In today’s roundtable episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, we tackle a topic that’s both timeless and incredibly relevant—how not to waste your life. Joe and Neighbor Doug are joined by a dynamic roundtable of experts: Paula Pant from Afford Anything, Doc G from Earn and Invest, and OG, our resident financial planner. We’re diving into six insanely popular ways to waste your life, focusing on the common distractions and indecisions that keep people from reaching their potential. Stackers, if you’ve ever felt like time is slipping away without clear progress, this episode is for you!
The discussion covers how we can easily get caught up in “hustle culture,” how overthinking and analysis paralysis can lead to inaction, and how setting goals without moving forward is just wasted energy. Doc G highlights the importance of momentum—sometimes just taking action, even if it’s not perfect, is better than doing nothing. Paula brings up the notion of efficiency versus effectiveness, encouraging us to rethink what “productive” really means. OG shares his perspective on how breaking decisions into manageable chunks and taking ownership of our choices can help us break free from the busy-but-not-productive cycle.
But before you go, don’t miss Neighbor Doug’s trivia challenge! Doug asks a fascinating historical question about U.S. currency from the 1960s. Think you know your money history? You won’t want to miss this one—it’s the perfect cliffhanger to get you thinking. Tune in to find out the answer and hear who comes out on top in today’s trivia showdown!
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/how-to-waste-your-time-on-stupid-stuff-1710
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Topic:
6 Insanely Popular Ways to Waste a Life (Marc & Angel Hack Life)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Analysis paralysis
- Hustle culture
- Momentum in goals
- Process vs. outcome
- Efficiency vs. effectiveness
- Overcoming distractions
- Decision fatigue
- Busy vs. productive
- Self-discipline
- Time management
- Small decisions
- Technology distractions
- Fear of failure
- Failure as growth
- Identifying priorities
- Systems for focus
- Goal-setting techniques
- Productivity vs. busyness
- Little p purpose
- Setting clear intentions
- Importance of habits
- Personal growth
- Balancing work/leisure
- Financial success
- Time as resource
- Learning from mistakes
- Goal alignment
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Doc G
Another thanks to Doc G for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Doc G on his podcast, Earn & Invest, on Apple Podcasts.
Check out his latest book The Purpose Code: How to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy.
Paula Pant
Check out Paula’s site and amazing podcast at AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- In 1969, several U.S. bills were discontinued. If you turned in one of each of these discontinued bills just before they were no longer legal tender, how much money would you have had in total?
Mentioned in today’s show
- Coffitivity
- Use Screen Time on your iPhone or iPad – Apple Support
- Freedom | Block Websites, Apps, and the Internet
- Harvard’s Dr. Ellen Langer On … – The Rich Roll Podcast – Apple Podcasts
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Moday when we dive into a concept called “the wealth ladder” and identify who should listen to which advice so that you can build wealth faster!
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Create Goals that Stick (with Ret. Lt. Cdr. Gary MacDermid) SB1709.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: I look out my window and I see my neighbor, [00:00:03] Joe: Doug [00:00:04] Doug: four. Lazy deplorable, Doug. [00:00:13] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:28] Doug: I’ve Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and all week long we’ve been helping you set goals and take action. Today we’ll examine one blogger’s take on how to waste your life on stupid. Oh, this is my kind of episode. It’s about time. We covered this hack. Wait, wait. What? Oh, he was being sarcastic. Oh, that’s a bummer. [00:00:48] Doug: It appears this is a great episode. If you don’t wanna waste time, we should have just said so upfront. But that’s not all OGs pulling away in our big year long trivia competition. Can the other participants rally? Let’s hope that rally starts today. And now here comes a guy who spends less time keeping up with the Joneses and more time investing in the stackers. [00:01:11] Doug: It’s Joe Saul Sea. [00:01:16] Joe: Hey there stackers, and happy Friday to you. And yes, we are investing in you all week this week as we help you here in the second half of 2025. Get moving man. Get moving on Monday. We began the week by going through all the amazing mentors we had on this show that helped you and hopefully gave you some hints to start working on some of the cool hacks that they provided. [00:01:40] Joe: And then on Wednesday, Gary McDermott talked about how to set a goal that you’re going to achieve. I mean, the Navy uses it where he worked. The multinational corporations use it. And yet we talk about goal setting. People go, Ugh. Yeah, I don’t know if I’m gonna really set some goals. So today we’re going to get a little sarcastic, Doug, as you mentioned by talking about six insanely popular ways to waste your life. [00:02:08] Joe: And here are three people that are gonna waste the next hour with us. No, we’re not wasting any time. The guy across the cart table from me, he doesn’t waste time. Mr. OGs here. How are you man? [00:02:17] OG: I never ramble. No. Only have cogent points. Exactly. Bullet pointed every single time [00:02:24] Joe: it is. And the woman whose points are always fungible, Paula, Pam, from Afford Anything, is here. [00:02:30] Joe: I put the fun and fungible. We know people gotta listen to and afford anything episode to understand what we’re talking about. How are you Paula? I am doing great. How are you doing, Joe? I’m fantastic. You know why? I’m doing great, Paula, why is that? It is because it’s our third participant’s birthday today. [00:02:46] Joe: He’s spry and young from Earner and Invest Doc, GAKA. Jordan Grube [00:02:52] Doc G: joins us. Happy birthday man. Thanks. I I get two birthdays, right? My real birthday today when we’re recording and then when you play this. That’s right. It’ll be like my birthday all over again. I’m gonna tell all my family we’re gonna go for a steak dinner tonight and. [00:03:05] Doc G: On the air date of the show, two steak dinners to celebrate. Mm-hmm. [00:03:09] Joe: Well, I think you get to a certain age and there’s not enough room for birthday candles. Two steak dinners kind of makes up for it, don’t you think? [00:03:16] Doc G: Yes. After I stopped counting, on one hand we pretty much got rid of the candle, so yeah, no more [00:03:21] Joe: it is over. [00:03:22] Joe: Yeah. So we are going to go to a piece that is frankly, to me, a timeless piece. This is from the Mark and Angel blog. I had to look again because I knew it was Mark and Angel, but I, when I first saw it, I’m like Mark and Angel, but it’s Mark and Angel blog as they hack life. This is a timeless piece. It’s from 2016, but as I read through this, I went, you know what, these are six insanely popular ways to waste a life here. [00:03:51] Joe: And clearly, Doug, as you mentioned. We’re not trying to waste time. We are trying to make sure that you don’t waste time. So we’re gonna dig into the six insanely popular ways to waste a life in just a moment. But first, we have some sponsors that make sure we can keep on keeping on you. Don’t pay a dime for any of these amazing people and their opinions. [00:04:09] Joe: We’re gonna hear from them, and then we’re gonna dig into how to waste your life. Let’s, let’s get that rolling. This piece, I really, really thought was a great way to cap off a week of getting moving. I think about Paula, the first line, or one of the first lines that Mark talks about in this piece. He says, how often are we stuck in a cycle of worry, fear, and other forms of overthinking? [00:04:34] Joe: How often are we aimlessly distracted and how often do we participate? Well, I’m thinking, for me, Paula, that’s about 60% of the time. But seriously, when it comes to money, I feel like the stakes are so high, we make it even bigger. Like it’s, I think it’s worse when it comes to worry, fear, and overthinking. [00:04:51] Paula: Right? And you know, the challenge with overthinking is sometimes you don’t quite know where the line is. Like what is the line between prudent consideration versus overthinking? It’s a continuum. It’s a slippery slope. There is no specific point. And I think that’s what makes it so difficult to know. How to stay in the 80 20 of efficiency. [00:05:10] Joe: Paula makes a good point birthday boy because sometimes you overthink and there’s other times you, somebody will tell you they made a decision. You’re like, did you think about that for just a second? [00:05:20] Doc G: I’m gonna be the thorn in the side today and that’s because I’ve been thinking about this a lot. So it’s interesting you said this is a timeless piece. [00:05:26] Doc G: And so I went to Chet GBT and I said, Chet, GBT tell me when was the height of hustle culture? And it said the height of hustle culture was between 2015 and 2019. This was written in 2016. I think this article’s a lot about hustle culture and I actually think it fits really well into that time period. A time where people were really big into efficiency. [00:05:49] Doc G: This was before the pandemic. Efficiency isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. And overthinking and daydreaming are sometimes when some of the greatest, most amazing things happen in our lives. And so I think