process and if I see that the.
00:20:20 Cody Limbaugh
Catalog of episodes that I have is dwindling because my practice isn’t keeping up with it. Then I can adjust my practice time and say, well, maybe I need to do 45 minutes or maybe I need to do a 2 hour block on.
00:20:31 Cody Limbaugh
A Saturday or something.
00:20:32 Cody Limbaugh
That’s that’s just for that.
00:20:34 Cody Limbaugh
But I have.
00:20:34 Cody Limbaugh
Time to assess that because.
00:20:36 Cody Limbaugh
I’ve built that buffer in.
00:20:38 Patrick Martin
Excellent, excellent.
00:20:39 Patrick Martin
So it’s about process systems and parameters.
00:20:43 Patrick Martin
Right, which kind of translates to self compassion.
00:20:46 Cody Limbaugh
Right, right.
00:20:48 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:49 Cody Limbaugh
When I first started writing, you know, I I read the War of art by Steven Pressfield and some of these books, really amazing books, but a lot of authors have a word count goal for the day.
00:21:02 Cody Limbaugh
I’m going to write 500 words, 1000 words and my butts not going to move out of the chair.
00:21:07 Cody Limbaugh
Until 1000 words is done, even if they’re bad.
00:21:09 Cody Limbaugh
Words and that’s very, that’s somewhat process oriented, but.
00:21:14 Cody Limbaugh
I still think that.
00:21:15 Cody Limbaugh
That’s a little bit of a production trap because you’re saying that you haven’t been effective unless you get to 1000 words and 1000 words.
00:21:23 Cody Limbaugh
From an author’s perspective, some days can take 20 minutes because you’re just flowing, and other days that.
00:21:29 Speaker 3
Right.
00:21:29 Cody Limbaugh
Could be 3 hours.
00:21:29 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:21:30 Cody Limbaugh
Right.
00:21:30 Patrick Martin
There’s an account for writer’s block and.
00:21:32 Cody Limbaugh
Right.
00:21:33 Cody Limbaugh
So what?
00:21:34 Cody Limbaugh
I yeah, yeah.
00:21:35 Patrick Martin
Oh, Oh my kid.
00:21:36 Cody Limbaugh
So what I try to do?
00:21:36 Patrick Martin
You know, hurt, hurt themselves in a cartwheel in the backyard.
00:21:39 Patrick Martin
Have to stop what I’m doing.
00:21:40 Cody Limbaugh
Right. Yeah, yeah.
00:21:42 Cody Limbaugh
And So what I do is I actually use a timer and I find a timer to be very effective motivator because.
00:21:50 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, if you intend to sit and write for 30 minutes a day birth instead of 500 words, I’m committing to 30 minutes.
00:21:58
As soon as.
00:21:59 Cody Limbaugh
I see that timer counting down.
00:22:01 Cody Limbaugh
I I hit go on the timer.
00:22:02 Cody Limbaugh
It’s like, oh, I’m on, you know, there’s no, there’s no procrastination or no overthinking.
00:22:06 Patrick Martin
I don’t know.
00:22:07
It, you know.
00:22:07 Patrick Martin
Philip Brady.
00:22:09 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, because the 500.
00:22:09 Patrick Martin
About the flame let’s go, yeah.
00:22:10 Cody Limbaugh
Word yeah, yeah. With the 500 word goal, I might sit at that computer and not even start typing for 10 minutes.
00:22:17 Cody Limbaugh
But when I see that clock running, it’s like, oh, I have 30 minutes, let’s let’s get into this.
00:22:22 Cody Limbaugh
And it really is an amazing mental shift to get right to the task and.
00:22:29 Cody Limbaugh
One thing I’ve discovered about fear, which procrastination is often related to fear procrastination could be a lot.
00:22:35 Cody Limbaugh
Of things but.
00:22:36 Cody Limbaugh
But fear is one of them is that fear is very closely related to time, and the the shorter you can manage the time you spend thinking about something, the less you’re going to fear it.
00:22:47 Cody Limbaugh
And I learned.
00:22:49 Cody Limbaugh
This on the barbell actually learning to clean and jerk and ****** these or the Olympic weightlifting movements.
00:22:56 Cody Limbaugh
And it can be a little scary, because you’re.
00:22:58 Cody Limbaugh
Putting a lot of weight.
00:22:59 Cody Limbaugh
Overhead in a very dense.
00:23:02 Cody Limbaugh
It’s a fast, powerful movement, and so once you’ve practiced that to build up enough weight that it.
00:23:09 Cody Limbaugh
Can be dangerous.
00:23:10 Cody Limbaugh
There’s a bit of fear involved.
00:23:12 Patrick Martin
Sure, I can imagine.
00:23:14 Patrick Martin
Yeah, and.
00:23:14 Cody Limbaugh
So if you approach the.
00:23:15 Cody Limbaugh
Bar and you’re spending 10 minutes thinking about.
00:23:18 Cody Limbaugh
This next lift that fear builds.
00:23:21 Cody Limbaugh
And builds and builds and you’re actually more likely to miss the lift.
00:23:24 Cody Limbaugh
But if you can visualize a couple of successful reps and then give yourself some sort of cap, you know, I’m going to visualize 2 reps, I’m going to take 3 breaths, and then I’m going like whether I feel like it’s right or not.
00:23:39 Patrick Martin
Damn it, squirming, just thinking about it like I don’t know.
00:23:39 Cody Limbaugh
They may not feel right.
00:23:41 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, but if you really.
00:23:43 Cody Limbaugh
Shorten that time that you’re allowing yourself to think about it, the fear diminishes and so I find that that timer.
00:23:51 Cody Limbaugh
Is A, is a.
00:23:52 Cody Limbaugh
Really magic tool for me to get moving on things, not procrastinate, not overthink it.
00:23:57 Cody Limbaugh
Because as soon as that timers on I’m I’m doing the practice.
00:24:01 Patrick Martin
In 321 go bum.
00:24:04 Patrick Martin
I would think that has something to do with mono tasking, right?
00:24:08 Patrick Martin
That’s kind of catch phrase now, right?
00:24:10 Patrick Martin
Multitasking isn’t that effective.
00:24:12 Patrick Martin
Everyone X percent less productive when they try and do more than one thing at a time, but I found that to your point, even when I sit down to.
00:24:22 Patrick Martin
Try and multitask something.
00:24:24 Patrick Martin
I still give myself a lot of wiggle room.
00:24:25 Patrick Martin
Oh, let me get up and reheat my coffee.
00:24:27 Patrick Martin
Oh, let me go pin the dog real quick.
00:24:28 Patrick Martin
Oh, I forgot to.
00:24:29 Patrick Martin
Or the the pots outside.
00:24:31 Patrick Martin
Oh, I’ve heard, you know, and it’s like every 10 minutes I’m getting out of my, I’m squirming out of my chair to go like reset, do something else.
00:24:37 Patrick Martin
But it also.
00:24:38 Patrick Martin
Resets your your flow, right?
00:24:40 Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah, and depending on.
00:24:42 Cody Limbaugh
How your days are.
00:24:43 Cody Limbaugh
Structured, you know, sometimes I will let myself off the hook for those kind of things, but I don’t count that toward the 30 minutes.
00:24:50 Cody Limbaugh
So if my practice is 30 minutes, I have to hit pause on the timer.
00:24:53 Patrick Martin
Pause at a time.
00:24:54 Patrick Martin
Not smart.
00:24:54 Cody Limbaugh
I go get my coffee and then that just reminds me that, you know, I still.
00:24:57 Cody Limbaugh
Have this 20.
00:24:58 Cody Limbaugh
Three commit minute commitment.
00:25:00 Cody Limbaugh
Left, so I’m back there and get back onto that and so it still keeps my mind.
00:25:06 Cody Limbaugh
Coming back to that task.
00:25:09 Cody Limbaugh
But it’s not so rigid that, you know, I can’t have a bathroom break.
00:25:12 Cody Limbaugh
Or something you know.
00:25:13 Patrick Martin
Oh yes, exactly, exactly.
00:25:15 Patrick Martin
And I’m guilty of that sometimes.
00:25:16 Patrick Martin
I’m not getting, not going to the bathroom until this is done.
00:25:20 Patrick Martin
Like self self punishment.
