Order of Man - 130： Finish What You Start ｜ Jon Acuff

00:00:00.000 If you're anything like me, you are what I refer to as a starter. I've never been at a loss for

00:00:05.680 figuring out how to start things, but getting things done is a completely different story.

00:00:10.480 Today, I'm joined by New York Times bestselling author, John Acuff. If you have problems finishing

00:00:15.100 what you start, this is the episode for you. And I'm not going to lie, I needed this one more than

00:00:20.380 most. We talk about developing a tolerance for imperfection, why strategic incompetence is a

00:00:26.880 powerful tool, how to overcome what John calls noble obstacles, a new spin on smart goals,

00:00:33.120 and how to finally finish what you have started. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:38.100 fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down,

00:00:42.700 you get back up one more time. Every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged,

00:00:49.180 resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:00:55.020 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:00.840 Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder of

00:01:04.880 this podcast, The Order of Man. Each week, we are bringing you my interviews with the very best

00:01:10.320 this planet has to offer. But today, I've got to go on a little bit of a rant here. I've been doing

00:01:14.320 this for about two and a half years now, and I've just got to say that I am so sick of the raw,

00:01:20.040 raw, motivational guru types out there with their cute little one-liners about being motivated and

00:01:26.060 getting stuff done, and don't worry about what other people think, and just do it and be disciplined.

00:01:30.720 I get it. I mean, there's a time and a place for that kind of stuff, but I want this to be different.

00:01:34.920 So rather than talk about the one-liners that you already know, I want to talk with my guests about

00:01:40.240 the how. I'm talking about really digging in deep and getting to the handful of tactics

00:01:45.560 tactics that make these guys a success. And that's exactly what we're doing today with this

00:01:51.220 podcast and my guest today. But before we get into that, I just want to tell you a little bit

00:01:56.000 about our exclusive brotherhood for just a quick minute here. When I began this journey to become

00:02:01.640 a better man nine years ago, there was no roadmap for me. There was no track to run on. There was no

00:02:07.380 one to show me how to do it, which is probably why it's taken me nine years to get to where I am now

00:02:12.120 with a long way to go. But had I had a roadmap and the track and the brothers to help me along

00:02:17.120 the journey, I am certain that I could have sped up the process. And of course, the results that

00:02:22.160 come with speeding up that process. So let's be real. You can go on this journey of becoming a

00:02:27.080 better man by yourself. I did for a long time. I did that. But you don't have to. We've created

00:02:32.580 the framework inside of the Iron Council that points you in the right direction. It distills my hard

00:02:38.120 thought and hard learned lessons as well as the other men inside of the council and allows

00:02:43.040 you to tap directly into the results that we have all experienced. So I want to invite

00:02:47.320 you to join us. You can learn more about what we're up to and claim your seat in the brotherhood

00:02:52.360 at orderofman.com slash Iron Council. Again, that's orderofman.com slash Iron Council. With

00:02:58.800 that said, let me introduce you to my guest today. His name is John Acuff. I've read his last

00:03:03.780 four books and I've been trying to get this guy on the show for two years. The time finally

00:03:08.760 came with the release of his new book today. That is if you're listening to this today, it's

00:03:13.020 being released. It's called Finish. Give yourself the gift of done. The other books that I've

00:03:17.540 read are Do Over, Start and Quitter, all of which have been instrumental in helping me launch

00:03:22.660 the podcast that you guys are listening to right now. Again, he's a New York Times bestselling

00:03:27.240 author. He's worked with companies like Home Depot, Staples. He worked with the Dave Ramsey

00:03:31.820 team. He's been featured on CNN, Fox News, other major media outlets. This guy is intelligent.

00:03:37.620 He's funny. And he's here to drop some serious knowledge on the art, science, and skill of

00:03:42.320 finishing what you start. John, what's going on, man? Thanks for joining me on the show

00:03:47.780 today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan. We were talking before we hit record. I've read

00:03:51.840 four now of your, how many books have you written? Five, six? Six. Six. Okay. So I've read

00:03:57.240 four of the six books. I got to get the other ones as well. Well, one's a gift book. So it was

00:04:01.680 just kind of a funny little, I mean, it's definitely six because you should always count 0.98

00:04:05.800 the stuff you do. But like one of them was definitely just a gift book. So that you haven't

00:04:10.580 read that does not hurt my feelings at all. All right. So I get a pass on that one. So

00:04:13.940 I'm one short then. Exactly.

00:04:16.180 What was really interesting about the book that you just wrote, Finish, is you talked

00:04:20.240 about you addressing the wrong ghost a couple of years ago when you had written the book

00:04:25.200 Start. And you almost alluded to the fact that you should have started with this one as

00:04:29.680 opposed to that one. Can you walk me through that thought process?

00:04:32.740 Yeah. Part of what Finish, this new book, talks about a lot is the myths we have about goals.

00:04:38.020 And then it says, well, let's put some research around that. Is it true? And one of the myths

00:04:42.500 is that the start is the most important part. So we have motivational statements like, well,

00:04:48.160 begun is half done or the hardest part of any journey is the first step. But the reality is that's just

00:04:53.540 not true. If a surgeon told you, after I make the first incision, I'm half done, you'd think,

00:04:58.340 no, you're not. The first step is not the hardest. The middle is way harder. And so what happened was

00:05:04.740 I wrote this book about getting people to start and it went fine and people liked it. And I think

00:05:08.740 it helped people. But a lot of readers came up and would say, hey, no offense, but I've never had

00:05:13.600 a problem starting. I can start a million things. I've never actually finished. How do you finish?