for this point as well as a lot of the other ones. You can make a real aggressive argument on the other side that we’re not wasting our life or wasting our time at all. [00:06:11] Doc G: Sometimes meaningless distractions are actually fantastic. Okay, [00:06:14] Joe: let’s set the rubric here. Let’s set the bar on what we’re going for here. Uh, Jordan, which is, it’s my birthday. It’s your birthday and I shouldn’t fight with the birthday boy. I get the rubric. But who we’re addressing specifically are people who show up and they’ve heard all these great ideas on the Stacking Benjamin show for the last six months, and they go, that sounds great. [00:06:37] Joe: I should do that. I should do that. I should get started on that. I should do something. And often the problem is, and this is why I like this point about overthinking, often we get stuck in this. Yeah, okay. If I just get a little more information. Right. If I just, if I just sit on this a little longer, if I ruminate, if I maybe draw the mind map, then I’ll get moving. [00:07:01] Joe: That’s who [00:07:01] Doc G: we’re really talking to today. I hear you. I could disagree with some of that. I mean, if you are listening to podcasts and thinking I should do that in years past and you don’t do it, maybe you don’t really wanna do it. Maybe something else would actually get your fancy, maybe it isn’t the right thing for you. [00:07:18] Doc G: I get it. I get that there’s analysis paralysis and for anything, even something someone deeply wants, yes. Maybe they are putting it off and they’re getting stuck in analysis paralysis and they’re getting too much information and not moving. But I think historically, and actually the context of a lot of, of what this is saying does kind of fall in a place where. [00:07:37] Doc G: I think we can question the basic concept a little bit, but I will play along. I’ll play along with the rubric and I will say, yes, it’s easy to get caught in analysis paralysis. It’s easy to get caught in distractions like social media, et cetera. For sure. [00:07:51] Joe: We can do that as we go. And feel free to be the birthday boy of Reason today. [00:07:57] Joe: Did I mention it to my birthday? But, oh gee. The reason why people hire a financial planner a lot of the time is because they know they should be doing stuff. I get that sometimes you’re like, yeah, maybe I wasn’t destined to do that thing. Maybe I didn’t really wanna run the marathon, or I really didn’t wanna do the extreme workout, or whatever it might be. [00:08:15] Joe: But man, too often when I was a financial planner, I saw people not get anywhere because they just didn’t do anything. [00:08:21] OG: Well, I think in talking about the analysis paralysis type thing, I think that’s really unique to. A certain group of people. And, and what I mean by that is we all process information differently and we all make decisions with a different set of requirements. [00:08:40] OG: For example, if you know somebody who’s super analytic, maybe they wanna see lots of spreadsheets and lots of sourced proof on how to make a decision about something. And then there’s other people who wanna see the process. You know, they wanna see, well how does this all piece together? I don’t necessarily need to get into the nitty gritty of it, but I need to, I need to see how this flows into it. [00:09:02] OG: And that’s how they make decisions. Some people make decisions by trying things out first. So the idea for me, when I hear like analysis paralysis, I’m like, who has that? ’cause I’m a ready, fire, aim type of person. I make decisions by testing things. I go, well, hey, let’s try that. Let’s do that, let’s do that, let’s do that, let’s do that. [00:09:18] OG: And then, and then adjusting on the fly of, and for me, that’s supernatural. But other people might look at that and go, what are you doing? You don’t have any information. How are you making a decision to do that? Because to me it makes the most sense to take the next step. What I think as it relates to financial planning where this helps in thinking about like progress on the goals, when we’re working with clients, it’s like, let’s just do something. [00:09:42] OG: I don’t care if you, you know, yeah, your goal is to retire and you have all this, you know, this big giant thing that you’re trying to do, right? But the old, you know, how do you eat an elephant type of thing, right? The first thing is, you know, you gotta set up your 401k, so let’s just do that. Let’s just set up your 401k and do the match and just put it into an s and p fund and we’ll deal with all the efficiency stuff that has to come later, but let’s just move the ball one square down the board. [00:10:07] OG: That sort of stuff. That momentum to me makes a lot of sense. Now to other people, they would, they might look at that and go, well, hold on before I do that. Shouldn’t we evaluate how this fits into cashflow? Shouldn’t we evaluate how this works in our tax plan, shouldn’t we? And yeah, that’s true. You have to do all those things. [00:10:23] OG: But I think where we’ve been successful from a planning standpoint in working with people over the years has been, we’re action oriented. And doing something a lot of times is better than doing nothing and waiting for the exact right time. [00:10:39] Joe: When I would work with engineers, engineers were always worried that I truly didn’t know what I was talking about. [00:10:44] Joe: And so I would have to, we’re just [00:10:46] OG: so very worried about that. I have been for 16 years. [00:10:50] Joe: It’s a very common theme. I have to prove to the, I would’ve to prove to them that I could go as deep as they could go before I said, you know what? This is irrelevant though. And then once they knew I could go as deep as they could go, then they go, you’re right. [00:11:02] Joe: I just gotta get moving. [00:11:03] OG: Yeah, because you’re matching their processing of information, right? You’re saying, Hey, I recognize that for you to make a good decision, you need to have lots of data. And that’s totally cool. Let me give you lots of data. I’m not saying that your way is right and my way is wrong. [00:11:16] OG: I’m saying like, I, let me get you to the spot where you can make a decision. [00:11:20] Joe: I read this, I thought all six of these were truly waste of time. I can’t wait to see what Jordan comes up with. Tell me that I’m wrong. I’m gonna go back and [00:11:26] OG: forth. I’m gonna side with Jordan one of these just to, just to screw the rubric. [00:11:31] Doc G: Okay. That’s ’cause all those points I won. I don’t know what [00:11:33] OG: a rub rubric’s cube has to do with anything. [00:11:36] Joe: Yeah. He is not sure what Rubric Cube has to do with anything. And you’re right. I think he owes you, Jordan. [00:11:40] OG: You can have half the trophy, [00:11:41] Joe: but today, Jordan, you’re gonna be playing for Jesse, but let’s not. [00:11:44] Joe: That’s foreshadowing to the middle of the show. Let’s start off, Paula with number one here. He says that a great way to waste your life is we waste our lives with meaningless distractions. Mm-hmm. I was at a baseball game recently and I’m sitting behind a woman who has paid good money for these wonderful seats. [00:12:02] Joe: She spent the entire game, and when I say the entire game, I’m not kidding on her phone, barely watching the game. She’s playing a video game. That she could play anywhere and she paid for seats and I thought, you know, which one is the distraction? Right. Is the game distracting her from the video game or is the video game distracting her from the game? [00:12:20] Joe: I don’t know. But I think we see this more and more all around us is there’s so many, you know, brands pulling for our [00:12:25] Paula: attention. Right. You know, it strikes me this article was written in 2016 and it’s only gotten worse in the the nine years since. Yeah. This article came out before the TikTok ification of our brains. [00:12:37] Paula: Oh my goodness. [00:12:38] Joe: And TikTok got me too. That thing has my number. [00:12:40] Paula: The deeper that we think, I mean the phone is a convenient scapegoat, but it goes beyond just our phones. Cal Newport talks about this. The more that we get into the habit of having fragmented attention, the harder it is to sustain attention in any one thing. [00:12:58] Paula: So it becomes harder and harder to, to watch a baseball game or to watch a movie, especially if it’s one that requires like really paying attention or to read something that’s difficult. The other side of that is the more you practice by doing those things, the more you say, I’m going to sit down and read something that’s kind of a difficult read, but like, really, and I’m gonna spend an hour pushing myself through this difficult read. [00:13:24] Paula: The more you do that, the easier it becomes. It’s like a muscle. [00:13:27] Joe: Yeah. Catherine Price, one of my favorite, uh, writers and thinkers, she has a book called The Power of Fun. She has another book called How to Break Up With Your Phone. She talks about how not only does the phone distract you from stuff that she calls real fun, ’cause when she goes through the scientific data, it’s not real fun, but it also makes it harder for you to your point, Paula, to have real fun because you’re always distracted because you’re so used to this. [00:13:52] Joe: Quick change that happens on your phone, this, whatever. So when you’re should be and could be experiencing real fun. You don’t. All right, Jordan, I’m coming to you next. Can’t believe I’m doing this. Yeah, no. Before we get your negativity. No, I was gonna give a real positive, I, I’m on this one. Well, hold on. [00:14:06] Joe: Let me tell you what he said that he does. ’cause I really like this. He said to overcome this, I do my best