No don't go in there, Daddy's working.
Jonathan: Do you want to know who pisses me off, makes me angry, who I cannot stand to be around? It's those snowflakes who think they deserve things without doing work. I know. I'm on a roll here. I got into that last week, too, but it's actually one of my core values. This is deep down inside me, and it's something that I believe I got from my father. My dad, he would, first of all, especially when we moved down to Florida and he had to go work in construction, he would go and bust his butt out there all day long, 7 to 3:30 in the hot Florida sun, and get treated poorly because—check this out, this is a fun little backtracking here—but when we first moved down to Florida, we came from Brooklyn, New York. [0:01:14.2]
And Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, I mean, there's, there's plenty of Puerto Ricans out there. I mean, Jenny, Jenny from the block, come on. Yeah, there's plenty of Puerto Ricans down there, or up there, I should say. When we moved down here, we moved to this little hole in the wall in Volusia County. No, the house wasn’t a hole in the wall; the town, oh, yeah, we'll call it the sticks. We moved to the sticks because literally that's all there was, either trees or houses out there, in this community called Deltona, and it was just a really large community with a couple of schools, lots of houses, lots of woods, and nothing to do. We came down here, and yep, we went to school, and dad went to work. [0:02:02.5]
And back then, apparently there were no Puerto Ricans in central Florida, which, I mean, has changed. If you've been down to east Orlando, you would know that; if you've been down to Kissimmee you would see that. But back then, apparently we were like the first Puerto Ricans ever, and dad went to work, like I said. He didn’t have any skills because he had done some white collar work and owned a couple businesses in New York, so when he came down here, he had no other skills, couldn’t get a job, so he got a job as a tradesman. He got a job as a peon; I think he would call himself a peon, what his role was with masons or with anybody that would take him. And back then, everybody that was Spanish was a Mexican. So yeah, dad was a Mexican, and he hated that. If you know Puerto Ricans, they hate to be called Mexicans for some reason. That's another story for another day or some insight you may not have had. [0:03:02.8]
But yeah, dad got mistreated all day at work in that hot sun, working his tail off, and then he would come home. Of course he would be grumpy AF, and I would, too. I get it now. I didn’t get it when I was younger, and I used to argue with him, and I feel bad about that; but we've moved past it since, and we're good friends now, so it's all good. But yeah, he'd get abused at work all day, then come home and get abused by his kids, although he was a little rude, too, back then. Then he would go and work on the house. It was our house. Mom and dad had bought it, of course with a mortgage, and put money into it even when we were living in New York. And when he got here, he wanted to fix it up, and he would work all day, then come home and work for hours and hours, doing yardwork and all kinds of landscaping—he's wonderful with landscaping, it's one of his super powers—but dude worked hard. [0:04:05.2]
He did work. He went to work and he earned money, brought it home to take care of us, and when he came home he took care of the house. He did more work to take care of us. So that whole value of hard work and doing work, definitely got that from my dad and the example that he gave me. And I hope to give the same example to our son, Huddy, because he needs to understand that you got to work if you want to earn things. Anyways, I don't know why I got into that. My dad just turned 68, and we celebrated with him, and he's still busting his butt. He's got this huge yard; I think it's like a half acre, and he's turning it into some paradise. He just built a building on it; it was supposed to be a gazebo, but it turned into something else. [0:05:01.5]
I don't even know. It's really big, though; it's got a roof on it and everything, a floor, the whole nine. But this guy does work. So today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about something I'm calling the Innovation Engine. And speaking of values, one of my core values, and I wrote it in my journal this morning, is to be the best version of me every single day. And that doesn’t mean that I'm always going to be awesome, even though I work towards that, but it means bring the best of what you have today. And some days may be better than others. You may have had no sleep, you may have been dealing with family, you may have worked late. But when you show up, bring the best version of you; do the best work you can do. And this is one of my core values: be the best version of me every single day. And when I read that and I'm not being the best version of me, I'm like, all right, slacker, pick it up, you got to get something done. And it really, it's motivating. [0:06:08.8]
And so one of the ways that I have found works to help me be the best version of me, and essentially help you be the best version of you, is this Innovation Engine. This idea that evolution, being the best you can be every single day, the Innovation Engine, is what we're going to talk about today, and there are three parts to it, and they're going to sound simple because they are. What is difficult here is actually implementing this with some consistency. So I'm just warning you ahead of time, you’ve got to be ready for this. So the three parts of my innovation engine are: Do, See, Go. Let's jump in. [0:07:01.7]
I think I told you last episode that me and Greg from the Rise Above Podcast teamed up to do something called Profit First Podcasting, and the basic idea behind that is that most podcasts fail because they fail to plan for profit. Lots of P's there. Most podcasts fail because they fail to plan for profit. So our take was, why don’t we plan to profit first, and then create the podcast, and this is actually really the core system behind our direct response podcasting framework, is that plan to profit in the beginning. Anyway, one of the guys was talking to me, and there was maybe 10 or 11 people in the group, and there were two or three of them that I said, yeah, you guys really need to have a podcast. [0:08:03.2]
The rest I don’t think were ready; but this guy has a golf business, or he's actually a golf pro, and his calendar is booked up. It's driving him crazy because he can't scale; he's basically giving lessons all day and people love him. He even went so far as to raise his prices to where he's nearly double the price of everyone else, and his calendar got more booked up with better people. And now he's trying to work his way out of it because he's having a kid, and he wants to have more time, he wants to have more freedom, and he wants to have more leverage. And being at the course and giving lessons, you can't leverage that; but maybe you could leverage an information product or some online lessons or some group coaching that you can do online and minimize your time on the ground, and that's what he's thinking and that's what he's working towards. So we got on the phone, talked a little bit about his goals, where he was going, what he wanted to do, and he told me about these ideas he had, different ideas for golf fitness, the mental side of golf, the faith in golf. [0:09:12.8]