00:05:19.240 And as I started to look at my own life and other people's lives, I realized I have a lot of half

00:05:23.320 read books. I have exercise gear in my garage. There's a lot of people right now listening that

00:05:29.280 have a treadmill that they now use to hang clothes on to dry in the garage. And so I realized

00:05:34.520 starting is super, super easy. It's fun, but it's super easy. I mean, how easy is it for your

00:05:39.960 listeners to register a URL and go, I'm going to have this new website? Yeah. But that's all they do

00:05:45.520 with it. And so the goal of this book was to address that big question of, okay, I started,

00:05:51.140 but how do I actually take something to completion? I've heard, and maybe even seen

00:05:55.480 studies where it actually talks about psychology and how the mind almost has the same reward system

00:06:01.360 when you start something as when you finish it. Have you looked into that or is that true to your

00:06:06.180 knowledge? It's interesting. I mean, it's like the dopamine is less, but it kind of does trick you in

00:06:12.280 the sense like Derek Seavers, this author talks about this. If you tell people your goals the wrong way,

00:06:18.200 they give you pre-congratulations and you don't do it. So for instance, if you tell a friend,

00:06:23.860 you tell your buddy, I'm going to run a marathon. They go, good for you. I could never do that.

00:06:28.500 You're so disciplined. What an athlete. And dopamine gets into your system and it's enough

00:06:34.440 to make you not do it. So what you're supposed to do is say to a buddy, hey, I need you to hold

00:06:39.780 me accountable to running three times a week for the next eight weeks while I train. And they go,

00:06:44.140 got it. And so, yeah, the way your brain works does say, okay, right out at the start, you'll get

00:06:49.680 some dopamine. We'll give you some of it. I don't know that it's the same exact amount. I mean, it's

00:06:55.000 the science is kind of hard on that, but you definitely, I mean, we've all started something

00:06:59.040 and been hot about it. Like that's, that's dopamine going, yay, the start, you know?

00:07:04.100 And I imagine too, this probably leads to some of the mediocrity that we see when somebody says,

00:07:08.640 for example, you're going to run a marathon. They say you're disciplined.

00:07:10.800 And you're not really disciplined yet. You haven't proven yourself to be disciplined. Let's

00:07:15.100 figure it out if you can, if you can actually stay the course for the next three months or

00:07:18.580 whatever it is you're going to take to get ready. We haven't done anything. I mean, all you've said

00:07:23.160 is a sentence. You might not have even registered, purchased shoes, talked to a trainer, joined a

00:07:28.180 running club, like got a GPS watch. Like you haven't done anything. All you've done is expressed

00:07:33.020 the desire. So in moments like that, the idea of saying like, wow, that's amazing what you

00:07:38.680 did. You haven't done anything. And that's what's fascinating.

00:07:43.300 Well, I think this leads into the conversation that you have about consistent activity and why

00:07:47.800 it's so important because you're right. I mean, I have books, I have weightlifting equipment,

00:07:52.740 I have hobbies and fly fishing stuff and you name it, I've got it. And I've never really done much

00:07:57.560 past the first couple of days. Tell us why consistency is so important and how to even maintain

00:08:03.460 some of that. Well, I mean, I think consistency is important, but it actually hurts you when it

00:08:08.220 becomes perfection. There are people that go, we tend to judge ourselves on all or nothing,

00:08:12.820 like it's going to be perfect or I'm not going to do it at all. And so like people will say,

00:08:17.380 well, why do perfectionists have messy cars? Because if it can't be like toothbrush clean,

00:08:21.800 they won't even remove old food. And so I think the temptation is to kind of land on perfection

00:08:28.820 versus like consistency, which says, okay, it's a little bit at a time. It's not overaggressive.

00:08:34.560 The goal is the right size. It's manageable for the day. I can do it. It stretches me.

00:08:39.900 And then it becomes, you know, like so many people talk about, you get the power of habit

00:08:43.720 behind you versus just relying on willpower. I know this is true in a previous life and I still

00:08:49.380 own my financial planning firm, but I can't tell you how often I heard people say,

00:08:53.040 I don't really want to start investing right now because I can't invest as much as I would like to.

00:08:58.240 And to me, it's like saying, I don't really want to go into the gym until I lose weight.

00:09:02.980 Well, yeah, it doesn't, the idea of like, I want to invest so much that I won't even start.

00:09:07.700 That doesn't make any sense. I have a friend and she has a violin and she said,

00:09:12.280 I don't want to practice the violin because what if I'm bad? And you kind of go, well,

00:09:16.580 it's self-fulfilling. Like if you don't practice, you will be bad. The only way to get better is to be

00:09:22.900 okay with bad and keep working. So the psychology of it's pretty fascinating.

00:09:27.180 And I think the bottom line in the premise of the book is really to overcome this idea of

00:09:32.260 perfection. How do you start to develop the tolerance to do that?

00:09:36.060 Well, I mean, the first chapter is the day after perfect. For this book, the research process,

00:09:42.040 the people we worked with, the day that most people quit was day two. And if you ask somebody,

00:09:46.920 when do people quit their goals? They say day 15, day 20, when the going gets tough. And the reality is

00:09:51.680 most people quit on day two because that's when the work starts. In our head, we think,

00:09:56.760 okay, if I divided a group, if I divided a project into three groupings, it would be

00:10:01.560 30 days. It'd be starting would be day one through 10, middle would be 11 through 20,

00:10:07.400 finishing would be 21 through 30. It's really like the start is day one, the middle is day two through

00:10:12.980 29 and the finish is day 30. And so the minute we feel that motivation dip a little or the emotion

00:10:20.600 of it and we go, oh, I'm just not as excited as I was yesterday. I just, I'm not going to do it.