to eliminate distractions, but sometimes they still pop up, right? So I have a ritual where I pause once every 30 minutes and take a deep breath and stretch for 10 seconds. By taking this break, I’m able to catch myself When I’ve gotten lost again. [00:14:27] Joe: Then I’ll clear the distraction, close any unnecessary windows noise, and just have one task in front of me and try to stick with it until it’s finished. Do you like that? [00:14:36] Doc G: I do. I think it’s good advice. And look, the American Times Survey is a continuous study done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the us. [00:14:44] Doc G: And it shows that your average person has between like 4.5 and five hours of leisure time a day. And so we’re a society where everyone says, I don’t have time for anything. And the truth of the matter is we have plenty of time. I love the word, he uses meaningless distractions, right? Because I would argue that almost everything is, is a distraction. [00:15:00] Doc G: Whether you’re watching a baseball game, which might be a great use of your time, or whether you’re going through TikTok when you should be watching the baseball game, which is maybe a meaningless distraction. The point is our lives are filled with distractions, but are you going to do the things that are meaningful for you? [00:15:14] Doc G: And I think that’s what he’s really pointing to. When you clear that time, are you actually gonna use it? That’s what you’re [00:15:19] Joe: saying. [00:15:19] Doc G: Yeah. Su, you’re gonna have this four and a half to five hours of free time a day. Are you gonna get lost in something that’s meaningless? Or are you going to do something that feels a little more meaningful to you? [00:15:28] Doc G: And so I think that’s a actually a really good suggestion. It’s like if you find yourself down the rabbit hole at TikTok and you’re like, this has no meaning in my life, then yeah, take that break at 30 minutes and realize, Hey, I’m wasting my time here. I could be doing something at least more meaningful. [00:15:42] Doc G: I’d still call it a distraction, but at least it’s more meaningful. [00:15:44] Joe: Yeah, I love that. ’cause sometimes you start off on the right task and 20 minutes in, you get down this rabbit hole that’s going the wrong way. And so if I set the alarm and pause at 30 minutes, then I bring it back. It’s the [00:15:54] Doc G: damn notifications. [00:15:55] Doc G: Yeah, the notifications get you, you’re like, you’re doing the good thing. And then all of a sudden, you know, you get an email notification and next thing you know you’re looking at an email and you’re gone. [00:16:03] Joe: And I love you say that about notifications because I blocked all my notifications, blocked them all. [00:16:09] Joe: Because if I get on something good, I don’t want to be notified. Oh gee, you took that a step further. You’ve pretty much signed off of most all social media, Catherine Price in her book, how to Break Up with Your Phone, talks about she couldn’t believe how much time she had when she stopped paying attention to her phone. [00:16:27] Joe: Have you found the same thing where all of a sudden you feel like I’ve got this time that I quote didn’t have when I was jumping on my phone to check Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. [00:16:37] OG: Well, it’s been some time, so it’s hard for me to remember the time where I was, but I remember there being a considerable amount of time between when I said, okay, I’m not gonna go on social anymore until, and I remember always grabbing my phone. [00:16:51] OG: You know, you grab your phone and what do you, what’s the first thing that you do swipe up? Because it’s unlock it and then your thumb like knows the thing, right? It’s like over, over down, over down, click. And that’s where Instagram is, right? Or that’s where TikTok is, or wherever. It’s like, you know where it is on your, you go, I’m gonna bury it in a folder on the third page. [00:17:10] OG: Ha ha. I’ll never find it. It’s like wrong over, over, down, over down. You know? It’s there. Like you just know where it is. I stopped going on socials in November. I don’t remember what year, 2022 or 2021 maybe. But it’s been a while and it took the better part of four months before I would grab my phone and do something other than navigate to where the folder was for socials. [00:17:34] OG: I don’t know that I’ve done something good with that time. Instead, I can’t promise that I did that. I, I’m sure I just replaced it with some other nonsense. So I don’t feel like I’ve got this like time where I just sit at my desk like where everybody else is on TikTok and I’m like, gosh, I have nothing to do right now. [00:17:50] OG: I’m just gonna sit here and daydream. I do find stuff to do, but I think it’s really important, you know, the author here put some restrictions in their calendar or in their, you know, whatever to say, Hey, at 30 minutes there’s a lot of, again, back to systems that you can do to make it so you can work on this deep stuff for a period of time. [00:18:08] OG: And you know, one of it, Joe, is just turning off all your notifications. If you, if you have notifications on your phone, I have no idea why you would other than like immediate family emergency type stuff. But even then not. But 25 years ago, that wasn’t a thing and we managed to all get here to this point without like having find my, or alert me when my child leaves school on your phone. [00:18:31] OG: Like you just. It’s a benefit, but I don’t know that you need all that stuff on there. But the other thing that I found recently is there is a tool on my computer, it’s on a Mac where it’s meant for people that have distraction. You know, like they can’t focus and you can turn it on and it’s just background noise, like ocean waves or something like that. [00:18:51] Joe: Yeah. [00:18:51] OG: You can look up how to do this. I don’t know, it’s on my computer. It’s crazy how like in the zone you’ll get with just like, like this white noise in the background, and then when you turn it off you’re like, holy crap, it’s so quiet. What is going on? You know, because just, it’s like this surround sound of background noise. [00:19:10] OG: So I use that quite a bit to just go, all right, I need to work on this until I get done with it. Whether it’s an hour or two hours or three hours, I’m gonna turn this on. I’m, I don’t have anything else on. It’s just me and the computer. And a big piece of that is from a distraction standpoint, like eliminating it as much as you can. [00:19:26] OG: My desk right now is a mess, so it’s not a great example, but. It’s so much easier to work. Right? Like how many times do you go, Hey, I’m gonna take my laptop, go to the coffee shop and knock this out. Why do you do that? Because the coffee shop’s a background noise. Yeah, right. The clanging of stuff. Yep. You have nothing else to do except drink coffee and work. [00:19:44] OG: You can’t go. Ah. Oh, hey. I haven’t read that book yet. [00:19:47] Joe: Well, and I love that you brought that up and that you brought up that app, because there’s one that I use that’s a Google Chrome extension, which is, uh, cotivity cotivity.com cotivity, which it makes noises like you’re in mm-hmm. A coffee shop. And you could choose between different coffee shops. [00:20:06] Joe: And as somebody that works from home, I will turn on cotivity. I, I can’t pronounce that word, but cotivity.com will link to it in the show notes. And I’m in that coffee shop. Use technology to [00:20:15] OG: defeat technology. It is, it [00:20:17] Doc G: is. It’s so funny, doc. It’s interesting ’cause what we’re really talking about, although we not saying it, is you’re really talking about flow. [00:20:24] Doc G: Right? So the opposite of distraction is being in a flow state where you’re doing your best work, where you’re just so deep in it, you’re not noticing time pass. I personally believe that winning the game is spending as much time and flow as you can. Right. I think it’s just nurturing and good for you. [00:20:39] Doc G: Distractions take you away from that. And I think that’s a lot of what we’re talking about. That’s when the coffee house noise or the app that plays the music or whatever it is, you’re trying to really get your brain into that place of healthy work. [00:20:51] Joe: Well, I’ll stick with you for a second. What do you do, because you have to spend a, a fair amount of time on social media. [00:20:55] Joe: How do you make sure you don’t get distracted? Jordan, [00:20:58] Doc G: I’ll give you an example of writing. One of my favorite things to do is write, and especially when I’m in the midst of writing a book, and so when I’m writing a book, I’ll put my headphones in, I’ll put on, I always have the same exact classic music I play for writing. [00:21:10] Doc G: It’s like an hour and a half, two hours of classical music, and it just does something for me. I zone into my computer, all my distractions are off, all my notifications are off, and usually I’m either locked in my office or I’ll go to like a hospital cafeteria or somewhere where there’s a lot going on around me, but I don’t know anyone. [00:21:29] Doc G: And that’s how I kind of approach a flow state. [00:21:31] Joe: You and I have had chats before where you were in a hospital cafeteria. [00:21:36] Doc G: Oh yeah, we were doing work on our house too, so there’s lots of noise here. So course the food’s amazing. [00:21:40] Joe: So [00:21:42] Doc G: it’s just an easy space for me. I [00:21:43] Joe: can walk to Paula, how about you Avoid distractions. [00:21:47] Paula: I’ve got two apps on my phone. One is native to iPhone and it’s uh, the one in which you can limit the amount of time that you spend on given apps in a given day. So I’ve got mindset so that I can spend a maximum of, I think five