00:25:22 Patrick Martin
Uhm, that’s true, right?
00:25:24 Patrick Martin
When something is forced on us, let’s say like in your nine to five, my nine to five job, if I have a call to make or, you know, something to write up, then.
00:25:34 Patrick Martin
I know I have to jump on because I’m on a tight schedule and I’ve got X.
00:25:38 Patrick Martin
Number of.
00:25:38 Patrick Martin
Things that I know are coming at me and an X number of things that are going to catch me blind side.
00:25:43 Patrick Martin
So I know there’s no room for wiggle room where I’m going to be paying for it all week, whereas when we’re doing, quote our own thing or, you know, being your own boss.
00:25:54 Patrick Martin
So to speak, it’s sometimes a lot easier to give ourselves justifications to.
00:25:58 Patrick Martin
Here, become overly obsessed or too distracted or procrastinate.
00:26:05 Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah, and I’ve dealt a lot with.
00:26:09 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, in my younger life, you know, I figured it was kind of like laziness issues, but I.
00:26:17 Cody Limbaugh
I came to realize that a lot of times I was just setting the bar too high in my head, you know, I wanted to jump into a high level of performance from nothing.
00:26:26 Cody Limbaugh
And there’s a first gear in a car for a reason you.
00:26:29 Cody Limbaugh
Know you can.
00:26:29 Cody Limbaugh
Just start a car in fifth gear.
00:26:32 Cody Limbaugh
I know everything is automatic nowadays, but I still drive a manual, so it’s a good analogy for me.
00:26:37 Cody Limbaugh
But the point is, is that I’ve learned since then to really set the bar low for an entry level of.
00:26:45 Cody Limbaugh
Where I want to start my practice is.
00:26:48 Cody Limbaugh
So, for instance, in meditation practices or something like that, if you start with 20 minutes or half an hour, that’s going to be a very daunting task for most people who have never meditated.
00:26:59 Cody Limbaugh
And you can actually start a meditation practice with three minutes, and it’s very difficult to justify not trying for three minutes.
00:27:08 Patrick Martin
It’s surprisingly difficult to sit with your own thoughts.
00:27:08 Cody Limbaugh
You know.
00:27:10 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, yes.
00:27:12 Cody Limbaugh
And I’m not saying that you might feel successful in 3 minutes, but to make the time commitment of a 3 minute practice every morning, you know, people can say, well, I don’t have time for a morning routine.
00:27:22 Cody Limbaugh
I work at, you know, 6:00 AM or whatever, but it’s a little difficult to justify why you can’t start a 3 minute practice, you know?
00:27:30 Speaker 4
Right, right.
00:27:30 Cody Limbaugh
It’s setting that bar low enough that you practically trip over it.
00:27:34 Cody Limbaugh
You don’t have to.
00:27:35 Cody Limbaugh
You don’t have to jump far.
00:27:36 Patrick Martin
Yeah, I like that.
00:27:37 Patrick Martin
I love that analogy because in.
00:27:39 Patrick Martin
Well, I’m actually trying to be consistent about working out and stuff.
00:27:43 Patrick Martin
I’ll try and I have, you know, I’ve learned that I have to literally take my dumbbells and put them somewhere where they will trip over there on my path on my, you know, to my computer or whatever.
00:27:49 Speaker 4
Yes, yeah.
00:27:52 Patrick Martin
And, you know, my little Home Office here or whatever, I’ll put them in front of my office chair or someplace inconvenient so I I don’t forget.
00:27:59 Patrick Martin
Well I want you know the pull up bar like in front of the the drawer so I have to move it to pull it.
00:28:03 Patrick Martin
I was like, oh.
00:28:03 Patrick Martin
Yeah, I didn’t do my lifts, you know?
00:28:05 Patrick Martin
I didn’t do it.
00:28:05 Patrick Martin
Yeah, but, you know, 10 whatever.
00:28:07 Patrick Martin
That’s great.
00:28:10 Patrick Martin
If I don’t want to forget my lunch and I’ll put my keys in the fridge, you know, I think we all need to have it stacked that way.
00:28:16 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, that’s good.
00:28:16 Patrick Martin
If it’s if something important like, you know, so we can’t, we can’t be out of sight, out of mind sometimes, yes.
00:28:22 Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:23 Patrick Martin
Simple tricks like that.
00:28:25 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, I that’s closely related to an idea that I I.
00:28:29 Cody Limbaugh
Just call reducing friction.
00:28:31 Cody Limbaugh
Because when it comes to developing, especially a new practice like working out or something like that, you don’t want to have everything so inaccessible that it’s a chore to to do the thing.
00:28:41 Cody Limbaugh
So if you’re going to a gym, you know you want to try to make sure that your clothes and gym bag and snack or whatever you need after work is.
00:28:50 Cody Limbaugh
In your car.
00:28:51 Cody Limbaugh
So that you don’t.
00:28:52 Speaker 3
Right.
00:28:52 Cody Limbaugh
Have to go home first ’cause.
00:28:53 Cody Limbaugh
If you go home first, now you have this big obstacle to overcome to go back to the gym.
00:28:58 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, so the more opportunities you can find in your life to reduce friction, I think we only have so much willpower to go around.
00:29:06 Cody Limbaugh
It’s almost like a.
00:29:07 Cody Limbaugh
Budget, you know, and if you can reduce that, that, that load of willpower, any opportunity you can get but still maintain your good practices, then that’s a good thing.
00:29:09
Right.
00:29:19 Cody Limbaugh
So the analogy I use a lot is for guitar.
00:29:22 Cody Limbaugh
I I have my guitar hanging on a guitar hanger on the wall.
00:29:26 Cody Limbaugh
Because if it’s in its case, that’s just.
00:29:28 Cody Limbaugh
Enough friction to keep me.
00:29:30 Cody Limbaugh
From picking up, right?
00:29:30 Patrick Martin
I’m glad it works for you.
00:29:31 Patrick Martin
I have guitar sitting right here that I have started to learn after like 8 years of being in the.
00:29:36 Patrick Martin
Raj but her brother gave it to me.
00:29:38 Patrick Martin
So my brother is watching this.
00:29:40 Patrick Martin
I have learned to do 2 chords.
00:29:42 Speaker 3
Right.
00:29:43 Patrick Martin
But I bought.
00:29:44 Patrick Martin
Simply piano for my kids ’cause.
00:29:45 Patrick Martin
They begged for it for Christmas and they’ve used it twice and I’m like, I’m not going to let it go to waste.
00:29:50 Patrick Martin
Simply good heart comes.
00:29:52 Cody Limbaugh
Like that.
00:29:53 Patrick Martin
But yeah, sometimes for me, even by if it sits there long enough, it’s going to be out of sight.
00:29:59 Patrick Martin
Because it’s because it becomes part of the fixture.
00:30:01 Patrick Martin
Of the room, yeah.
00:30:03 Cody Limbaugh
Absolutely, yeah.
00:30:04 Cody Limbaugh
When I first began to to toy with these ideas of the Liceum method, I actually set an alarm on my phone for.
00:30:12 Cody Limbaugh
Some of these practices.
00:30:13 Cody Limbaugh
And I downloaded an app called Habit Loop and there’s lots of different habit, habit tracking apps and.
00:30:20 Cody Limbaugh
What I would do is I’d set an alarm for a specific time of day to pick up the guitar and I set the bar.
00:30:26 Cody Limbaugh
Like I said, before I said it solo it was 5 minutes.
00:30:29 Cody Limbaugh
I if I pick up the guitar for 5 minutes.
00:30:32 Cody Limbaugh
And just, you know, strum a couple chords, whatever.
00:30:35 Cody Limbaugh
If I’m just doing something on the guitar for 5 minutes, I’ve met my sort of quota for the day now.
00:30:40 Cody Limbaugh
If I’m having fun and I have the time, I can extend that.
00:30:44 Cody Limbaugh
Practice, of course.
00:30:45 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:30:46 Cody Limbaugh
But the five minutes is all it takes for a victory to be able to go.
00:30:49 Cody Limbaugh
Into the app and say.
00:30:50 Cody Limbaugh
You know, put the check mark on.
00:30:51 Cody Limbaugh
I did it that day.
00:30:52 Cody Limbaugh
And then the the.
00:30:54 Cody Limbaugh
Goal if you want to use that word.