00:10:25.160 Like we end up quitting really, really quickly and giving into perfectionism right out of the gate.

00:10:30.460 I'm sure we're going to get into the rest of the conversation as to why that is. But at the end of

00:10:34.920 the day, is it just some sort of underestimation about what it'll actually take to accomplish the goal

00:10:40.500 that you've just set? I mean, I think that's part of it. One of the lessons in the book is

00:10:45.180 why you should cut your goals in size. And that's definitely because people oversize their goals,

00:10:51.520 but it can also be that you're afraid of success and that you're great at the first 90% of a goal,

00:10:57.880 but you, you sink your own ship as it comes into Harbor and you can't, the thought of success

00:11:02.680 terrifies you. And so it really, I mean, there's, there's probably a hundred reasons people will mess up,

00:11:08.640 but it does involve that or involves you've picked something you hate doing. Like I have so

00:11:13.540 many people that will say, I'm going to get in shape and I'll go, how? And they say, I'm going

00:11:17.140 to run. And I'll go, do you like running? And they go, no, I hate it. That's how I know it's good for

00:11:20.260 me. Like we, as a culture believe for something to be good for us, it has to be miserable. And that's

00:11:25.320 just not what the research says. That's interesting. I hear you talk about afraid of success and I hear

00:11:30.360 that. And I think other people hear that and like, come on, that's not real. Like why would anybody be

00:11:34.340 afraid of success? It's almost counterintuitive. Help me explain that or understand that a little

00:11:39.620 bit better. Oh, it's 100% counterintuitive. So for instance, I, one of the ladies in the book

00:11:44.220 that I tell her story, she spent six years getting a degree and then failed the last final on purpose.

00:11:50.320 So she wouldn't graduate because she was afraid of what's next. Think about a football player.

00:11:54.680 You've been in the NFL forever and you're, you're about to be 28 and out of the league. And since six,

00:12:00.720 that was your whole thing, the idea of what's next is overwhelming or the idea of it won't be

00:12:07.720 perfect. So I'm afraid to see what happens. But a lot of people, and then like factor in money,

00:12:13.060 you're a financial advisor. Like you ran into people that were very ashamed of money that had a lot of

00:12:19.200 money rules or money lies, they believe. So a friend the other day at a dinner party said,

00:12:23.560 I can't believe that CEO makes $20 million a year. How do you think he sleeps at night? And I wanted to

00:12:28.020 say probably on Hungarian goose feathers, probably, but in his mind, there was a certain amount of

00:12:34.820 money that was good. And then too much was bad. So if you've got, you know, or if you had parents,

00:12:40.680 like maybe you had parents that always said the phrase, that must be nice. Like when a neighbor

00:12:45.320 went on vacation, they go, must be nice to be able to take vacation all the time, must be nice.

00:12:49.960 And you've got this sense of, if I take a vacation, I don't deserve it. I haven't worked hard

00:12:54.180 enough. Oh, that that's a fear of success. And a lot of people carry their version of that.

00:13:00.820 Interesting. You know, I imagine too, and I've seen this because I spent some time in the military.

00:13:04.600 And this is just one example where a soldier might define himself as a soldier. And then when he leaves,

00:13:11.580 whether he's retired or voluntary or involuntary, leaves the service, he has a very difficult time

00:13:17.300 transitioning to something else because he has defined himself one way for so long. Do you run across

00:13:22.220 that? Oh yeah. I mean, I have, I have a friend who works with Navy SEALs and that's the same.

00:13:27.300 You know, you talk about having a peak experience and then being done with that peak experience.

00:13:32.360 So in that sense, think about it this way. If I know that finishing something means I no longer

00:13:38.040 get to do it, I'll drag it out as long as I can. Or if it doesn't even have to be a fear of success,

00:13:43.400 it can be a fear of completion. So if I write a book and I work on it, work on it, work on it, work on it,

00:13:48.680 as long as I don't finish it, it'll never be criticized. It's just in my computer. It's just

00:13:53.120 at my house. The minute I finish it and put it on Amazon, strangers can now judge it. So maybe it's

00:13:59.320 not a fear of success. Maybe it's just a fear of visibility. And it's easier to say, okay, I've got

00:14:05.280 an amazing book in my head or my computer. But once I share with the world, then the expectation has

00:14:09.960 changed. I mean, I know public speakers that will say, I want to surprise people not be known as good.

00:14:16.820 So I'm afraid to get a good reputation and do well because then they expect it. And then their

00:14:22.020 expectation is high. I'd much rather only do it a couple times a year, really surprise people when

00:14:26.940 I get there and then disappear. This is kind of like the phrase over promise, under deliver, right?

00:14:32.360 Exactly. But if you pull that, I mean, you pull that phrase out long enough, like you end up in a

00:14:37.980 place where you're, it feels like in gym class in college, when you took weightlifting in college,

00:14:43.220 they would always say, don't lift a lot of weight at the beginning. Cause at the end of the semester,

00:14:46.820 you'll be judged for your grade on how much more you've improved. So like everybody would sandbag at

00:14:51.480 the beginning. So like you come up with just this random assortment of hacks and broken rules and

00:14:58.040 ways that people live. And every team I talked to at every company has an employee that they go,

00:15:03.140 tons of potential, most amazing employee we had couldn't get out of their own way. 0.62

00:15:06.640 Like just before they would win the big client or the big, whatever they would mess it all up.