or 10 minutes on Instagram per day. I didn’t [00:22:02] Joe: even know this thing exists. [00:22:03] Joe: This is native to the iPhone. [00:22:05] Paula: It’s native to iPhone, like [00:22:06] Joe: screen time, right? [00:22:07] OG: Is that what it is? [00:22:08] Paula: So, yeah. Yeah, I think that’s what it’s called. It’s something like that. Yeah. We use it for our kids or [00:22:10] OG: used to, yeah, [00:22:12] Paula: so I use that in order to limit my Instagram time daily. And then for Twitter and Threads, I’ve installed the Freedom app. [00:22:20] Paula: I’ve blocked myself from being able to access both Twitter and threads during any time of day other than 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM That’s the window. And usually what happens is 8:00 PM rolls around and I’m not thinking about it. It’s not like I’ve set an alarm. I’m like, oh, get to in the truck. I gotta go on. [00:22:36] Paula: You’re, yeah, it’s [00:22:37] Joe: 7 57. You’re like, it must be Twitter time. [00:22:42] Paula: So what will often happen is that window of time will pass and I’m like, oops, I missed my Twitter window for today. Now I can use Twitter on desktop. I just tend not to. But if it’s the middle of the day and I wanna like respond to messages or whatever, like I, I can access it there, but I think the addictive behavior tends to happen on the phone. [00:23:02] Paula: And so that’s where I put most of my safeguards. [00:23:04] Joe: Don’t worry, stackers. We’ll link to all of these because we’re gonna go on to another one here. I’m gonna skip number two. I’m gonna mention all six, but I’m gonna skip number two for today, unless you guys really have a lot to say in it. We waste our lives in a state of overwhelm, by the way he says about that, what’s worked for me is instead of thinking, oh my goodness, there’s too much on my plate, I ask, what if I started over again with a clean plate? [00:23:27] Joe: Then which of these things that are overwhelmingly would I actually now knowingly put back on my plate? So he literally cleans his plate and goes, how much of this is really relevant? Turns out that you may be working on the wrong things, but I wanna focus here on number three on his list, which is we waste our lives with constant indecision and, and Jordan, this is kind of where I was going with who we built this episode for People that are, they hear all these great things. [00:23:53] Joe: They’re like, yeah, I should, yeah, I want to, but they’re in this indecisive state. Like, how do we, I feel like sometimes we’re so busy trying to make the perfect decision that we have trouble making any decision. [00:24:06] Doc G: Yeah. I mean, I think there is a bridge between thought like, I wanna do this thing or. I have this plan or I have this idea and then success. [00:24:18] Doc G: And so we have thought on one side, success on the other. And I think the bridge is momentum, which is doing stuff. And sometimes you need some type of momentum, even if it’s the wrong type of momentum, right? And so I think we get stuck in this thing where we figure the first step has to be so right, that we never take it. [00:24:39] Doc G: I’m a big fan of momentum. I think what OG was also talking about this idea of, okay, let’s try it and iterate and see what happens. And so I think momentum is key here and I think it’s the antidote to indecision. [00:24:54] Paula: Yeah. Paula? I think if a decision is irreversible and has high stakes, it deserves to have a lot of thought put into it. [00:25:04] Paula: But if a decision is reversible and or low stakes or both, then. 80 20 and move on. Just do something and move on. And so I think the first question to ask yourself when you’re facing any decision is, is it reversible or is it irreversible? And is it low stakes or high stakes? And then using that two by two matrix go from there. [00:25:26] OG: That’s a really good way of looking at it. Paula, I think if you recognize where the important decisions are, there’s also a piece about when you’re thinking about money in particular, most of the time, at least in my experience, it’s the last thing that you’re dealing with. Like most people go to work, you know, you get up if you have kids, you gotta deal with that. [00:25:45] OG: And then you get to the office and you deal with work, and then you have lunch, and then you deal with more work, and then you have to commute home, and then you have to deal with kids and family and dah, dah, dah. And then you go, oh crap. I also have to do the stupid insurance thing. Or I also have to, I have, dang it, this to do of meet with estate planning attorney’s. [00:26:02] OG: Been on my sticky note for the last six months because it’s the last thing that you get to. So there is a very real thing about decision fatigue that happens later where you just are tired of processing information, you know, just tired of trying to think through everything and just go, I’m gonna kick it down the road. [00:26:19] OG: And it’s a form of procrastination. It’s a form of, uh, what did, uh, shoot, what’s that? Uh, Stephen Pressfield, what’s he call it? Resistance in, uh, the war of Art. So I think that’s a form of it. And if you can simplify that or outsource the decisions or, or just be okay with not making a decision, those are basically your choices. [00:26:39] OG: Because effectively not making a choice on something is making a choice. It’s just a choice of not doing, you know, whatever it is. But I think Jordan said we have lots of time and there’s tons of space in our calendar and that sort of thing. My son, this is a great example for us. My son is going to college this fall, this past week was his orientation. [00:26:58] OG: At the orientation, he gets to pick his classes and register and do all these things. And, and he called me very seriously and was like, dad, what do I do in school? And I said, what are you talking about? You know, I mean, you have in school, it’s, it’s, it’s like a class, like it’ll be a big room. And he’s like, no, no, no, no. [00:27:14] OG: On Monday I go to school from three to three 50. That’s it. That’s my only responsibility. On Monday, on Wednesday looks a lot like Monday and Friday looks like Wednesday and Monday. So I, I have 50 minutes of actual class time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday. It’s a really busy day. I go from 10 45 to 1230. [00:27:35] OG: Like, what do I do? I have no idea what I’m gonna fill my time with. I mean, how great is that to be in the, in this, in your youth and have the world as your oyster? I’m like, well, you can work out. You can go eat, you can get a job, you can do, you know, all these things. He’s like, I can work like two jobs, dad. [00:27:50] OG: I’m like, yes, you could, you know, give that a whirl. We have so much stuff going on and I think maybe this is the thesis of this whole article here is it’s hard to delineate what the important stuff is unless you’re being very intentional about saying, this is what’s important to me. It’s like, if it’s important to you, it’s important to you. [00:28:08] OG: If being healthy and exercising is important to you, you have 168 hours. There’s plenty of people who run successful businesses who are jacked in Tan. There’s just not. They have the same time. Yeah. I [00:28:18] Joe: think Jordan, I like the part that OG said about maybe. Maybe if you’re indecisive for too long, maybe it’s not meant to be. [00:28:24] Joe: Maybe you gotta get behind, like, why am I so indecisive? You okay with going? I’m just not gonna make a decision. I [00:28:28] Doc G: really connected also with what OJ said about decision fatigue. I mean, I think we’re constantly dealing with decision fatigue, so multiple, often small decisions. Also surrounded with some really big decisions. [00:28:41] Doc G: I think one thing we can do to help ourselves is compartmentalize our decisions. So instead of making decisions all day long, try to sit down in a quiet place and make some of those important big decisions at once. I think there’s also a hierarchy of decisions. Sometimes it’s actually the big decision you have to make, and once you make the big decision, the little decisions fall in place. [00:29:01] Doc G: All the rest of ’em are [00:29:02] OG: easy. Yeah, [00:29:02] Doc G: yeah, I’m going to fund my 401k. That’s like the big decision. And then you can start looking at the little decisions like, am I gonna do a target date fund or an s and p 500? Am I gonna roll it over when I leave my job? All those are kind of smaller decisions that flow from the big one. [00:29:16] Doc G: Sometimes it just gets so overwhelming. Y you don’t even make the big one. And then the small ones start feeling just incredibly difficult. [00:29:24] OG: I like what you said there about compartmentalizing it. I was thinking about this also, and I forgot to bring it up earlier. I’ve made a deci like a life decision. I make no decisions about food. [00:29:34] OG: I don’t wanna be asked where to eat. Mm. Like if we go out to eat, if we go to a place that I’ve already been, I already know what I’m going to eat. But if we go to a new place, I just go, oh, oh, what? What’s your favorite? I don’t wanna have any D. And if they go, oh da, I go, no, no. What’s your favorite? What’s the chef really like to make? [00:29:48] OG: What’s the best thing that they do here? And they’ll go, oh, well the chef really likes the whatever. I go, bang, do it. And they’re like, what if you don’t like it? Like it’s probably fine. I’m not allergic to anything. So there’s no risk of, you know, for some people that is right. Like my son does a peanut allergy. [00:30:03] OG: I don’t have a risk of any allergies. My biggest risk is I might not care for it that much. You know, I’m still gonna get fed, I’m still gonna eat. It’s just might not be my favorite, which