00:30:55 Cody Limbaugh
Goal is to see how many days in a row I can have a chain of events.
00:30:59 Patrick Martin
Great. Yeah.
00:30:59 Cody Limbaugh
You know, like, oh, I.
00:31:00 Cody Limbaugh
Got I got 12 days and and if you fall off the wagon, you only miss one day.
00:31:04 Cody Limbaugh
It’s like, well, I missed that day.
00:31:06 Cody Limbaugh
Pick up the next day, try it again.
00:31:09 Cody Limbaugh
But with the use.
00:31:11 Cody Limbaugh
Of an alarm timer.
00:31:13 Cody Limbaugh
So you have that 5 minutes, you know it’s only going to be 5 minutes.
00:31:15 Cody Limbaugh
You can squeeze it.
00:31:16 Cody Limbaugh
In, you know, setting the bar low and then trying to see how many consecutive days all those things kind of work together to really start to develop.
00:31:26 Cody Limbaugh
A mindset where you’re you’re practicing.
00:31:28 Cody Limbaugh
And it’s really interesting too.
00:31:31 Cody Limbaugh
The amount of progress you can make in 5 minutes, because I, you know, a lot of times we’re taught well, it’s 20 minutes minimum if you’re going to do anything on purpose, you know, but.
00:31:42 Cody Limbaugh
In the experiment of doing this, I actually set myself up with quite a few practices.
00:31:47 Cody Limbaugh
I actually have, I think about a dozen different.
00:31:49 Cody Limbaugh
Things that I was doing, trying.
00:31:50 Cody Limbaugh
To do every day.
00:31:51 Cody Limbaugh
You know, write and meditate and journal and guitar.
00:31:54 Cody Limbaugh
And I had these various check things, but each one was.
00:31:57 Cody Limbaugh
Such a low barrier that it.
00:31:59 Cody Limbaugh
Was hard to find an excuse not to do this thing for three minutes.
00:32:03 Cody Limbaugh
This thing for five minute.
00:32:04 Cody Limbaugh
But after two.
00:32:05 Cody Limbaugh
Weeks of doing that, my calluses had returned by my hands, so the guitar didn’t hurt anymore, and within a month I had gone back to a level of playing that I hadn’t experienced for almost 10 years of sporadic playing before that.
00:32:20 Cody Limbaugh
So it was really shocking to me the the level of progress you can.
00:32:23 Cody Limbaugh
Make with a very.
00:32:24 Cody Limbaugh
Very, very small commitment like that, but I don’t think we realized that because I I feel like.
00:32:30 Cody Limbaugh
We’re just taught.
00:32:30 Cody Limbaugh
Kind of a whole hustle.
00:32:31 Cody Limbaugh
Culture where you’re not doing this for three hours.
00:32:34 Cody Limbaugh
A day you might as well.
00:32:35 Cody Limbaugh
Just not do it like get to work, you know?
00:32:36 Patrick Martin
Because you’re not serious about it, right?
00:32:38 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, yeah, but a.
00:32:39 Cody Limbaugh
Little bit.
00:32:41 Cody Limbaugh
Done consistently over time can really have dramatic effects.
00:32:45 Patrick Martin
Oh yeah, I’ve done that to be true in my life, and I have to remind myself of that all the time.
00:32:50 Patrick Martin
Even I talked to clients about that and you know the the idea of what we call goal pacing, right?
00:32:55 Patrick Martin
If you can, if this is your ideal, like let’s say go, go swim, you know X number of laps at the gym that’s 20 miles away.
00:33:03 Patrick Martin
Right, how many gyms have a pool?
00:33:04 Patrick Martin
Uhm, you know, and that’s your ideal.
00:33:09 Patrick Martin
A lot of people get stuck in all or nothing thinking black and white.
00:33:12 Patrick Martin
If I don’t have time to do that, then I’m not going to do anything at all because there’s.
00:33:15 Patrick Martin
Nothing planned for, right?
00:33:17 Patrick Martin
In an ocean of gold pacing, it’s kind of like, well, what’s the next best thing?
00:33:21 Patrick Martin
If I can’t go to the gym.
00:33:23 Patrick Martin
What’s the next best thing?
00:33:24 Patrick Martin
Well, maybe I can go for a run.
00:33:26 Patrick Martin
Well, if I can’t go for a run ’cause, I’m my back starting wherever excuse because they give ourselves, you know, then I can go for it to 15 minutes.
00:33:34 Patrick Martin
If I can do a 15 minute walk, what’s the next best thing?
00:33:36 Patrick Martin
Well, I can do some jumping jacks in my living room.
00:33:39 Speaker 4
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
00:33:42 Patrick Martin
So I think that’s very close, closely aligned with my removing friction, which is also planning for a rhythm, right?
00:33:51 Patrick Martin
You know, making sure the rhythm is not disrupted.
00:33:54 Patrick Martin
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:55 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, and I think we underestimate the power of those small things.
00:33:58 Cody Limbaugh
You know a few jumping jacks in the living room.
00:34:01 Cody Limbaugh
If you find yourself doing that day after day, you might be surprised how your cardiovascular system improves even from just a small intentional.
00:34:10 Cody Limbaugh
Act like that.
00:34:11 Cody Limbaugh
But done consistently, yeah.
00:34:14 Patrick Martin
And like you were saying a, once we get moving with something, we tend to feel motivated then to to to continue.
00:34:21 Patrick Martin
So that whole law of inertia riot, body in motion tends to stay in motion or body at rest tends to stay at rest.
00:34:27 Patrick Martin
And that’s so true.
00:34:28 Patrick Martin
I think that also holds true for our train of thought.
00:34:31 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:34:32 Patrick Martin
Once we service, once we commit to a direction, our mind, for better or worse, will often it’ll flow that direction, right?
00:34:33 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:40 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:41 Cody Limbaugh
I’ve begun to think of.
00:34:44 Cody Limbaugh
The way that we think a lot of times as grooves that the more you do it, the deeper the groove gets and.
00:34:53 Cody Limbaugh
Sometimes I can even lead to pathology.
00:34:55 Cody Limbaugh
Now I’m speaking out of turn because you you’re much more educated on this specific topic than I am.
00:35:00 Cody Limbaugh
But in reading things like how the brain changes itself and and the power of habit by doing, you know, then these types of books really illustrate how we can direct a thought once.
00:35:13 Cody Limbaugh
And if we repeat that way of thinking long enough, it becomes sort of an autopilot that’s.
00:35:18 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:35:19 Cody Limbaugh
A runaway train that out of our control and for better or worse, like you say, it can be in either direction.
00:35:26 Cody Limbaugh
Uhm, but that’s another.
00:35:29 Cody Limbaugh
Practice that I try to implement is a morning routine where there might be some meditation and I have a specific journaling prompt that I use in the in the liceum method, which starts with gratitude.
00:35:43 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, because that, to me, brings me into the present, you know?
00:35:48 Cody Limbaugh
I’m remembering that things are pretty good now.
00:35:51 Cody Limbaugh
And then it goes into a vision for what I want in the future and then affirmations of the person I need.
00:35:58 Cody Limbaugh
To be for that future.
00:36:00 Cody Limbaugh
And then a single action that I can take today to bring me closer to the vision.
00:36:03 Cody Limbaugh
So just that action line has to be simple.
00:36:06 Cody Limbaugh
It can’t be a todo list.
00:36:08 Cody Limbaugh
It’s one thing that’s going to bring me closer to that vision.
00:36:12 Patrick Martin
I like that because too many, too many.
00:36:16 Patrick Martin
Even well intended ideas in our head or commitments can sometimes make like you said add friction, right and so being very keeping it very simple.
00:36:23 Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:25 Patrick Martin
I was doing, I was kind of practicing that this morning as I was trying to join my coffee and the the front lawn and I was doing some stretches and I.
00:36:31 Patrick Martin
Was just kind of saying out loud to myself what I was grateful for.
00:36:34 Patrick Martin
The price of stretching.
00:36:34 Cody Limbaugh
It’s great. Yeah.
00:36:35 Patrick Martin
I’m grateful for my health.
00:36:36 Patrick Martin
I’m grateful for my family.
00:36:38 Patrick Martin
I’m grateful for my.
00:36:39 Patrick Martin
My dogs ones which?