00:15:12.280 And part of that, I mean, just from a, from an emotional standpoint, maybe you don't believe

00:15:16.900 you deserve good things. And so the idea of something good happening feels really wrong to

00:15:22.340 you. So like if we were robots, you and I could say in order to be men, do these seven things and

00:15:27.720 you'll be fine. Like we know the things it's like, why is anyone in the world out of shape? If we know

00:15:32.400 the things, you know, it's how do you get in shape? Eat less, move more done. But like we can't handle

00:15:38.620 that. So it applies to goals too. Yeah. It's really funny that you talk about this. I had just

00:15:44.060 the other day, a guy tell me that overly giving out your respect to other people devalues the level

00:15:50.900 of respect you give to some. So you shouldn't share it so freely because it lessens the quality of the

00:15:56.920 value that you give really strange stuff. Yeah. But see, if we were more self-aware,

00:16:01.600 we could deal with those rules easier and identify them to each other and say, that's

00:16:07.320 a crazy person statement. I mean, one of the stories I tell in the book is my friend, top

00:16:11.560 executive, huge, huge executive. He got a job going between LA and New York, bought fancy

00:16:17.300 luggage. It was uncomfortable. The strap hurt his arm. And he sees a lady wheeling a bag through

00:16:22.300 the airport. And he says to himself, when did I start believing wheels don't count? So his

00:16:26.740 rule was, it only counts if it's a heavy luggage and you got to look like a professional.

00:16:31.280 And she looked very professional. She just happened to find the easiest way to do something.

00:16:35.640 And he realized that's a dumb rule. Like I'm not going to live my life by wheels don't count.

00:16:39.300 Like this sucks. And that's what I think some people fall into. 0.93

00:16:42.380 Yeah. This is the section you talk about in the book, which really resonated with me. And that's

00:16:45.880 the secret rules that we create, right? Which I think is synonymous with limiting beliefs or is

00:16:50.380 it different? Oh, totally. I think it very, I think like everybody has their own version of that

00:16:54.960 concept. Mine was, you know, the cuckoos that are in your nest, so to speak. But yeah,

00:17:00.380 I've heard different people call it limiting beliefs, um, secret rules. Yeah. I think

00:17:04.560 psychologists have their own phrases for it. I think there's a lot of people that talk about

00:17:08.480 that concept. I hate cuckoo birds, by the way, after reading your book. I know, right? They're

00:17:12.880 the worst. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Okay. So you're talking about secret rules and I think the first 0.66

00:17:18.580 step is to really identify or understand that you're probably telling yourself some lies, but

00:17:22.300 how do you begin to do that? Well, I mean, it's not a, like there's some things you read in a book

00:17:26.940 and you do it right then, but there's other books you read, like the war of art. Like if you read

00:17:31.520 the war of art and Steven Pressfield talks about resistance, then that sticks with you. And a week

00:17:37.140 later you're driving your car and you hit a moment where you go, Oh, wait a second. That thing would

00:17:42.100 really applies to this part of my life. I think it's the same with secret rules. Um, I think it

00:17:46.200 takes time, but I also think it takes friendship. It takes, you know, relationship where sometimes you're

00:17:51.780 so close to your own lies, you can't see them. And you need to talk them out with friends and say,

00:17:57.220 Hey, here's this thing. I believe is it like the guy who told you the respect thing. If it was from

00:18:02.040 a different perspective, if he had said to you, Hey Ryan, here's how I think about respect. Do you

00:18:07.660 agree? Like you wouldn't have judged him or shamed him, but you might've gone, dude, I don't know if

00:18:12.340 that's true. Like I don't, here's, here's how I see that. That might, you know, you might want to look

00:18:18.500 at it this way. Or if, if somebody told me, okay, I've got to have my company this size and we need

00:18:25.300 this to happen. I can say to them, well, why does it have to be that size? And if they go, well,

00:18:29.540 my grandfather always said big companies are better. I might go, well, is he still alive?

00:18:34.080 And they go, no. And I think, so you're trying to meet his standard and he's not even like,

00:18:38.860 he'll never know. Like that's a weird rule to plan a budget by. Nobody at your company knows your

00:18:45.240 grandfather's ghost is on the board. Weird. Interesting. You know? And so I think a lot of

00:18:50.340 it is, I mean, one of the, my favorite secret rules in the book, a woman told me that she lied

00:18:56.320 to herself and said that being in shape and fit is immodest, like, and being fat is, is humble.

00:19:04.320 And so the joke I do there is like, yeah, cause that's like, no one's ever seen ranch dressing and

00:19:09.220 been like, Oh, the humility, humility is ranch. But like, that was a thing. And maybe, you know,

00:19:14.760 for all we know, her mom one day saw somebody in a bikini, like in a two piece bathing suit and made 1.00

00:19:20.440 a snide comment to her. And then that little girl said, okay, that's the rule. Like if I get in

00:19:25.080 shape, I'm going to be, you know, immodest. So I have to stay out of shape. That's, that makes no

00:19:30.560 sense, but that's why they're, they're secret rules. They're crazy. In a way, it just sounds like 0.82

00:19:35.080 facing the reality for what it, what it is and giving it a name. I've talked with the guys before I

00:19:39.680 spent some time in Iraq and it would have been laughable if we pretended the enemy didn't exist.