is a risk I’m willing to take. It’s a low stakes decision. Yeah. People look at me like I’m crazy. They’re like. What do you mean you don’t have an opinion? [00:30:19] OG: I go, I do, but I don’t, I just, I don’t wanna waste the energy on this. I think Ramit said he had this about food. If you’re trying to decide between two things, just get both. [00:30:28] Doc G: Just take some leftovers. That’s what I like because you made the decision once and once you made the decision, you’ve made one decision and it’s covering everything. [00:30:35] OG: And now I got food for like two days. They’re like, sir, you want the steak, fish, and chicken? Yeah. Yeah. Just, just bring it. But bring boxes. ’cause I’m bringing half this stuff home [00:30:42] Joe: and that’s why I’m overweight right there. [00:30:46] OG: I just can’t make a decision. So I get both actually. You pay for everything. I, that’s my rule. [00:30:49] OG: I, if we go out to dinner, I pay, but I just don’t make the decision of where to go. It’s just so much easier. [00:30:54] Joe: The good news, by the way, I found out, I, I did check my, my BMI, uh, seriously. And uh, I found out that my BMI is perfect. My body mass index is perfect for a guy who’s nine foot six. So it turns out that I’m not overweight. [00:31:08] Joe: I’m actually under height. Under height? Yes. Yeah, that’s the deal. Paula, you were gonna say something serious though? [00:31:13] Paula: I was just gonna say, the decision to not make decisions about certain categories reminds me of Steve Jobs wearing the black turtleneck every day. Yes. Just so you could eliminate the decision of, what do I wear? [00:31:23] Paula: I do that [00:31:23] OG: too. I don’t wear that, but I find like a polo shirt brand that I like, and then I just buy like 10 of them. I go with there. Good. Now I have 10 polo shirts. They all, you know, they’re same brand so they’re all gonna be color, right. Consistent with their other brands basically. So it’s like whatever. [00:31:37] OG: They all basically match. So I’m fine either way. [00:31:41] Joe: I did the same with these hiking shirts I wear almost every day. They’re comfortable. Yeah, they look good. So buy 10 and if you happen to go hiking and if I go hiking, if go biking in a moment’s [00:31:50] OG: noticed, [00:31:50] Joe: right? But then my body mass index won’t be good for a guy nine, six, and I need to keep growing. [00:31:55] Joe: So what do you do? There’s another take here about indecision. This is a podcast that I normally don’t listen to. I happen to catch this one episode. It’s called The Rich Roll Podcast. Dr. Ellen Langer, who is a professor of psychology at Harvard, said this to Rich Roll and I have quoted what you’re about to hear about five bajillion times over the past 12 months since I heard her say it. [00:32:18] Joe: And here she is. [00:32:21] bit: Rather than waste your time. Being stressed over making the right decision. Make the decision right, randomly choose. Now you can randomly choose if you want an Mond joy or a Snickers, nobody’s gonna care. Right. It’s the exact same thing about getting married or not taking the job or not. [00:32:42] bit: You can only live one life. If there were some magical way that I could live a life as somebody who’s had three kids and somebody who hasn’t had kids, maybe I can make a comparison, but you don’t have that available to you. So I say to my students, should you go to Harvard or should you go to Yale? So they made a decision to go to Harvard. [00:33:00] bit: So let’s say it’s terrible. Oh, I wish I had gone to Yale. There’s no way of knowing that Yale wouldn’t have been worse. Better the same. Mm-hmm. And that’s why regret is so mindless, because the choice you didn’t take, you’re presuming would’ve been better. That’s pretty powerful to me. Instead of [00:33:19] Joe: wasting regret his [00:33:19] OG: mindless sounds like something I would say, [00:33:23] Joe: well, instead of wasting time, oji overthinking this decision, make the decision and then spend a hundred percent of your time making it right. [00:33:31] Joe: Make this decision the right decision. Spend a lot of time backing up the thing that you chose instead of wasting all this mental energy. [00:33:39] OG: Yeah. I have such little fear about making decisions that it doesn’t even resonate with me when people are like, oh, what if you make the wrong one? I’m just like, who cares? [00:33:47] Doc G: Like what that good question though. I mean, in a sense philosophically, there are probably people who just don’t think much about it. Like, oh, og, and then there are people who obsess over it. But that probably has nothing to do with the decision itself. It has to deal with some bad thing that happened in the past where they made the wrong decision. [00:34:03] Doc G: Right, and now they’re still kicking themselves. Right. We’re spending [00:34:05] Joe: so much time regretting the fact that I didn’t go to Harvard, or I didn’t go to Yale, or I didn’t go to whatever. Then now [00:34:11] Doc G: every decision in the future becomes clouded. [00:34:14] Joe: I love Jordan. Her thing that you’re presuming you knew how that outcome would’ve gone. [00:34:18] Joe: And you have no idea how that outcome would’ve gone. So stop wasting your time on worrying about the outcome that didn’t happen or thinking that quote would’ve been better when you have no clue what would’ve happened. It could have been way worse. Who knows what’s never worse though? How about that for a transition? [00:34:34] Joe: Is taking a little pause here at just beyond today, just beyond halfway point and, and, uh, focusing on our year long trivia competition. If you’re new to the Stack Benjamin Show, this is the part of the show where we pause in the middle to see which one of our three frequent contributors is going to prevail over the other two when it comes to this, uh, meaningful trivia. [00:34:58] Joe: Uh, trivia time. And man, the score not looking good, although, God, we had a bright spot last. Week. Jesse actually won last week for og. Oh, and Paula, neither of which were here. The [00:35:11] Paula: coalition. The coalition victory. [00:35:14] Joe: Yeah. Jesse and Paula have had a coalition and ever since then, uh, doc G’s won about 15 points for OG while he was gone on his family holiday. [00:35:23] Joe: But OG, as you come back here, you’re leading with nine. Jesse has six and a half. Paula with five and a half Doc G today. If you can win for Jesse the way you won for og, we’d appreciate it very much. Paula, if you can win, you and Jesse now tied. Ooh. And uh, which should be rare fight Paula. Sorry, what’s the [00:35:43] OG: score again? [00:35:44] OG: I missed it. I wasn’t paying attention. [00:35:45] Joe: Yeah, we’re not going back. [00:35:48] OG: No, I really didn’t hear it, but I’m guessing I’m in the lead by a considerable margin based on everybody’s attitude. [00:35:52] Joe: Yeah, you can rewind the tape and hear that later, but Doug, you’ve got today’s trivia question. Let’s see who’s gonna win this week. [00:36:05] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s moms neighbor, Doug. And here’s a big financial event that happened this week in US History earlier this week, back in 1969, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve announced that several former US bills were being discontinued immediately. The US Mint hadn’t made any of these bills since the 1940s, but they were still accepting them until this moment. [00:36:29] Doug: So here’s today’s question. If you added up the face value of all the bills that were eliminated back in the summer of 69 when I got my first real six string, and you cashed in one of each of the bills at the last moment, how much money would it have been? I’ll be back to see if a wooden nickel really is a thing. [00:36:48] Doug: Joe’s mom always says, don’t take any wooden nickels. Maybe they, they were discontinued in 69. We’re about to find out. [00:36:55] Joe: Alright, og, you go first on this competition. Several different, uh, bills were discontinued, but if just before that you cashed in one of each of the discontinued bills, how much money would you have? [00:37:11] OG: Basically, every bill I get, I just put it in the discontinued file. [00:37:15] Joe: The Verizon bill. I know [00:37:18] OG: all my bills are discontinued. Just like the service on everything that those bills provided. Isn’t it weird, sir? Your water has been discontinued. I’m like, great. No more bills. I can’t believe one follows the other. [00:37:28] OG: All right, so I have a pretty strong idea about this. I’m just, I’m just trying to decide if one of them was for reals or not. This is a gamble. I have two answers in my head and I think one of the two are, are correct. So I’m gonna guess on one. The question was, uh, if I cashed in every one of the bills, just one of them each, how much would I have cashed in? [00:37:55] OG: Of the discontinued ones. So I’m gonna say the answer is $16,500, [00:38:03] Joe: $16,500. So which bills do you think were were discontinued? I’m not answering that question. That’s for them to decide. [00:38:12] OG: Obviously the $16,500 bill was dis discontinued. [00:38:16] Doc G: Doc. Doc, [00:38:17] Joe: what are you thinking? [00:38:20] Doc G: I think it’s much higher than that. ’cause I’m gonna vaguely guess that there’s some really high value bill that was discontinued. [00:38:27] Doc G: So as opposed to playing the game, I’m just gonna give you what I actually think it could be. I’m gonna say 600,000, $21. 