00:36:41 Patrick Martin
I love even stand where he’s sleeping on the carpet.
00:36:43
Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
00:36:51 Patrick Martin
And I think that is very very, very important and keeping it, not overthinking it, right?
00:36:56 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, and I think one way that I’ve related it to this whole idea that I have of like, this is a groove and it’s going to become a rut kind of thing is.
00:37:08 Cody Limbaugh
It’s sort of going back to the beginning of our conversation where when you have a specific goal, that’s way out in.
00:37:13 Cody Limbaugh
The future, the the idea.
00:37:15 Cody Limbaugh
Of delayed gratification is often taught as sort of this moral standard that we should all be trying to achieve.
00:37:21 Cody Limbaugh
But sometimes delayed gratification can also present itself as I’ll be happy when and you get in this happy, this habit of I’ll be happy when I lose 20 pounds, I’ll be happy when I am making six figures or, you know, whatever.
00:37:35 Cody Limbaugh
But the thing that we don’t realize is that if we’re not practicing gratitude and being present and being happy when we achieve that goal, our mindset will not have changed because we all have developed a habit, a groove, a rut.
00:37:50 Cody Limbaugh
Of not being grateful and not being present. So the thing won’t change that the $100,000 or the girlfriend or the 20 pounds lost or whatever is not going to change the way that we are used to thinking. And so one of my objectives with my method is to try.
00:38:10 Cody Limbaugh
To develop practices now of living present and grateful and happy, so that when I do achieve the things that I want to achieve in the future, I’m already in the in that mode of.
00:38:20 Cody Limbaugh
Oh, I’m so.
00:38:21 Cody Limbaugh
Great, I’m so grateful to be here.
00:38:23 Cody Limbaugh
I’m I’m.
00:38:24 Cody Limbaugh
I’m present with my relationships, and these are habits and practices that I’ve been doing all along the way instead of delayed delaying happiness.
00:38:31 Cody Limbaugh
For the goal, yeah.
00:38:32 Patrick Martin
The mantra I sometimes use is I’ve already won.
00:38:35 Patrick Martin
Yeah, I’m already one.
00:38:37 Patrick Martin
Everything else is kind of like a.
00:38:38 Patrick Martin
Monopoly game. Yeah, yeah.
00:38:42 Patrick Martin
But to your point, there’s a lot of science behind what you’re talking about and the actual name.
00:38:46 Patrick Martin
For that is dendrites.
00:38:47 Patrick Martin
Those grooves you’re talking about are dendrites.
00:38:49 Patrick Martin
And it’s a.
00:38:49 Patrick Martin
It’s a legitimate thing.
00:38:52 Patrick Martin
Our thoughts literally.
00:38:54 Patrick Martin
It’s like roads like it.
00:38:55 Patrick Martin
It’s like you’re on a hiking trail and you’re going down a road that you know the.
00:38:59 Patrick Martin
Same trail everybody else takes.
00:39:01 Patrick Martin
It doesn’t take that much resistance you’re just going to naturally follow, but if you want to venture off on to create a new path, it’s going to be a lot of work and your body is not going to want to go cycling to do the work.
00:39:12 Patrick Martin
You know you gotta hack your way through.
00:39:14 Patrick Martin
Do it.
00:39:15 Patrick Martin
And eventually, over time, the two paths look similar and your mind will your thought process will fight you less on taking the new beaten path.
00:39:25 Patrick Martin
But it takes a, like you said, a lot of repetition and now to form those new dendrites.
00:39:30 Patrick Martin
And yeah, it is as you say, you know?
00:39:34 Patrick Martin
A conscious effort.
00:39:36 Patrick Martin
To catch ourselves to to direct our thoughts.
00:39:41 Patrick Martin
And one of the most powerful things is gratitude.
00:39:44 Cody Limbaugh
Absolutely, yeah.
00:39:46 Cody Limbaugh
And and then just relating that to that low barrier of entry, I think it’s magic.
00:39:52 Cody Limbaugh
It’s like magic because we can start to shift that daily practice of thought and the the the dendrites like you’re talking about, but just with very small effort, you know just I mean it’s going to right.
00:40:04 Cody Limbaugh
One thing I’m grateful for today in my journal and if you need, uh, a reminder in your phone to do that, or you know, something to trigger that at first if it’s not a habit.
00:40:14 Cody Limbaugh
But set the bar low enough so you’re not thinking, well, I have to come up with 10 things or, you know, I have to spend this amount of time or, you know, set the bar real low and that just begins to snowball into the new path that’s is better trodden and it’s, you know, that path is being it is getting easier and easier the longer you do it.
00:40:36 Cody Limbaugh
So that’s really the key is just to start with something that’s so easy that you almost can’t help but do it consistently because there’s just more.
00:40:42 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:40:43 Speaker 4
See? Uh.
00:40:44 Patrick Martin
And it really is.
00:40:45 Patrick Martin
I mean, it’s a lot too that even the Apple Watch since I got mine for my last birthday.
00:40:51 Patrick Martin
Every, you know, night, like at 11:00 o’clock, you know, ’cause.
00:40:54 Patrick Martin
I usually go to bed around midnight one, unless I’m not loving myself and I want to be up late editing the podcast.
00:41:01 Patrick Martin
Uhm, it’ll remind you it was like, Ding Ding, you know, take a moment to.
00:41:05 Patrick Martin
Be mindful, it’s like something as simple as that may seem like really.
00:41:09 Patrick Martin
Do we? Do I need?
00:41:10 Patrick Martin
Reminder for that, yes, I do.
00:41:11 Speaker 4
Yeah, absolutely.
00:41:12 Patrick Martin
Yes, I do.
00:41:14 Patrick Martin
Otherwise, it’s just, I’m going to keep flipping the TV channel or I’ll be finding some more work to do, or, you know, something is going to demand my attention.
00:41:23 Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:25 Cody Limbaugh
I think that really speaks to me too, about the power of a morning routine, because.
00:41:32 Cody Limbaugh
Most of us don’t have a lot of distractions when we first wake up, you know?
00:41:37 Cody Limbaugh
Some of us may be getting ready for work, but you know, right now I’m still working at a job.
00:41:41 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, for another two months and then I’ll be quitting that job to go full time in in our business.
00:41:46 Speaker 4
But thanks, but in.
00:41:46 Speaker 3
Rat, Fink, lad.
00:41:49 Cody Limbaugh
The meantime, my job is really early, so I feel like it’s an opportunity for me to walk the walk for my clients and say, hey, I know what?
00:41:55 Cody Limbaugh
You’re going through because.
00:41:57 Cody Limbaugh
I get up at 4:30 or 4:45 in the.
00:41:59 Cody Limbaugh
Morning in order to have.
00:42:02 Cody Limbaugh
The morning routine that I need, and so that includes just a 10 minute meditation.
00:42:07 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, journaling with the Lyceum method prompts.
00:42:11 Cody Limbaugh
That I described.
00:42:12 Cody Limbaugh
And then I go and workout in.
00:42:13 Cody Limbaugh
The gym for.
00:42:14 Cody Limbaugh
30 to to.
00:42:15 Cody Limbaugh
16 minutes and then I just have enough time to get ready to go to work and.
00:42:21 Cody Limbaugh
The thing I found for myself is if.
00:42:23 Cody Limbaugh
That’s not in.
00:42:23 Cody Limbaugh
The morning it doesn’t get done, and if it does get done, it doesn’t get done consistently.
00:42:29 Cody Limbaugh
But if I build it as part of the start of my day, not only does it set me up well for.
00:42:34 Cody Limbaugh
The day you just feel good that I’ve accomplished those things.
00:42:38 Cody Limbaugh
Exercise makes you feel good, makes you sleep better at night when you exercise.
00:42:41 Cody Limbaugh
In the morning now, like like lots of different, lots of different aspects to the intention behind.
00:42:47 Cody Limbaugh
Each part.
00:42:47 Cody Limbaugh
Of that morning routine that I have.
00:42:49 Cody Limbaugh
But the one thing that it does really is it just builds consistency.
00:42:53 Cody Limbaugh
It’s a low barrier for consistency because as long as I can, you know, get my **** up out of bed, that’s really the only hard part.
00:42:59 Cody Limbaugh
And then the rest.
00:43:00 Cody Limbaugh
Of that can be.