And he's like, I could do this, and then I can do that, and then maybe I'll do that. I told him, freeze. You're a smart dude, and you're falling into that knowledge trap. He says that his clients sometimes fall into this knowledge trap where there's so much information available online about golf that they just become these experts on everything that doesn’t matter, and they just cloud up their thinking, and then they can't just get a good swing. And he helps them out with that. I told him, you're doing the same thing right now; you're thinking about all these different things you could be doing, but you haven’t done anything. I told him, you have to do some things step by step. You have to launch one thing at a time. Do something, because doing something is better than thinking about something. [0:10:04.7]
Of course, we have to think and we have to plan, definitely; but thinking and planning are worthless without execution, and really that's the first step or the first piece of my innovation engine, is to do things. Everything else is just theory until you do something. Once you've done something, you should now have some data. You should be able to take a look at what you have done and see what kind of results you've gotten. And this is really, this is what separates us from animals and creatures who just work on instinct, is that we can do something and we can analyze how that worked out for us so that we can either change course or keep going. [0:11:05.9]
We have that power; we're humans. So check this out. I want to do an exercise, and you might have to pause this in order to get the tools that you’re going to need. Number one, you're going to need a fork, preferably if you can find one in your garage or something that might be a little rusty, oily, or dirty; that's exactly what you're going to need. You're going to need to be in shorts for this exercise. And you're going to need a good, sturdy place to sit. Now, if you’ve got your tools and you've got your good place to sit, and you're ready to do this, I want you to sit down. I don't know if you're righty or lefty, but take that fork in your fist facing down, with the fork part facing down. Lift your fist over your head, all the way over your head, and then drive down into your thigh as hard as you can (scream!) [0:12:06.8]
I don’t really want you to do that. That is sick. Do not do that. Please, please, please, please don’t do that. But here's the thing, hypothetically, if somebody was to do that, they could look back at that, and they could see that the blood and the pain was not a good thing. And so next time they could decide to do something different. This is the same for anything you do. Once you take action, you can see what that action has done, and then you can decide on what works for you. Was that a good action or was that a bad action? If it's a good action, you just keep on doing it; if it was a bad action, you might want to eliminate it. [0:12:54.5]
Speaking of good actions, when was the last time you went to wherever you listen to podcasts, whether it's iTunes, Google, Stitch, or iHeart Radio, wherever you listen to podcasts and typed in Daddy's Working? When was the last time you did that? If you haven’t done that recently, then there's no way that you could have subscribed to this show, rated us, or reviewed us. So I'm not going to say that you need to do that right now, but it should be done, and it should be done in a timely manner. You should do it. In fact, yeah, go ahead and pause this and just do that, and then we'll get into the recap.
So the second part of my Innovation Engine is see. Once you’ve done something, see what results you got and then decide if that's a good result or a bad result. Stabbing yourself in the leg gives you a bad result; you can remember that. So let's move on to the next part. Okay, I want you to ask yourself a question: Am I the best version of myself today? [0:14:04.7]
Answer it honestly. Are you the best version of yourself today? Am I the best version? I don't know that I'm ever the best version, but I'm striving to always get better, and that getting better actively and intentionally is what motivates me. It gets me out of bed, keeps me going, keeps me pushing. And so we talked about the first two parts of the Innovation Engine: part one, Do Things; part two, See the Results. And now we're going to talk about part three, Keep or Correct. So it was Do, See, and now it's Go. So keep or correct is the idea, and when we had that really gruesome example of stabbing yourself in the leg, and you have to ask yourself, you have to see, did that help me or did it harm me? In that case, for most people, I would say that has harmed them. [0:15:02.0]
That would be terrible, and I hope you never do that; it's just crazy talk. But that's where you have to decide, keep or correct. Do I keep stabbing myself in my leg, or do I quit? Do I quit that, or do I correct and do something else like put on a bandage now that I can't walk. But this is really derived from—I'm going to have to look this up maybe—but it's derived from the scientific method where—you should look this up because I'm going to butcher it—but the scientific method works like this. You come up with a hypothesis: stabbing self in leg will be awesome. Then you do something; you do a test on that hypothesis and stab yourself in the leg. And then you figure out, if your hypothesis is you're going to say it's good, you stab yourself in the leg and that's really going to be bad, so you go back and look and say, all right, stabbed myself in the leg. [0:16:03.6]
Result is I can't walk, so obviously it is bad. This is a really simplified version of the scientific method, but look it up, the scientific method. You come up with an idea, you test that idea, and you look at the results of that idea and that test and see if they worked or they didn’t. And that's what this go part is, do, see, go. So you go and look at your results, and you go in one direction or the other. You either keep the activity that you're doing, or you correct it. That's it. So you want to be the absolute best version of yourself? You want to be evolving, getting better every single day? Then you have to use my Innovation Engine. First part is do. Do something, whatever it is. Get off your butt and do it. Don’t think about it, do it. Then see what results you've got. Decide, were those results good or bad? [0:17:02.5]
Then go in one direction. You either keep them or correct them. Do, see, go. That's how you get better every single day. So next time, actually, the next one's really just for me. It's a reminder of what I need to be doing, but it might be useful for you, too, because if you're underperforming, if you're feeling burnt out, if you're not making the progress you want to be, if you don’t feel good about what you're doing, then you might be missing this. I know I am, and this is going to be a reminder for myself and maybe for you, too. So that's coming up next time. It's my Summer Game Plan.
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