00:19:44.660 And yet I think we do this every day and we hear terms like ignorance is bliss, which is actually

00:19:48.980 kind of funny because that is a secret rule itself. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well that's, I mean,

00:19:54.040 but there's people that take that to the extreme of like not getting tested for something. Like if I

00:19:58.620 don't get this test, I won't know if I'm sick and you're like, but then you'll be sick. It's not a

00:20:03.560 solution. And so I think we do a lot of the, that's why for me, a lot of goal setting books fail

00:20:09.580 because they act like you're a robot and they take, they don't take into account all this emotional

00:20:15.920 like tangle that people, you know, fall into. Well, and you even talk about this because you

00:20:22.480 talk about and highlight the shortcomings of the acronym SMART goals, right? And why, yeah,

00:20:29.180 they're robotic, they're boring. And frankly, they just don't work because you're dealing with human

00:20:33.140 beings, not robots. A lot of people in Western culture, we think it has to be miserable to

00:20:38.200 count. And so what we studied with that particular section was, does fun matter? You know, companies,

00:20:45.260 you'll hear companies go, we're not Google. We don't have a water slide in our office. We do serious

00:20:48.960 work. And so I was curious, does fun matter? And when you study goals, you measure two things,

00:20:53.900 satisfaction and performance. Satisfaction, how you felt, performance, how you did. Now,

00:20:58.420 if I raise one and not the other, I've failed you. If I raise your satisfaction,

00:21:01.620 but your performance drops, you're smiling all the way to last place. If I raise your performance,

00:21:06.540 but your satisfaction drops, you're every rich, miserable person we've ever met. You're every 0.97

00:21:11.780 successful, unhappy person. So you have to raise both. So we said to the people that almost 900

00:21:17.560 participants, we want you to be really deliberate about making what you do fun. And people that did

00:21:24.160 were 31% more satisfied, but the biggest number, they were 43% more successful. So it's fun for me.

00:21:31.080 And I worked with a researcher from a local university is I can say to individuals, companies,

00:21:35.780 teams, whatever, fine, fine, fine. I know fun feels silly, but you'll be 43% more successful.

00:21:42.440 And the big principle here is it's not have fun. It's make it fun. And have fun is I only do things

00:21:49.000 that are passionate and lollipops. And like, that's garbage. Make it fun admits some of the stuff you do 0.98

00:21:55.000 is going to be boring and dry and dull. You have to figure out a way as a leader to make it more

00:22:00.480 enjoyable and to connect yourself to it.

00:22:02.800 I'm glad you made that distinction because there's a philosophy, I guess, for lack of a better term,

00:22:08.460 that one I actually adhere and subscribe to. And that is that doing challenging things and doing

00:22:13.180 difficult things mentally, physically, emotionally, intellectually is actually a good thing for you.

00:22:18.760 But there are strategies you can use to enjoy even the most difficult circumstances.

00:22:24.300 Oh, yeah. I mean, and there's there's study after study talks about that. You know,

00:22:28.140 misery for misery's sake is dumb, something that stretches you that you find joy in. I mean, 0.99

00:22:33.080 like, I love throwing the frisbee in my front yard. It's very different the time I joined an ultimate

00:22:38.100 frisbee league. And the first day I threw up like, but it was still like, ultimate frisbee was still

00:22:44.280 really fun. And I remember driving away covered in mud, exhausted, but still feeling like, wow,

00:22:49.020 I had fun and I really stretched myself. Like, I really went beyond what I thought I could do.

00:22:53.600 And so, yeah, I don't I'm 100 percent into challenges, stretching, pushing yourself beyond

00:23:00.620 what you think your current limitations are. But at the same time, I'm not I don't accept that it has

00:23:06.260 to be like difficult doesn't mean miserable. Difficult can be difficult and like unbelievably fun

00:23:13.620 at the same time. And this goes to one of the questions that really stood out. And that question

00:23:18.100 was, what's my real goal? Because I think a lot of the times we latch ourselves onto this misery and

00:23:23.080 how we're supposed to be miserable. And even guests on the podcast have come on. And I'm sure guys have

00:23:27.100 listened to it and said, oh, I've got to do that because fill in the blank. And yet that's probably

00:23:32.280 doesn't have anything to do with their ultimate objective, what they've identified or failed to

00:23:37.080 identify for themselves. Yeah. I mean, look at the numbers. So statistically speaking,

00:23:41.320 depending on the source you take, 81 to 90 percent of Americans want to write a book.

00:23:46.540 So that means 267 million to 290 million people want to write a book. Only 1 million do every year.

00:23:53.760 So you go, where are those other quarter billion books? And part of it might be they don't really

00:23:59.000 want to write a book. They want to express themselves creatively. And if they recognize that was the real

00:24:04.020 goal, they'd have more freedom to go, I can do art or I could lead a PTA meeting with a creative

00:24:10.100 speech or I could, there's a million ways I can meet that goal. But if they're so narrowly focused

00:24:14.700 on the only thing that counts, that's another phrase. Like you see people, the only thing that

00:24:19.500 counts is for me to write a book and maybe they're not writers and they've got this such a narrow

00:24:25.060 definition that it's really holding them back. Almost in a way, this, this cliche we hear of,

00:24:29.520 you know, grinding, grinding it out. That sounds like a miserable term and a miserable process to me.