600,000, which is obviously [00:38:42] OG: the $600,021 bill. [00:38:44] Joe: Exactly. There’s just one of ’em. And they discontinued it. Well, it’s the $600,000 bill. The $20 bill, and the $1 bill, which doc hasn’t had in his wallet in a long time. [00:38:56] Joe: Paula, you’ve got 600,000, 21, and 16,500. What are you thinking? [00:39:01] Paula: Okay, I’m trying to piece together the logic here. So it’s obvious that OG believes that there was a $10,000 bill, a $5,000 bill, a $1,000 bill, and a $500 bill. That’s how you would arrive at 16,000. Or there was an [00:39:16] OG: $8,000 bill, a $7,000 bill, seven 50 bill, and two $250 bills. [00:39:23] OG: I don’t know. [00:39:24] Paula: Okay. Let’s see. So then Doc Chi must believe that there was a $500,000 bill, a $100,000 bill. And a 20, [00:39:34] Joe: and there used [00:39:35] Paula: to be like a $20 bill. Something like, I’m not, I’m losing the logic a little bit on Doc G’s guess other than the 500,000 and the $100,000 bill, what was [00:39:46] Doc G: my, I thought I said 621,000, right? [00:39:49] Doc G: Oh, you said, I thought you said 600,000. [00:39:51] Paula: 21 [00:39:52] Doc G: and 21. No, 621,000. [00:39:54] Paula: 621,000. So you believe that there was a $500,000 bill? A $100,000 bill? A 20,000 bill, and a thousand and a thousand dollars bill? Well, given that these bills existed in the 1940s when money was worth a lot less, I’m gonna bet that they, that the bills were not that big. [00:40:21] Paula: I’m gonna take the under at 16,499. Ah, so you think he’s off on one of those bills then? He, his [00:40:29] OG: $99 bill, he off to use $400 bill also. That’s [00:40:36] Joe: right. All right. We got 6,506,000 4 99 and 621,000. Let’s see who’s right. We’ll be right back. Oh gee. You opened this up with 16,500. Paula thinks you had a $10,000 bill. [00:40:51] Joe: 5,000. 1,500. Uh, would she be correct? [00:40:55] OG: Yeah. The question that I have is because I know those are all bills, I don’t know whether or not the author of the question is also assuming the $100,000 bill, which was only used for interbank transfers. So the question leads me to believe that the author does not believe that. [00:41:13] OG: ’cause he said if you could turn it in, which a person could not have turned it in. Because a person could not have a $100,000 bill. Only banks could have it. So that’s why I eliminated that. If we do include the a hundred, then I think there was a hundred thousand bill also that was discontinued. So then the real answer would be, plus a hundred [00:41:29] Joe: doc, how you feel and you think he’s making all this up? [00:41:31] Joe: I don’t know. [00:41:32] Doc G: I took a wild guess. I think that there have been some large bills made. I don’t know if in circulation, maybe it was AI and they never existed, but I have nothing to lose here. I’ve A, it’s my birthday and B, I’ve won a bunch for Josh or og, so I’ve got nothing to lose here. But you need to win. [00:41:49] Doc G: For Jesse, the goal is to win for Jesse. Yeah. You know I’m not your trick pony. I can only do so much. [00:41:57] Joe: And Paula, you took the under. [00:41:59] Paula: Well, if we go by the logic that these were the olden days, I think the under is a safe bet. But, uh, but I don’t know. We’ll see really? [00:42:10] Joe: 1969. I mean, who was born then? Oh my God, I was, alright, let’s, uh, let’s see. Going back to the olden days, I just, I wanna flip Paul off right now. [00:42:22] Joe: Let’s see [00:42:22] Joe: who’s right on this one, Doug. [00:42:28] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m coin collector, but also the guy who’s not buying your wooden nickels, Joe Spa’s, neighbor, Doug. Several bills were last printed up on the US Mitts copier machine, or you know, whatever they use way back in 1945, but it was earlier this week in 1969 when they shut the whole shebang down. [00:42:49] Doug: But if you turned in just one of each of the bills that had been discontinued just before, they were no longer legal tender, how much cash would you have had in your hand? Because there was a $500 bill, a $1,000 bill, a $5,000 bill, and. A $10,000 bill that you would’ve had in your hand? The correct answer is $16,500. [00:43:14] Doug: And I am sick to my stomach, as I say, that makes OG Wow. Our winner. Perfect. [00:43:20] OG: Wow. Wow. But technically so I would also very nice. Well, should I walk myself out of the win based on the reading of the answer? Technically they are all still legal tender, so if you have a thousand dollars bill, you’re still welcome to use it. [00:43:34] OG: Uh, you’d be a fool because they’re worth so much more to collector. Sure, sure. But, um, and there was also a hundred thousand dollars bill only used for interbank transfer, which is why I didn’t include that. Who [00:43:45] Paula: is on the thousand dollar bill? [00:43:47] OG: Um, McKinley, I believe. No, no. McKinley was on the 500. [00:43:54] Paula: Like maybe Hamilton, they Should we be Stacking these? [00:43:56] OG: Yes. I [00:43:57] Joe: know, right? Grover Cleveland was on the thousand dollar bill C. Yeah, there [00:44:01] OG: you go. Cleveland was on Stacking. Clevelands look up real quick. The five and $10,000 ones while you’re at it. Yeah. Who [00:44:08] Joe: was on the five oh oh, you don’t think I just came up with that? Nope, [00:44:11] OG: I don’t. [00:44:11] Joe: Uh, 500 was McKinley. 500 is McKinley. [00:44:15] Joe: Yep. And the 1000 or or or wait, what am I looking up? [00:44:19] OG: The 5,000 and 10,000, [00:44:21] Joe: the a hundred thousand was Woodrow Wilson. Wilson Wilson Stack Wilson 5,000 was James Madison obviously. And the 10,000 was Salmon P Chase, [00:44:35] OG: whoever that [00:44:36] Joe: is on the most common $10,000 bill series. So there must have been more. He was a politician, former Chief Justice in the United States and former Secretary of the Treasury. [00:44:45] Joe: So there you go. Sam p Chase, is he the chase of Chase Bank? Is he Mr. Chase? I don’t know. Was he the chaser? Or the chase. I know the cha EI know. Or the cha e. All I know is we’re gonna chase this down with the second half of today’s discussion, which, uh, we are going over. For those of you with short-term memory loss, we are going over the top six ways to waste a life. [00:45:10] Joe: A number four on here is something that we’ve kind of, uh, talked about in passing Doc, which is we waste our lives fearing failure. We’re afraid, and we brought this up on the whole, you know, overwhelm with indecision about decision fatigue, but we fear failure. How do you get around this fear that this is all gonna end [00:45:33] Doc G: up failing? [00:45:33] Doc G: Yeah, I mean, the easiest way to fail is not to try, right? So I guess you can assure failure by not even trying. Or you can try and you might succeed. You might fail. I mean. As we all probably have thought about before, often getting to the goal isn’t what makes us happy. A lot of times it’s kind of the valiant fight in between to get to the goal. [00:45:52] Doc G: So it’s actually in the trying that I think we live through some of our greatest moments. Are you saying hustle culture would be really productive because we’re trying more often? I don’t think hustle, culture and trying are the same thing. Hustle culture. So again, if you really wanna get into this, what we’re talking about is the difference between what I would call little p purpose, process oriented purpose versus hustle culture. [00:46:14] Doc G: In process oriented purpose, what I call little p purpose, you love the process, it lights you up. The problem with hustle culture is most of the time you actually don’t like the process. Hustle. Culture is about hustling, grinding, often doing things you don’t wanna do in celebration of a goal you could possibly make. [00:46:30] Doc G: And so it’s process is important, but the question is, does the process light you up or does it exhaust you? And that’s my problem with hustle culture. So I think the process exhausts. You [00:46:38] Joe: and I 100% did wanna get into this, which is why we invite you today. We talk about fearing failure as you’re describing little p purpose. [00:46:47] Joe: It also becomes very apparent that if you love the process, Jordan, the fear of failure goes away. ’cause who cares? Yeah. [00:46:55] Doc G: It doesn’t matter, right? You wanna fill your life with things you enjoy doing. You can, and I always tell people this and they never get it. I always say that little p purpose, you know, is process oriented, not goal oriented. [00:47:06] Doc G: So people like, I can’t have big goals. No, of course you can have big goals. You can have even big audacious. But if you don’t enjoy the process of doing whatever you do to have to get to that goal, if you hate the process, then you’re wasting your time. [00:47:18] Joe: Paula, you put a lot of stuff out there that is meant to help a large number of people. [00:47:23] Joe: Mm-hmm. It doesn’t always resonate. Mm-hmm. Like how do you avoid just fearing that this won’t go over the way you’d hoped? [00:47:32] Paula: Well, I think the question is, whatever it is that I’m stating, am I stating it from a place of integrity? Am I stating it from a place of honesty, and am I actively working on the skill of being able to communicate as. [00:47:48] Paula: Clearly as possible. So long as I’m doing those things, then I think it’s all stemming from the right spot. [00:47:55] Joe: That also kind of eliminates the fear of failure. ’cause you’re just doing your best to help people. [00:48:00] Paula: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think also with fear of failure, so many goals have an ambiguous benchmark of achievement that rather than have one very specific fixed quantitative benchmark, if you just think of the goal as the quote unquote goal as like a series of little micro goals or mini goals, there is no failure because you’re continually making progress. [00:48:28] Paula: You know, there are very few things short of winning a competition where there is a very delineated winner or loser for most things. You make an impact in a zone. There’s never