00:43:00 Patrick Martin
Isn’t that the truth? Yeah.
00:43:02 Cody Limbaugh
Just sort of flow and then and then I know I’ve.
00:43:04 Cody Limbaugh
Done it for the day where if.
00:43:06 Cody Limbaugh
I wait till.
00:43:07 Cody Limbaugh
After work I I definitely have the time.
00:43:09 Cody Limbaugh
After work because I’m home fairly early in the afternoon, having such an early schedule.
00:43:14 Cody Limbaugh
But boy, I think yeah.
00:43:16 Cody Limbaugh
Well, we forget, I think.
00:43:18 Cody Limbaugh
When we’re budgeting time, you can sit down with a planner and you’re budgeting time and we totally forget that we need to budget.
00:43:25 Cody Limbaugh
You only have so much energy in the day, and if you’re not budgeting energy, I’m.
00:43:30 Cody Limbaugh
So guilty of this.
00:43:31 Cody Limbaugh
For so long that I would schedule.
00:43:34 Cody Limbaugh
15 minute blocks all throughout my whole day, you know?
00:43:37 Cody Limbaugh
And on paper it’s great.
00:43:39 Cody Limbaugh
It looks logical, it looks fine.
00:43:41 Cody Limbaugh
I’ve even built in some breaks here and there.
00:43:43 Cody Limbaugh
And that it looks like it should all.
00:43:45 Cody Limbaugh
But I was totally unprepared for the fact that by 3:00 PM I’m I’m bunking and acted and can’t stay in flight.
00:43:52 Cody Limbaugh
And yeah.
00:43:53 Patrick Martin
You wrote a great article on that.
00:43:55 Patrick Martin
Actually, I was reading it this morning.
00:43:57 Patrick Martin
I was checking out your website.
00:43:58 Patrick Martin
Live all your life.
00:43:59 Patrick Martin
You had a A blog post on that particular subject, I believe, and you know the one of the most valuable resources.
00:44:06 Patrick Martin
And guess what?
00:44:07 Patrick Martin
You know time management isn’t the only one you know, it’s your energy.
00:44:12 Patrick Martin
Leaves as your attention right where we give our attention to in factoring in not just time, but our mood, right anticipating our moods.
00:44:20 Cody Limbaugh
Right, which is really difficult to do, and you just reminded me of another thing, not.
00:44:24 Cody Limbaugh
To just bash goals the whole.
00:44:25 Cody Limbaugh
Power here, but.
00:44:28 Cody Limbaugh
But my.
00:44:29 Cody Limbaugh
My thought on goal setting can sometimes need that.
00:44:34 Cody Limbaugh
We we sometimes are not very good judges of what future US really wants.
00:44:41 Cody Limbaugh
Because we really don’t know, you know, people who are going to come into our lives, people who talk about a five year plan for something.
00:44:47 Cody Limbaugh
I’m always like, uhm, I wonder, you know who are who are you going to meet in the next five years?
00:44:52 Cody Limbaugh
Are you still going to have the same relationships that you have?
00:44:55 Cody Limbaugh
Are you?
00:44:55 Cody Limbaugh
Still going to have the.
00:44:56 Cody Limbaugh
Same career path.
00:44:57 Cody Limbaugh
You know, we live in a.
00:44:58 Cody Limbaugh
Really dynamic world.
00:45:00 Cody Limbaugh
These days there’s just opportunities and information coming at us, just like an overwhelming ocean wave coming at us all the time.
00:45:11 Cody Limbaugh
So to think that we will know exactly what we want in a very specific way for a goal that’s a year out or.
00:45:18 Cody Limbaugh
Two years out.
00:45:19 Cody Limbaugh
I think it’s.
00:45:20 Cody Limbaugh
A it’s a really tough mark to hit because I know from my experience now that I’m I’m 47, I feel like I’ve lived long enough to have some say and like.
00:45:31 Cody Limbaugh
What this pattern is that I would think I knew what I wanted five years from now.
00:45:36 Cody Limbaugh
And looking back, it’s like sometimes I’m glad I didn’t achieve some of the things that I.
00:45:40 Cody Limbaugh
Wanted to achieve because that’s.
00:45:41 Patrick Martin
Write him into that.
00:45:42 Cody Limbaugh
Like how my yeah, my association, my, my, my religious beliefs, my philosophy on life, my politics, I like. All kinds of things have shifted and changed over the last 20-30 years. And so sometimes.
00:45:56 Cody Limbaugh
We’re not very good.
00:45:57 Cody Limbaugh
Judge of what we want in the future.
00:45:58 Patrick Martin
Yeah, reminds me that saying life is what happens while you’re making.
00:46:01 Patrick Martin
Other plans, right?
00:46:02 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, yeah.
00:46:04 Patrick Martin
It’s like goals.
00:46:06 Patrick Martin
But understand this moving target and what you want now may be different than what you want later.
00:46:10 Patrick Martin
But it is important to be moving.
00:46:13 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, yes, yeah.
00:46:13 Patrick Martin
Meaning direction.
00:46:16 Cody Limbaugh
And that’s why in my journal prompts I I have vision on there instead of goals because I like to imagine.
00:46:23 Cody Limbaugh
The vision of.
00:46:25 Cody Limbaugh
A more optimal life for myself and know that I’m on a trajectory that’s toward those values.
00:46:31 Cody Limbaugh
But they’re broad values, they’re not as specific as a goal, and I allow them to shift without any guilt.
00:46:40 Cody Limbaugh
So in my journaling process of if, since it’s a daily imagining.
00:46:46 Cody Limbaugh
You can compare my journal from now to two years ago.
00:46:49 Cody Limbaugh
It’s not going to look the same, but I’ve allowed myself to shift that vision along with my own personal growth, and so there’s no guilt that I didn’t hit a goal, or that I missed over that, or that I quit or anything like that.
00:47:02 Cody Limbaugh
It’s just that my trajectory is always going toward my current.
00:47:05 Cody Limbaugh
Vision for what I feel I want.
00:47:08 Cody Limbaugh
And uh.
00:47:11 Cody Limbaugh
Amazingly, I’ve made more progress doing that than I did setting specific goals, even though it sounds counter intuitive.
00:47:15 Patrick Martin
Yes, I believe that because I tend to think in pictures anyway.
00:47:19 Patrick Martin
I do anyway.
00:47:20 Patrick Martin
And I, you know, I do try and paint a picture of vision, a kind of movie clips in my head of what it is that I value and what I want in life, including my future there.
00:47:32 Patrick Martin
That’s a beautiful thing about being human, right?
00:47:34 Patrick Martin
We have this mind high where we.
00:47:36 Patrick Martin
We can use our imagination and.
00:47:39 Patrick Martin
And line that up with our desires and try and create something that we can then move toward, right?
00:47:46 Patrick Martin
I do believe everything is created twice, right?
00:47:48 Patrick Martin
1st in our mind and then our actions, right?
00:47:51 Patrick Martin
Like an artist.
00:47:51 Patrick Martin
You’d know I’m not an artist, but you like to sketch, right?
00:47:54 Patrick Martin
You have to kind of imagine to some extent what it is that you are imagining.
00:47:58 Patrick Martin
Before you sketch it right.
00:47:59 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, yeah.
00:48:01 Cody Limbaugh
And that really, that really goes back to exactly what I was just talking about and that’s a perfect analogy because.
00:48:07 Cody Limbaugh
As an artist, and I think anyone who is an artist can relate to this analogy, when you sit down to create a piece of art, you do have this imagining of what you’re about to start to create first.
00:48:19 Cody Limbaugh
But the moment my pencil touches the paper, there’s a disconnect between what’s actually on the paper and what’s in my mind.
00:48:26 Cody Limbaugh
And when I.
00:48:26 Cody Limbaugh
Was a kid.
00:48:28 Cody Limbaugh
I used to think of that as well.
00:48:29 Cody Limbaugh
I’m just not a good enough artist.
00:48:31 Cody Limbaugh
I’m just not able to produce what I want to produce because.
00:48:34 Cody Limbaugh
I don’t have the skills, but a few years back I will I not wrote.
00:48:40 Cody Limbaugh
I read a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Big Magic and in there she describes that art is really a relationship like between you and your muse, and she kind of personifies this idea and I don’t necessarily buy into the personification of it.