00:24:34.340 That's why I joke about smart. I think smart goals have a value, but the words specific,

00:24:38.980 measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound aren't even distant cousins of fun. Like

00:24:43.280 you would never say that, you know, it was really fun about my vacation. It was time bound. I knew

00:24:47.500 when it was going to end. Like, so I, you know, I'm constantly looking for ways to say, okay, I have

00:24:53.260 to do this difficult thing. How do I make it a game or how do I, you know, the big thing that the book

00:24:58.320 talks about, one of them is that there's two ways people are motivated, fear or reward from a health

00:25:03.340 perspective. Let's take that. You walk into a doctor's office and if you're motivated by reward,

00:25:07.820 the doctor needs to say to you, if you lose weight, you'll be able to go on all the water

00:25:12.020 slides this summer with your son. Or if you lose weight, you'll be able to hike Cinque

00:25:16.060 Terra in Italy with your wife. If you're fear motivated, the doctor needs to say, if you don't

00:25:21.180 lose weight, you won't walk your daughter down the aisle. If you don't lose weight, you're going

00:25:25.260 to develop diabetes. Now your job, part of your job as a leader is to decide, okay, personally,

00:25:32.080 which one am I motivated by? And then if I'm leading people, what are they motivated by? Every leader's

00:25:37.420 had an employee that was motivated by reward and they try fear and it doesn't work. So they say

00:25:43.180 to the employee, if you don't get your act together, you're going to lose your job. It just goes right

00:25:47.680 over the head. Where if they had said, hey, we've got a bonus or we've got this money. I mean, that's

00:25:52.240 what's happening right now with a lot of millennials. 45% of millennials care more about workplace 0.92

00:25:56.340 flexibility than they do salary. So when a boomer company tries to say, you can't work from home,

00:26:01.800 but we'll raise your money. They don't even hear that. They'd much rather hear, you can work your own

00:26:05.900 hours. We're results focused and you can be away from your desk four days a week. Like

00:26:10.340 that's their value. And when you get that twisted, good things don't happen.

00:26:16.640 Gentlemen, just a quick break to make mention of our show sponsors. We couldn't do it without them.

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00:29:16.560 Now let's get back to my conversation with John. So is one of these better than the other? Is it

00:29:23.480 better to be reward motivated or fear motivated? Or is it just like you talk about in the book with

00:29:28.080 judo that you just use whatever you use to create a system that's going to work most effectively for

00:29:33.940 you? Yeah, I think it's the latter. My big thing is you're going to be motivated for different things

00:29:41.680 in different ways. So for instance, I prepare speeches as a public speaker harder because I

00:29:47.000 don't want to bomb. Like I'm fear motivated in that I love applause. I love people laughing like

00:29:52.120 that's awesome. But my real motivation is I never want to have an hour long speech and be done 10

00:29:57.500 minutes in with no more content. Like that terrifies me. So like I and they call that it's

00:30:02.840 approach or avoidance. So approach is a reward. If I do this thing, I'll approach this good thing.

00:30:07.460 Like avoidance is if I do my work, I'll avoid this bad situation. Now on the flip side, I'm going to

00:30:12.800 read, you know, 156 books this year, probably like three books a week. And part of what I enjoy is

00:30:18.140 posting them on Instagram and interacting with people. Like that's a fun reward, like where people

00:30:22.520 go, Hey, here's another book or way to go. Like, and it doesn't have to be massive. It's not monetary.

00:30:27.580 So part of your job is to say with this particular goal, and here's an example, because people hear fear

00:30:34.100 and they get it twisted. You might be like motivated by just sending out a weekly report

00:30:40.240 to your team. Like maybe you're motivated by not having them go, what's going on with that account?

00:30:45.320 We never hear from Mike. And so you, you'd rather not have difficult conversations in the break room.

00:30:50.260 So you say every Friday, I'm going to send out a report and that's you avoiding a bad situation.

00:30:55.560 Now, is it massive? Of course not. It doesn't have to all be like, I get fired. I get sick if I don't do

00:31:00.640 this. But I think part of the step is saying for this particular goal, is it going to be a reward

00:31:06.940 that gets me across the line? Or is it going to be a fear like avoiding a bad situation? And is the

00:31:13.080 situation close enough that I can be impacted by it? I mean, you can say all you want to a 15 year

00:31:18.860 old, Hey, don't post crazy things online because someday a job is going to pull that up and they're

00:31:24.560 going to ask questions that like that's 15 years away. It's not close enough for me to care.

00:31:29.100 Now you might say, Hey, 25% of college admissions officers search social media before they take

00:31:36.400 your application. That's going to be you. And you go, Oh, well that's a lot closer. Like

00:31:40.720 if I'm 15, college is closer than work. So it's really dependent on the situation.

00:31:45.560 So you're not judging whatever your motivation is or saying I should be motivated by this or I

00:31:49.420 should be motivated by that. You're just using what is to your advantage.

00:31:52.480 Yeah, exactly. Like I would never say to myself, I wish I cared more about rewards for this one thing.

00:31:57.740 Like that just becomes a secret rule again. And if you chase your goal with somebody else's value

00:32:03.100 system, it never works. So if you've got a friend that's like, I'm going to lose weight because I

00:32:07.360 can't wait to fit into these jeans and that's not your thing. Then that will never like the, the,

00:32:12.820 you know, I kind of look at it this way. I, I joke in the book, it took me three years to do six

00:32:17.460 days of P90X. So you could say, well, you're a bad athlete. Or you could say, wow, you must be

00:32:25.040 community driven. Like you must like to work out with a group of people, with a trainer,

00:32:29.780 with loud music in a place you drove to on purpose. That's how I'm wired. So I wouldn't,

00:32:34.860 Ryan, if you said to me, well, since you don't do P90X and I do, you're not a good athlete. I would,

00:32:39.960 I would say, well, that's not true. We're wired differently. And our ability to plug into that

00:32:44.040 is part of what makes goals easier. Yeah. Makes sense. Well, I want to shift gears here because

00:32:48.440 there's a couple of points that I really wanted to address as I knew I was going to be talking with

00:32:51.420 you. And the one term that really stood out in my mind that, that I absolutely love is

00:32:55.520 strategic incompetence. Walk me through what you mean when you talk about strategic incompetence.