a done and there’s never really a a loss so long as some impact has been made. [00:48:48] Joe: Was there something else you were gonna say? I think I cut you off when you were getting ready to jump in on Jordan. [00:48:52] Joe: Um, [00:48:52] Paula: well, I, I was actually going to question Doc G on some element of what he said because for anything that you do, there are going to be aspects of the process that you dislike. Like, I’m never gonna enjoy checking email ever, but for pretty much anything that I would ever want to do, email is going to be part of it. [00:49:10] Paula: So how do you deal with that? [00:49:12] Doc G: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a matter of is it worth the gain you get from doing the thing you don’t like, right? So I love podcasting. For me, podcasting is a little p purpose. I don’t always love editing, but the overall joy I get from making the podcast, putting it together and getting it to people makes editing worthwhile enough. [00:49:35] Doc G: Now, if it ever got to the point where I hated editing so much in the process of doing it was so bad that it overshadowed the overall good of. Enjoying the process, then I’d stop doing it. But it’s a continuum for sure. And so I think there is nuance in the sense to say that we’re gonna all spend our lives only doing things we love is pretty silly. [00:49:54] Doc G: Sometimes in service of something we love, we may spend some time doing things that we don’t love. But overall, the balance should be that you’re generally doing things you like, and as you get older and more wealthy and more successful, the things you don’t like doing should decrease, decrease, decrease. [00:50:10] Doc G: And the things you love doing should increase. Increase, increase. Mm-hmm. So when you are financially independent or you are the head of the firm, you can hire someone to do the things you don’t like If, if I’m Joe Rogan, I’m hiring someone to edit my podcast, right? Mm-hmm. That’s the goal. And I think it is a continuum. [00:50:27] Joe: The last one I want to cover on this list, and by the way, there is one more number six on the list we won’t cover today, which is we waste our lives with a lack of self-discipline. And I think that mirrors a lot of things that we already talked about today. But I do want to end today’s discussion on this one. [00:50:40] Joe: That’s, [00:50:41] OG: I would say, hold on, I’m gonna, I’m just gonna jump in on that one. Sure. I think that you already have the discipline, you’re just disciplined to do other things. [00:50:49] Joe: Well, it’s funny you say that, og, ’cause guess the one I wanna focus on says we waste our lives being busy but not productive. Which sounds like kind of where you’re headed. [00:50:59] OG: Well, I was just gonna say, when people say like, well, I just, you know, I lack the discipline to do it, or, or somebody points out, you just, you don’t have any self-discipline. It’s like, no, I’m very self-disciplined into my existing habits, you know, which, which includes rising at 7 45 at the crack of 7 45 every day. [00:51:15] OG: You know, it’s like, well, you know, you’re just not self-disciplined in the morning. Like bs, man, I get up the same time every day. I just don’t get up at five 30. Some people would look at getting up at five 30 as, man, look how late you’re getting up. You’re not self-disciplined. You know, three 30 is what time you should be getting up to go do your, I have a friend of mine who was, uh, training for a triathlon down here in Texas, and he got up at three 30 in the morning so that he could run in the middle of the night because it’s so f-ing hot during any, any other part of the day that the coolest part of the day where it’s only 89 is from three 30 until sunrise. [00:51:47] OG: And so he would bang out his three hours of running in the middle of the night and then he would sleep, take a big long four hour nap during the middle of the afternoon. Somebody might look at that and go, what a lazy SOB sleeping during the middle of the day. So anyways, you’re self-disciplined into your existing habits. [00:52:03] OG: I think. [00:52:04] Joe: Well, and this is Jordan. I’ll come back to you, Josh in a second. But yeah, Jordan, this is a hundred percent what you’re talking about, about loving the process versus the Hucul holster culture is, you know, sleep when you’re dead, get up at three 30. Oh, G’S point is, I love sleep until seven 30. [00:52:20] Doc G: That’s discipline. Yeah. And again, you know, to bring it full circle, I think this is what initially bothered me about the article and this idea of hustle cultures. It’s someone else pretty much defining what self-discipline is for you. A lot of people are saying that they’re busy all the time. And then this gets back to what OG said is, well, you’re busy doing what you’ve planned to do. [00:52:38] Doc G: Now that might be productive, quote unquote, or non-productive, but it’s what you’ve chosen. But only you can decide what productive is or not. Society has this idea of what productive is, and I, I think it’s wrong. You decide what’s productive. There are a lot of people who actually wanna do some things and never get to it because they say they’re busy. [00:52:56] Doc G: But it gets back to the American Times survey. I think people have this idea that they’re busy, but they’re just distracted. [00:53:02] OG: I was just gonna say Jordan, for that, ultimately the biggest piece out of all of this is that you have to take the ownership and recognize that you’re in charge. And as soon as you do that, as soon as you say, I am choosing two, you have complete control over everything. [00:53:19] OG: I can’t say, well, there’s just not enough time for me to work out. Like, you know, I’ll just have to be fat. Yeah. It’s like, no, that’s bs. I’m just choosing to spend my time watching TV. And you know what? If that’s what I want to do, and that’s what brings me joy, and I’m okay with the consequences of that. [00:53:36] OG: Cool, man. You don’t owe me an explanation. I don’t owe you an explanation of what I do, but I think some of this, what you’re talking about, and I think maybe frustrates you, Jordan, about some of this stuff, is it’s like other people’s vision of what your life should look like. And it’s like, no, man, I’m gonna do me. [00:53:52] OG: You do you Now, I can’t complain about me and say, well, it’s not my fault that I’m fat. Right? It’s like, well, hold on a second. You can’t have it both ways. Right? You can’t be, I’m gonna sit around and take ownership of like not doing anything, but then also be mad that I’m outta shape. If you’re gonna take some, you gotta take it all. [00:54:11] Doc G: Yeah. I mean, I think what it comes down to, at least for me, is the real self-discipline is not about what you do or don’t do. It’s about accepting agency, which is exactly what you’re saying. The real self-discipline is saying, I have agency to do or not to do. And no one else can define that for you. And this is always the problem I have with hustle culture. [00:54:29] Doc G: Someone else has decided what a societal belief of what self-discipline is and what you should be doing and you should be hustling towards it. And that’s where I kind of go awry. [00:54:38] Joe: And Paula doesn’t, this whole thing, like busy versus productive, isn’t productive mean it’s in pursuit of your goal. So if you start with the goal and work backwards, you can discern what’s productive and what’s just busy and what’s not. [00:54:50] Joe: Because I feel like when I’m busy but I’m not productive is ’cause I’m doing a bunch of crap that doesn’t meet my value system of where I see myself headed. [00:54:59] Paula: Hmm. You know, in your question, I’m thinking a little bit about the distinction between efficiency versus effectiveness. Hmm. Are you efficient or are you effective? [00:55:08] Paula: You can [00:55:09] Joe: be efficient but not effective. [00:55:10] Paula: Right. I think the two kind of that echoes what you’ve also asked about. Busy versus productive. Because, yeah, I think that ultimately the question is, alright, what’s the goal? What’s the mission like? What are we working towards? What are we trying to achieve here? [00:55:25] Paula: And then every subsequent question is not just, does this have any benefit, but is this the highest ROI way to approach that? Yeah, a lot of times you can be doing things that might hypothetically have some conceivable benefit towards it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the optimal use of your limited resources as you pursue that. [00:55:50] Joe: Mark says in this piece, when I catch myself busily working on the wrong things. I stop and ask myself what my most important tasks are for the day. Your point you just made. Mm-hmm. I go back to wiping my plate clean of everything, but the essential, sometimes there’s this one key task project, and sometimes there’s a few, but in any case, I ask myself, am I working on it? [00:56:10] Joe: The answer’s no. It’s time to get back on track, which assumes by the way that we actually put a plan together ahead of time, right? Mm-hmm. That we actually took the time to go, this is truly what’s important, and that’s what’s not, and that’s what we spent this entire week trying to get at, which is focus on those things that are most important. [00:56:28] Doc G: Yeah. I, you know, I just wanna make the point though, if you are continuously finding that you’re not doing the most important task and you’re filling your life with busyness, you gotta flip that around and say, why is that the most important task? And maybe there’s a reason I’m avoiding it because again, I think as we go through life. [00:56:46] Doc G: You eventually wanna align what you spend most of your time with, with also being the most important to you. And so this is the luxury of hopefully age and wealth and some of the freedom we get as we get older. Those two things should really start looking the same. And if they’re not, then maybe the goal for the day is what’s wrong and not that you’re busy doing other things. [00:57:04] Joe: Yeah. Swim back upstream and see if the goal setting is actually accurate. [00:57:09] Doc G: Yeah, and again, I, I agree. You know, you’re 22 years old or 23, you just got married, you have a little baby. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the goal for the day is make money even if it doesn’t light you up. But hopefully as we get a little bit older and we get a little bit, quote unquote, a little more well off, we can start aligning those things much better. [00:57:25] Joe: I think it’s a great place for us to leave it and leave this week. That started off with going back through the last six months and some of the great mentors we’ve had, some of the great messages and asking, are you actually working on any of these things? And then on Wednesday. Talking about setting goals using the smart goal system that we’ve all heard of. [00:57:42] Joe: And it works for the Navy, it works for big companies. But we go, yeah, this smart idea. I don’t know, I dunno. Gary really puts it into perspective. And then I love Jordan actually, you bringing birthday boy, I love you bringing in the wholesale culture and I think we were able to avoid that, but still go. Am I doing what truly lights me up? [00:58:01] Joe: What lights me up is hearing about the brilliant work that all you are doing. Let’s start off with OG big plans this weekend, my friend. [00:58:10] OG: Ooh, I am in, uh, lost wages this week. It’s a great time to be there. It’s the summer in the desert. I mean, in Las Vegas. Mean it doesn’t wanna be there July 17th or whatever the day is. [00:58:20] OG: Uh, nope. Got a, uh, a little bit of a conference that I’m at and um, gonna come home tomorrow. Excellent. And then we’re gonna to Park City, which is a different side of the mountain, which will Yeah, [00:58:32] Joe: right. Be [00:58:32] OG: even [00:58:32] Joe: better. Well, I hope you’re winning lots of money while you’re in Vegas. [00:58:35] OG: Oh, no. Casino trip for me. [00:58:36] OG: Nope. This is a work trip. Sorry. Don’t, unfortunately, don’t do that. No, no fun. This is all business, all hustle. [00:58:43] Joe: Paula, what’s going on at the business slash casino? We call, I’m, I’m trying to do these segues and they’re not working called Afford [00:58:50] Paula: Anything. What’s going on there? Uh, we have a two-part interview with JL Collins, the, uh, author of The Simple Path to Wealth. [00:58:57] Paula: Never heard of [00:58:58] Joe: him. JL who [00:58:59] Paula: exactly the, the guy who pretty much coined V-T-S-A-X and Chill. So we’ve got a two-part interview with him on the Afford Anything podcast. We talk for a total of almost two hours between the two episodes. [00:59:10] Joe: He’s a guy that even at two hours, I feel that’s not enough, right? I’m like, I could talk to that guy for seven hours, right? [00:59:16] Joe: So, fantastic. So tune into a great two-parter with Paula on a Ford. Anything, Jordan, happy birthday again, my friend. [00:59:24] Doc G: Yeah, I, I’ve just decided today that it’s gonna go from being my birthday day to my birthday week. So that’s what I’m gonna do this weekend is we’re gonna celebrate me [00:59:32] OG: the whole weekend. I do a birthday month, Jordan, so I don’t blame you. [00:59:35] Doc G: Might as well be a birthday year, like every year. [00:59:37] OG: Well, let’s not get crazy. [00:59:39] Joe: Yeah. Oh gee. A Paula, don’t you feel like he made it his birthday day today on the show? I mean, he totally Did. [00:59:44] Doc G: You know what I want from my birthday, that $500,000 bill, that situation. That’s, that’s what I really want. Along with the $100,000 [00:59:51] Joe: one, I think you want the $621,000 bill that you quoted earlier. [00:59:55] Doc G: I would’ve been just as, as close to right with that one and than the 501. Well, it’s good [01:00:00] Joe: to see you’re back to your old ways on your birthday of missing it by a factor of, uh, a lot. 500,000. Yeah. [01:00:05] Doc G: Yeah. [01:00:05] Joe: Good [01:00:05] Doc G: stuff. What’s going on at Earn and Invest? You guys heard me mention Hustle Culture here. It has been on my mind ’cause I did a 10 things episode about hustle culture in preparation for my interview of a lady named Sky Waterson, who is an a d HD coach. [01:00:22] Doc G: And so she coaches people on how to build businesses and how to survive corporate America when you have a DHD. And some of that is hustle. And that’s why I wanted to talk about hustle culture. Something’s just been on my mind a lot lately. A lot of people [01:00:35] Joe: undiagnosed A DHD, I think that’s good for anybody. [01:00:38] Joe: I mean, we all get distracted even if you don’t have a DH. And I know listening to some of those podcasts have been so very, very helpful and partially just to know there’s other people out there that [01:00:49] Doc G: have the same what squirrel thing that Yeah. I mean, and, and it’s always hard to differentiate, right? We know what the extremes, anything is bad, but for some people, a DHD is a feature and not a bug, right? [01:00:59] Doc G: That’s what helps them jump from thing to thing to thing, and can be make them incredibly successful entrepreneurs. On the other hand, being incredibly successful entrepreneur is also being organized and hiring and firing people and running a business, and sometimes that doesn’t always go so well with a DHD. [01:01:15] Doc G: Hmm. [01:01:16] Joe: Lastly, I want to thank everyone who, uh, hung out with us today on YouTube. We didn’t announce we were coming on a day later than usual. Normally, we’re here, well, Wednesdays or Thursdays late in the afternoon Eastern time, so come join us. It’s always fun seeing who’s with us. Unfortunately, we didn’t spend a lot of time talking to people today, but they were certainly chatting with us a little bit El windows here and said, I just logged on Paula. [01:01:38] Joe: What’s that amphibious beast in the water next to you, you had a guest who is a little silent today. [01:01:45] Paula: Ah, this is my turtle. His name is Joffrey. He’s a yellow belly slider turtle. So yes, he’s right here in the tank next to us, uh, with, you know, he’s been part of this taping. [01:01:54] Joe: That’s what we call og, the Yellow Belly Slider. [01:01:57] Joe: Uh, yeah. Uh, Carlos says hello from North. It’s my college damn from Baltimore, but he says it’s damn from Balmer because the T is silent og, much like in the word often, which you have to be a Stacky Benjamins fan to know about the often slash often debate that we had here. [01:02:17] OG: Did Doug say it wrong? Is that what he’s talking about? [01:02:19] OG: I’ve elective memory, yes. [01:02:20] Joe: Doug called it off tin and um, it turns out you said that, uh, no, that’s not correct. And Dan agrees with you. And, uh, Bjorn is here with us and says, Doug is awesome. Brandon, let’s go. Og. Congratulations, og. And, uh, Jeff likes watching the sausage get made and likes it when he sees behind the scenes. [01:02:40] Joe: When I go three, two, one. Mike hanging out. Happy birthday to Doc G. Leisure enthusiast. Yo, doc G just realized you write some great articles for Psychology Today. Had to ask my wife, is this the same Doc G that frequents Stacking Benjamins? [01:02:55] Doc G: And it is, it is. In fact, I was just in the Psychology Today magazine. [01:02:59] Doc G: They did a big push on purpose. There’s a side column with all the ideas about Big P and Little P Purpose. So check it out if you happen to get Psychology Today Magazine. [01:03:07] Joe: Lots more discussion, but come hang out with us. Everybody had a great chat today and we thank you guys for hanging out with us on YouTube as we made it. [01:03:14] Joe: Alright, Doug, you’ve got it from here, man. What’s stacked up on our to-do list today? [01:03:18] Doug: So what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? You know what? I’m gonna have our contributors step in and do a little of this heavy lifting. [01:03:26] Paula: A rocking horse is always in motion, but it never gets anywhere, and that’s what it is to be busy but not productive. [01:03:34] Joe: I don’t think you actually said that, but you should have said that. Uh, hey birthday boy. What’s that thing that you said that was so amazing earlier [01:03:41] Doc G: in the show? Oh boy. I said so many amazing things. I can’t remember any of them. I think what I said is that agency is the real self-discipline. We need to take hold of responsibility for our decisions, whether we wanna call them productive or not. [01:03:59] Doug: Thanks guys. But the big lesson when talking about money, don’t share with Joe’s mom all the money that’s no longer in circulation because she’ll demand that the 20 you owe her from last week’s trip to the Sizzler gets paid back pronto. On an unrelated note, og, how about something me at 20? You know, man, help a brother out. [01:04:21] Doug: Thanks to the birthday boy, doc G, for joining us today. You’ll find fantastic money discussions at Earn and Invest. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking benjamin.com. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast, afford anything along with a whole bunch of really big words wherever you listen to Finer podcast. [01:04:45] Doug: And thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning. Help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar. This show is the property of S SP podcasts LC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [01:05:15] Doug: Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
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