00:48:55 Cody Limbaugh
But even as a concept, it really makes a lot of sense that the reason that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts the.
00:49:02 Cody Limbaugh
The reason that saying is true is that.
00:49:06 Cody Limbaugh
When you put things together, there’s the parts, but then there’s the relationship between those parts, and that’s the multiplying factor.
00:49:14 Cody Limbaugh
That’s why the sum, that’s why the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because there’s a multiplying factor of all the relationships between the parts.
00:49:23 Cody Limbaugh
And with art.
00:49:24 Cody Limbaugh
As soon as I begin to draw it, it’s different than what I intended.
00:49:28 Cody Limbaugh
Sometimes it’s pretty close.
00:49:29 Cody Limbaugh
You know, it might be the same person, for instance, if I’m drawing face, and it might be recognizable and acceptable, but maybe the lighting is shifted or the texture that I had envisioned is slightly different.
00:49:40 Cody Limbaugh
But sometimes now that I’m.
00:49:41 Cody Limbaugh
A little more mature, I can look.
00:49:43 Cody Limbaugh
At that art and.
00:49:43 Cody Limbaugh
Say that’s actually better than what I had thought it was going to be like.
00:49:47 Cody Limbaugh
I can be proud of that, even though it’s not.
00:49:48 Cody Limbaugh
Quite what I had in my mind I when I started the drawing, but the relationship between me and the drawing developed and I allowed that to develop.
00:49:57 Cody Limbaugh
I actually had a.
00:49:59 Cody Limbaugh
A wise grade school teacher, and his first name was.
00:50:01 Cody Limbaugh
Art. Art Payne, who?
00:50:04 Cody Limbaugh
Who taught me this because I was so frustrated?
00:50:07 Cody Limbaugh
I’d start to Draw Something, crumple it up and throw it away.
00:50:09 Cody Limbaugh
And he just saw me struggling over and over, just all these crumpled papers around me, and almost I had tears.
00:50:15 Cody Limbaugh
Know, I was just.
00:50:15 Cody Limbaugh
So frustrated and.
00:50:16 Cody Limbaugh
He said.
00:50:16 Cody Limbaugh
Why don’t you just finish one?
00:50:18 Cody Limbaugh
Even if you hate it, just finish.
00:50:20 Cody Limbaugh
Don’t erase anything, don’t throw it away.
00:50:22 Cody Limbaugh
Just finish the drawing.
00:50:24 Cody Limbaugh
And when I was done, it was like the best drawing I had ever done up to.
00:50:28 Cody Limbaugh
That point, and I was so proud of it.
00:50:30 Cody Limbaugh
And everybody in class.
00:50:31 Cody Limbaugh
Was like, oh wow, you drew.
00:50:32 Cody Limbaugh
That and it was like, oh, OK, so.
00:50:34 Cody Limbaugh
It doesn’t have to be perfect.
00:50:35 Cody Limbaugh
It’s just that art has flaws and I approach my vision for the future in the same way that it’s a relationship between me and the real world.
00:50:45 Cody Limbaugh
So I can imagine this sort of perfect day, but my relationships with my wife and the land that we live on in our local community and my clients and all of these things.
00:50:56 Cody Limbaugh
Can be allowed to play a role in shaping that vision, and I can approach it with a sense of wonder.
00:51:02 Cody Limbaugh
Like I wonder.
00:51:03 Cody Limbaugh
How this is going to turn out, you know, as long as.
00:51:05 Cody Limbaugh
I know, I’m.
00:51:06 Cody Limbaugh
I’ve got the right trajectory and I’m looking toward it.
00:51:09 Patrick Martin
That’s really insightful.
00:51:11 Patrick Martin
So just to kind of.
00:51:14 Patrick Martin
Reframe that so life is not.
00:51:18 Patrick Martin
Does not always have to be a mirror reflection of our ideals.
00:51:22 Patrick Martin
But it should be congruent.
00:51:25 Patrick Martin
With our values.
00:51:25 Speaker 4
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:51:28 Cody Limbaugh
I I like the term trajectory because yeah.
00:51:33 Cody Limbaugh
The vision can change and move a little bit, but you can just kind of.
00:51:37 Cody Limbaugh
Shift toward that new or burst and that and as long as you feel like you’re on the right trajectory there in a sense of victory, like I’m going the right way, I’m making progress.
00:51:47 Cody Limbaugh
And progress feels good, you know?
00:51:49 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:51 Cody Limbaugh
But it takes some fluidity and some.
00:51:54 Cody Limbaugh
Some willingness to approach life with a little curiosity.
00:51:59 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, and I and another thing that has another concept that I play with in this, this whole like this whole big realm of ideas is the idea of things like curiosity and wonder.
00:52:12 Cody Limbaugh
As being life skills, those are not necessarily things.
00:52:17 Cody Limbaugh
I mean we are inherently born with those, but they can be developed.
00:52:22 Cody Limbaugh
So the morning you can approach things with curiosity.
00:52:26 Cody Limbaugh
The more you can develop it as a skill and it actually becomes fun.
00:52:29 Cody Limbaugh
You know, and I think meditation taught me that because I was in a guided meditation where he was saying, you know, like if you’re having a hard time focusing on your breath, approach it with a sense of curiosity.
00:52:40 Cody Limbaugh
Is this breath longer than the last one?
00:52:42 Cody Limbaugh
Is this breath shallower than the last one?
00:52:44 Cody Limbaugh
Is there more space between this breath and the last one?
00:52:47 Cody Limbaugh
You feel this one more in your chest.
00:52:50 Cody Limbaugh
Or your stomach.
00:52:50 Cody Limbaugh
Or your nose.
00:52:51 Cody Limbaugh
You know, like and if you’re asking questions and becoming curious, curious about something as mundane as.
00:52:57 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, breath after breath after breath.
00:52:59 Cody Limbaugh
Then you can develop a skill of being curious about.
00:53:02 Cody Limbaugh
Just about anything.
00:53:04 Patrick Martin
And I I do believe that as a superpower that anyone can.
00:53:07 Patrick Martin
Learn, when I’m working with clients, especially those dealing with very rigid thought processes around depression and anxiety and just, you know, we wanted the negative self talk that comes with that, a lot of the worry I remind them, you know, I thought is either a statement or it’s a question.
00:53:23 Patrick Martin
That’s it.
00:53:25 Patrick Martin
Right.
00:53:25 Patrick Martin
It’s a statement or a question and if you can shift from having less statements and more questions.
00:53:32 Patrick Martin
AKA being curious.
00:53:34 Patrick Martin
Right, you’re going to have a lot less anxiety and depression as a result, because you’re going to become more inquisitive.
00:53:41 Patrick Martin
You’re going to you’re going to have an open mind to possibilities, as opposed to getting attached to your your predetermined notions about the self, about how the world works, and how you how you relate to the.
00:53:51 Cody Limbaugh
World yeah, and you bring up a good point with.
00:53:54 Cody Limbaugh
Talking about the self, because I think when we are rigid in those types of thinking, they become part of our identity.
00:54:01 Cody Limbaugh
You know, another thing I learned in a guided meditation was.
00:54:07 Cody Limbaugh
Being able to look at your feelings in in different perspectives and so you start with the mantra that I am sad.
00:54:16 Cody Limbaugh
And that’s a very much an identity statement, right.
00:54:19 Cody Limbaugh
I am sad and then you can say, well, I feel sad.
00:54:24 Cody Limbaugh
And then there’s this one step of removal there that.
00:54:27 Cody Limbaugh
So this is a feeling I have.
00:54:29 Cody Limbaugh
It’s not me.
00:54:30 Cody Limbaugh
And then you can even go one step further back and say.
00:54:34 Cody Limbaugh
I recognize that I’m feeling sad.
00:54:38 Cody Limbaugh
And then you can go back further and say I’m OK with the recognition that I feel sad and so, you know, it allows you to to both be in touch with that feeling, but not be, it’s not an identifier.
00:54:51 Cody Limbaugh
And so, yeah, I think that kind of relates to that.
00:54:54 Cody Limbaugh
Sense of curiosity well.
00:54:56 Cody Limbaugh
You know why is this happening, but it’s not.
00:54:58 Cody Limbaugh
Why is this happening to me?
00:54:59 Cody Limbaugh
Like a victim, it’s like.