00:33:00.800 Yeah, it was interesting. There was a, like, there was a line about it in this book I read called

00:33:04.900 two awesome hours by this guy, Josh Davis. Um, and I've heard other people talk about it. Jim Collins

00:33:10.420 has mentioned it before, but it's basically being willing to admit ahead of time. I'm not going to be

00:33:16.420 good at this thing I do so I could focus on other things. So one of the examples I use is when I had

00:33:22.380 two kids under the age of three, I didn't care about my yard. Like my yard wasn't in good shape.

00:33:27.520 It was barely ever cut. It wasn't, and I had a ton of weeds and you go, well, why? And it's because I

00:33:32.980 knew the kids were difficult in that season. Like it's different now where I have a, you know,

00:33:38.460 11 year old and a 14 year old almost. And, and that's a different, you know, kind of plan. Most of us

00:33:43.640 though, we try to add a new goal to our life without removing something else. Like one of

00:33:48.960 my favorite examples in the book, a woman said, when I'm busy at work, my kids know clothes get

00:33:54.060 clean, but they don't get folded and put away and dinner gets served, but it's simple. It's hot dogs,

00:33:58.800 it's pizza rolls, whatever. The idea is you get to choose strategy or shame. Strategy says ahead of

00:34:04.360 time, I'm not going to worry about these 10 things. Shame says I can do it all. And then when I mess up the

00:34:09.580 10 things, I feel like a failure and I quit. I'd much rather you go, I'm not even going to try to

00:34:15.500 do these five things. Like while I'm training for this marathon, I know like I'm not going to have

00:34:19.620 a ton of time for friends. Like, and I'm not going to feel ashamed about that. I'm not going to be

00:34:23.780 bothered by that. I'm just going to, you know, it's a season. I'm going to push through it. So

00:34:27.540 that's kind of the choice is strategy or shame. And I think along the lines of shame, there's this

00:34:32.660 personal shame where you feel guilty to yourself because you may have made a promise to yourself

00:34:36.580 that you're no longer keeping. But I think there's this other factor, which makes it really

00:34:39.980 hard. And that is societal norms or even expectations to behave or act a certain way.

00:34:46.360 Oh yeah. Well, I mean, I think that like moms definitely have that. They always joke about 1.00

00:34:50.720 the phrase mom guilt. I think dads have that, you know, I had a story in the book about a dad who

00:34:56.140 had to take on a weekend job in addition to his other job. So he had to work four hours on a Saturday

00:35:01.580 and he'd come home and his neighbor would be out in his front yard playing football with his own

00:35:06.380 kids. And he'd feel like, Oh, look at that good dad. I'm such a terrible dad. And that wasn't the

00:35:11.120 case at all. It wasn't that he was spending four hours drinking somewhere. He was doing an extra job

00:35:15.220 to pay for his family. And that was, it wasn't going to be forever, but it was definitely for

00:35:20.020 now. And that was okay. But there is that expectation of, I should just be able to do it

00:35:24.780 forever, like, and do all of it. And I just don't think that's true.

00:35:28.800 Well, let's look at the other side of this, because in that scenario, that example of the father,

00:35:32.440 he could be using that as what you termed a noble obstacle, right? I'm going to do this.

00:35:37.580 This is noble. I'm providing for my family. So I don't have to do X, Y, Z.

00:35:41.800 Oh yeah. I mean, you talk about a sneaky kind of secret rule, the idea of like blaming your kids

00:35:48.660 for being busy. So like I would do all these great things, but my kids, I'm just trying to serve them.

00:35:54.520 And so, yeah, a noble obstacle is something, you know, an example I use in the book is my friend whose

00:36:00.120 wife said, Hey, I would really love you to clean the garage. And he was like, why don't we have a

00:36:03.860 yard sale and a garage sale? And cause on the surface, wow, now he's going to make money and

00:36:08.980 he'll do what she asked, but she knows, no, he won't. He won't do any of it because he just added

00:36:12.940 30 steps to what was a simple process of throwing stuff away. And so we do the same, you know, it'd be

00:36:19.360 like saying, okay, I'm going to plan 12 date nights with my wife. And you go, well, what if like,

00:36:26.100 what if you did one? Like, what if you just did one and actually went on it? And you're like,

00:36:30.640 no, no, no, no, no. I mean, people do that. Like people do that with goals, what they do with goals

00:36:35.960 and people tell me this all the time. They go, I got 10 goals. So I'm going to prioritize them.

00:36:40.080 You want to not do anything, try to prioritize goals because you end up with this list and then

00:36:45.400 you're like judging them and just, I'd rather you spend that time and go here are five I care about.

00:36:50.320 We'll do the first one and then I'll move down the list and that'll be great.

00:36:52.840 It's the same thing with like a noble obstacle for writers is I can't write my book until the

00:36:58.360 outline is amazing. And I, when you say that to me, I know you'll never write a book because

00:37:03.360 you're hoping that the outline will be so perfect. The book writes itself and you'll never actually

00:37:08.900 write because you'll be working on the outline. It's a great, I mean, that's, what's great about

00:37:12.300 a noble obstacle is it looks like progress. Like Netflix is not a noble obstacle. Nobody's like,

00:37:18.320 Oh, I watched so much TV and people like, Oh, it's so brave of you.