00:55:00 Cody Limbaugh
Well, you know.
00:55:03 Cody Limbaugh
What will?
00:55:05 Cody Limbaugh
What will this look like 10 minutes from now or tomorrow?
00:55:07 Cody Limbaugh
You know this is this is a fluid thing.
00:55:10 Cody Limbaugh
This isn’t, I am sad.
00:55:12 Cody Limbaugh
It’s just I feel sad right now.
00:55:14 Cody Limbaugh
And that’s just right now.
00:55:16 Patrick Martin
Absolutely very fluid.
00:55:16 Cody Limbaugh
So yeah, yeah.
00:55:17 Patrick Martin
Very fluid indeed.
00:55:19 Patrick Martin
Learning to not chase down or be it too attached to our thoughts or feelings.
00:55:23 Patrick Martin
But understand how we feel now is different than how we’re going to feel even maybe 5 minutes from now or a week now a.
00:55:28 Patrick Martin
Year, right and that’s.
00:55:29 Cody Limbaugh
Not necessarily us.
00:55:31 Cody Limbaugh
Right, there’s a there’s an US that’s bigger.
00:55:33 Cody Limbaugh
Than that feeling, yeah.
00:55:34 Patrick Martin
It’s just a state of being, yeah.
00:55:38 Patrick Martin
So yeah, personal development is a very deep well.
00:55:42 Cody Limbaugh
It is, which is fun, which is fun, right?
00:55:44 Patrick Martin
Yes, yes is.
00:55:45 Cody Limbaugh
’cause it it it never ends.
00:55:46 Cody Limbaugh
There’s always something more to explore and to see what we.
00:55:47 Speaker 3
Right.
00:55:49 Cody Limbaugh
Can do to.
00:55:50 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, to both level up, but also be cultivating the skill of contentment.
00:55:57 Patrick Martin
Yes, that’s the goal, to be content in all things, right, but not complacent.
00:56:01 Patrick Martin
So contentment is not complacency.
00:56:03 Patrick Martin
Learning to be content is crucial.
00:56:07 Speaker 4
I yeah.
00:56:07 Patrick Martin
Yes, crucial content in all things.
00:56:11 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, and I think it’s a practice.
00:56:13 Cody Limbaugh
I think it’s a learned skill, that.
00:56:15 Cody Limbaugh
We can develop.
00:56:16 Cody Limbaugh
And we have, you know, forces out there that are trying to take that from.
00:56:19 Cody Limbaugh
That’s the hustle.
00:56:20 Cody Limbaugh
Hustle culture is just one of them, but almost every advertisement in the world is trying to get.
00:56:25 Cody Limbaugh
You to feel unsatisfied. Nice.
00:56:27 Cody Limbaugh
Every every marketing genius out there wants to make you uncomfortable with.
00:56:31 Cody Limbaugh
Where you are so that you’ll buy that thing that they’re selling.
00:56:34 Patrick Martin
Well, I guess that gets our attention and everything is been feeding our attention and everything.
00:56:40 Cody Limbaugh
So I think it’s a skill that we can intentionally develop to feel some contentment and maybe.
00:56:45 Cody Limbaugh
Not it’s pretty amazing, because that can not only carry over into just general better feelings in life, but it could actually help your budget you.
00:56:54 Cody Limbaugh
Know help you resist.
00:56:54 Patrick Martin
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:56:55 Cody Limbaugh
Buying those things can help with your relationships.
00:56:58 Patrick Martin
Kind of fill a void, but yeah.
00:57:00 Speaker 4
Yeah, exactly.
00:57:03 Patrick Martin
Yeah, being intentional with our attention.
00:57:06 Patrick Martin
Yes, like so the the license method, that’s how we pronounce it, right.
00:57:12 Cody Limbaugh
Liceum yeah and and yeah, I I actually like to say like Kim, because that actually is like the the ancient Greek version, but for some reason.
00:57:13 Patrick Martin
I see. I’m, I see.
00:57:18
Thank you.
00:57:20 Patrick Martin
I like that sounds sounds cooler too, like keen.
00:57:22 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, but for some reason I don’t know Americans or Western culture in general, they like to convert things to English pronunciations, even if it’s in a.
00:57:31 Cody Limbaugh
Different language, so the.
00:57:32 Cody Limbaugh
The dictionary says Lyceum.
00:57:35 Cody Limbaugh
Is how you pronounce it.
00:57:36 Cody Limbaugh
But yeah, that was Aristotle school, and I’m just a fan of their subtle because he was a polymath.
00:57:42 Cody Limbaugh
And I don’t claim to be a polymath.
00:57:43 Cody Limbaugh
I’m more like a dilettante, just like got my hands on a lot of different things.
00:57:47 Cody Limbaugh
Maybe not an expert in any of them.
00:57:48 Speaker 4
But but he.
00:57:51 Cody Limbaugh
Had a gym in the center of his school and most people might.
00:57:56 Cody Limbaugh
Not be aware of this.
00:57:56 Cody Limbaugh
So he was.
00:57:57 Patrick Martin
No, I wasn’t. That’s cool.
00:57:57 Cody Limbaugh
Known as The Walking.
00:57:58 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, he was The Walking philosopher and he would walk his students around the hallway around the gym and look at the athletes, and he would use the athletes as an example of developing practices to live a life of excellence.
00:58:12 Cody Limbaugh
And so his his quote that I is in our gym.
00:58:16 Cody Limbaugh
This is my my gym shirt that I have on here is life or.
00:58:21 Cody Limbaugh
Excellence is an art that’s one through training and habit and that was Aristotle quote and and then he also had a like a zoo and an atrium and all these.
00:58:34 Cody Limbaugh
Things to study.
00:58:34 Cody Limbaugh
Biology and we live on a ranch and we are doing all this gardening, so just to kind of live everything in.
00:58:39 Cody Limbaugh
In one basket, like I said.
00:58:41 Cody Limbaugh
The Lyceum made a lot of sense.
00:58:43 Cody Limbaugh
For us.
00:58:43 Cody Limbaugh
So that’s what so.
00:58:43 Patrick Martin
Yeah, absolutely.
00:58:46 Patrick Martin
And so where can our listeners go to find out more about you and your work and personal development?
00:58:53
Well, since we’re on.
00:58:54 Cody Limbaugh
The podcast, the simplest thing they can do right now is just on whatever podcast their app they’re on right now, it’s just head over to the Lyceum network, and that’s LYCYUM.
00:59:06 Cody Limbaugh
That’s how you spell Lyceum, and Alexi and Network podcast will have various series of podcasts all within one feed.
00:59:14 Cody Limbaugh
So my wife and I have a podcast right now called the philosophy of fitness.
00:59:19 Cody Limbaugh
Where we take?
00:59:20 Cody Limbaugh
Life lessons like I described earlier, I described the relationship between time and fear and.
00:59:25 Cody Limbaugh
How I learned that at.
00:59:25 Cody Limbaugh
The barbell and we just.
00:59:27 Cody Limbaugh
Extrapolate that into a series of podcasts on different.
00:59:30 Cody Limbaugh
Uhm, personal development approaches through fitness?
00:59:34 Cody Limbaugh
I’m I’m also reading my book for free on that podcast.
00:59:38 Cody Limbaugh
My book is called.
00:59:38 Patrick Martin
Hey, that’s cool.
00:59:40 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, my book is called stop setting goals.
00:59:42 Cody Limbaugh
Learn the Lyceum method to achieve more, stress less and love all your life and it’s a terrible title, probably the worst title of any book.
00:59:50 Cody Limbaugh
Ever written but.
00:59:51 Cody Limbaugh
I for some reason I.
00:59:52 Patrick Martin
Since direct it makes sense, I love it.
00:59:54 Cody Limbaugh
I had a an easy time writing the book and I just.
00:59:57 Cody Limbaugh
For some reason could not come up with the great title, but anyway.
01:00:00 Cody Limbaugh
Uh, before releasing that as an audiobook, I decided to just go ahead and give it away for free in segments as part of the podcast so they can listen to it there.
01:00:09 Cody Limbaugh
Or if they want to purchase it, of course they can go.
01:00:11 Cody Limbaugh
To Amazon and and find the book there.
01:00:13 Patrick Martin
I love that and troop at Linestyle.
01:00:15 Patrick Martin
Gave it away.
01:00:17 Cody Limbaugh
There you go and and then of.
01:00:19 Cody Limbaugh
Course our website is live all your life.
01:00:21 Cody Limbaugh
Dot com but you can find that easy.
01:00:24 Cody Limbaugh
Enough if you just head over to our podcast.
01:00:27 Patrick Martin
Thank you so much and your website live all your life.
01:00:30 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, live all your-life.com.
01:00:33 Patrick Martin
Excellent. I’ll share that with everyone in case they’re watching this on YouTube.
01:00:38 Patrick Martin
Let’s jump over here.
01:00:40 Patrick Martin
There we go.
01:00:41 Patrick Martin
This is your website, right?
01:00:42 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, that’s the website and there’s the book.
01:00:45 Patrick Martin
Hey Max, I love your book cover.
01:00:47 Patrick Martin
That is so dumb.
01:00:51 Patrick Martin
For anyone watching, it’s a it’s a stop light, and it has different I’m not going to, I’m not going to spoil it for you.
01:00:56 Patrick Martin
You have to go check it out, but it’s a cool book cover.
01:00:59 Patrick Martin
Appreciate that, I.
01:01:00 Patrick Martin
Like it.
01:01:01 Patrick Martin
Very neat and you have courses I thought I saw at the bottom here.
01:01:07 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, so to be honest, the website is needs a little bit of updating, so I just, I’ll go ahead and update your audience now.
01:01:14 Cody Limbaugh
My wife and I are starting a course in January.
01:01:17 Cody Limbaugh
We’ll be taking applications beginning in October for that course, and it’s the Lyceum course that’ll be a 90 day.
01:01:26 Cody Limbaugh
You’ll get a course journal that lasts for 90 days that guides you through the prompts that I had described.
01:01:32 Cody Limbaugh
Gratitude, affirmations and vision and an action step for the day.
01:01:36 Cody Limbaugh
Developing practices pretty much everything we just discussed in this podcast is going to.
01:01:40 Cody Limbaugh
Be taught but.
01:01:41 Cody Limbaugh
It’s also a fitness program, so my wife and I are going to be providing a daily workout and nutrition counseling one-on-one attention. It’s a it’s a really in depth 90 day life changing.
01:01:51 Patrick Martin
How cool is that talk?
01:01:52 Cody Limbaugh
Type in courts.
01:01:53 Patrick Martin
There’s getting more hands on than that.
01:01:55 Patrick Martin
That’s really neat.
01:01:56 Patrick Martin
Yeah, I love that.
01:01:59 Patrick Martin
Wonderful, wonderful.
01:02:01 Patrick Martin
And I, I mean, you got a blog on here, you said it hasn’t been touched in a while, but some really good articles.
01:02:06 Patrick Martin
I was thumbing through this morning actually.
01:02:08 Patrick Martin
This is a good.
01:02:09 Patrick Martin
Thank you. I appreciate that.
01:02:09 Patrick Martin
Very cool.
01:02:12 Cody Limbaugh
So in, yeah, the 1st of November, I’ll be full time back in our business.
01:02:17 Cody Limbaugh
So everyone can expect the the newsletter and the blog and all that kind of thing to be updated more frequently as we get ready.
01:02:23 Cody Limbaugh
To launch that course.
01:02:24 Patrick Martin
They can sign up for that right here on the homepage, right?
01:02:27 Patrick Martin
Yes, the newsletter.
01:02:28 Patrick Martin
Uh, excellent.
01:02:29 Patrick Martin
Very cool.
01:02:30 Patrick Martin
And I was doing some other poking around.
01:02:32 Patrick Martin
And you have a YouTube channel too, right?
01:02:34 Speaker 4
Yes, yeah, right now, yeah, right now there’s.
01:02:37 Patrick Martin
I am not under a Rock You should have led with that.
01:02:37 Cody Limbaugh
A lot of exercise.
01:02:39 Patrick Martin
That’s cool.
01:02:42 Cody Limbaugh
Again, it’s a little hit and miss.
01:02:44 Cody Limbaugh
As far as.
01:02:44 Cody Limbaugh
Consistency on that.
01:02:46 Cody Limbaugh
Right now we’re using it as a catalog for exercise demos so that when we prescribe, yeah.
01:02:50 Patrick Martin
Yeah, I see that.
01:02:51 Patrick Martin
It was great.
01:02:53 Cody Limbaugh
So when we prescribe an exercise to a remote client, we actually demo it for them and can answer questions and we just go ahead and put it up on YouTube for.
01:03:01 Cody Limbaugh
Everybody to learn from, so it’s super cool, I.
01:03:04 Patrick Martin
Love that life, Poly.
01:03:05 Cody Limbaugh
They’re given some coaching cues and.
01:03:07 Patrick Martin
Yeah, yeah.
01:03:10 Patrick Martin
Alright, excellent.
01:03:11 Patrick Martin
You make your, uh, your work very accessible, which is fantastic.
01:03:15 Patrick Martin
Really appreciate that.
01:03:17 Patrick Martin
That’s so all right.
01:03:18 Patrick Martin
Well, I’ll be sure to link up to all of that in the show notes.
01:03:21 Patrick Martin
Are you on any socials, Instagram or I’m?
01:03:25 Cody Limbaugh
Going to be launching a series on Tik T.O.K.
01:03:28 Cody Limbaugh
That’s going to be pretty fun.
01:03:29 Cody Limbaugh
I’m going to be actually launching a work.
01:03:30 Cody Limbaugh
Out of the day, for free, just kind of giving out a workout that people can do with just a sandbag or a jump rope or less.
01:03:32 Patrick Martin
Great. Not fun.
01:03:37 Cody Limbaugh
So it’s.
01:03:38 Cody Limbaugh
Meant to be equipment that you can travel with and so.
01:03:41 Cody Limbaugh
I call it work, travel, work travel.
01:03:43 Cody Limbaugh
Fitness which is WTF?
01:03:47 Cody Limbaugh
Yes, and.
01:03:48 Patrick Martin
I like it.
01:03:49 Cody Limbaugh
And so that’ll be on Tik T.O.K and I am on Instagram you can find.
01:03:49 Speaker 3
Let’s talk.
01:03:53 Cody Limbaugh
Me at live all.
01:03:54 Cody Limbaugh
Your life on Instagram and with an under score between each word. So.
01:03:58 Cody Limbaugh
Live all your life.
01:04:01 Patrick Martin
Thank you so much, Cody.
01:04:02 Patrick Martin
I really appreciate you coming on today and sharing your words of wisdom and your life experience.
01:04:07 Patrick Martin
And I can’t wait to hear more.
01:04:09 Patrick Martin
And if you’re game, I’d love to have you back on down the road to give us an update how it’s going.
01:04:13 Cody Limbaugh
Absolutely, yeah.
01:04:14 Cody Limbaugh
Maybe, maybe after our course I’ll have some things to share that we learn from our community.
01:04:20 Cody Limbaugh
So I I would love that.
01:04:21 Cody Limbaugh
Yeah, alright.
01:04:22 Patrick Martin
Look forward to you.
01:04:22 Cody Limbaugh
Appreciate your time and the invitation.
01:04:25 Cody Limbaugh
It’s been a great chat.
01:04:26 Patrick Martin
Oh yeah, likewise.
01:04:27 Patrick Martin
Keep me posted.
01:04:28 Speaker 4
Hold on. Thank you.
01:04:30 Patrick Martin
Take care.
01:04:32 Patrick Martin
Well, there you have it.
01:04:33 Patrick Martin
Another tool to help you thrive.
01:04:35 Patrick Martin
Hey, if you’re getting value from this content and you haven’t done so already, be sure to subscribe to the MHT newsletter.
01:04:40 Patrick Martin
That way you will be notified of new content as it’s released and I’ll send it straight to your inbox.
01:04:45 Patrick Martin
Also, please be sure to subscribe to both the YouTube channel and podcast and helps to raise mental health awareness.
01:04:51 Patrick Martin
And please do share.
01:04:52 Patrick Martin
With friends and family.
01:04:53 Patrick Martin
All right.
01:04:54 Patrick Martin
So until next time.
01:04:55 Patrick Martin
Keep thriving and make good things happen.
01:04:57 Patrick Martin
Bye bye.
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