00:37:21.300 You're like, you're so courageous. You're so courageous and creative. Like they go,

00:37:25.420 wow, you're lazy. But a noble obstacle is really deceptive because on the surface it looks like

00:37:31.320 you're doing something. This is almost like the opposite of paralysis by analysis where it's

00:37:35.760 paralysis because you're doing stuff that doesn't matter. Not just sitting there twiddling your

00:37:40.080 thumbs. That doesn't help or doesn't move it forward. And if you were honest, you would say,

00:37:44.740 yeah, I don't need to do this thing for this other thing to happen. I mean, it's like,

00:37:49.100 you know, there's been great books like start with why about figuring out your why to do

00:37:53.500 something. But what we'll do is we'll say until I know my why I can't do anything. So like I would

00:37:59.940 love to get my money in order, but until I know the heart of my business, I can't focus on my

00:38:04.960 finances. And you go, well, that's not, that's not what that book's about at all. You don't have

00:38:09.400 to have a perfect why to do the right thing. You know, you don't have to have a perfect why to get

00:38:14.040 some of this stuff, but you figuring out your purpose, like you're saying, you know what,

00:38:19.600 I just got to get, you know, I'm not feeling creative enough or I'm not, again, it looks

00:38:24.080 very noble. Like, wow, you're really taking the time to dedicate to this. And really you're just

00:38:28.220 hiding in a fancier way. Yeah. I know this is certain. I've, I mean, we've all fallen prey to

00:38:33.420 this, right? Where we've made up a thousand excuses as to why we can't have anything. And at the end of

00:38:38.200 the day, I mean, my, my mantra, one of the mantras that I try to live by is just start

00:38:42.360 and figure it out along the way. Cause you can, and you can adapt. We're not talking about,

00:38:46.360 uh, you know, solving world hunger or a life and death situation. We're just talking about

00:38:51.420 starting a business or cleaning the garage. Exactly. Something that you can,

00:38:55.880 and it's going to change along the way. That's the other reality. Like you're going, you know,

00:39:00.340 where you end up won't be where you start. So get over it. John, there's so much more that I could

00:39:05.940 talk with you about. And of course I took a lot of notes here, but for the sake of time,

00:39:09.520 um, we're going to wind down here today and I would encourage anybody to just buy the book

00:39:13.880 and read it. It's a quick read. It's an effective read. There's not a lot of fluff in here

00:39:17.780 and it's a very practical guide to helping you complete what you actually started out to

00:39:22.640 complete. So with that, John, let me ask you a couple of questions as we wind down. The first one

00:39:27.340 is what does it mean to be a man? Um, I think it means to be fully there. That's a big part of it

00:39:34.360 is to not be passive and to be fully engaged with your life. Um, in a way where it's not

00:39:40.840 life isn't happening to you. You're happening to life. Yeah. I love it. I love it, man. Well,

00:39:47.320 how do we connect with you? How do we learn more about what you're doing and buy the book?

00:39:51.780 Well, if you go to timetofinish.com, you can see the, I think we've got it where you can get the

00:39:56.760 first chapter free. You can figure stuff out there. Acuff.me has everything I do. Once a week,

00:40:03.040 I share an idea about writing or speaking or business. And so you can sign up for all that

00:40:07.480 or just on Twitter. But yeah, Acuff.me or Time to Finish are kind of the best places.

00:40:12.100 Right on. We'll, uh, we'll link all of that up in the show notes so the guys can check it out.

00:40:15.760 I told you this before, but I want the guys to know too is man, you've been so impactful in my life.

00:40:21.260 Uh, the first book of yours that I read was called Quitter. My wife got me that as I was struggling in

00:40:25.820 the financial planning field. It took a little longer than I had anticipated, but that book and the

00:40:30.540 thoughts inside of that book literally altered the course of my life for the better. So

00:40:34.460 with that and the other books that you've written, man, you've been really impactful in my life and

00:40:38.100 I appreciate you for doing that. Oh, thanks, man. It's been fun and I'm still figuring it out just

00:40:42.320 like you and all your listeners. Right on. Let's get some more things finished, man. Awesome. Thanks,

00:40:46.120 buddy. There it is. Gentlemen, my conversation with the one and only Mr. John Acuff. I hope that you

00:40:53.040 enjoyed this show, but more importantly, more importantly, I hope that this has given you some tools to get

00:40:58.120 more done in your life because that's the objective. We want to get more done. Uh, you can check out the

00:41:02.600 show notes. You can pick up your copy of his newest book. Finish. Give yourself the gift of done at

00:41:07.460 order of man.com slash one three zero and make sure that while you're there, you take a look at our

00:41:13.640 exclusive brotherhood. I mentioned to you earlier, again, you're plugging into a framework that I've

00:41:18.100 spent nearly a decade harnessing and fine tuning and experimenting with. In other words, I've gone through

00:41:24.260 all the crap so you don't have to. So if you're interested in learning what we're about claiming

00:41:28.640 your seat in the brotherhood, you can do that at order of man.com slash iron council guys. I will

00:41:34.100 look forward to talking with you on Friday for our Friday field notes, but until then take action and

00:41:38.620 become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready

00:41:44.740 to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the

00:41:49.520 order and order of man.com.

Order of Man - September 12, 2017

130： Finish What You Start ｜ Jon Acuff

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