The Pebble in My Shoe (And Why We Ignore the Small Things) The other morning, I was running late. I was rushing out the door to go walking with a friend, frantically tying my sneakers, when I felt it: a tiny, sharp little pebble right under my foot. Immediately, my brain went into a mini-argument with itself: - Thought A: "You should really take two seconds, sit down, and get that rock out." - Thought B: "You're already late! It’s just a tiny pebble, you’ll be fine. Just power through." As I stood there at the door, I realized this silly little rock actually gave me a choice. I could leave it in, but what would actually happen? - I’d probably spend the whole walk focused on my foot instead of enjoying the conversation with my friend. - It would get more and more irritating with every step. - By the end of the walk, I’d probably end up with a blister or a scraped foot—all because I "didn't have time" to fix it. Or... I could just sit down. Take one minute, unlace the shoe, dump the pebble, and actually enjoy my morning. My foot would be fine, my workout would be great, and I could be 100% present with my friend. (Spoiler alert: I took the shoe off. And the walk was awesome.) The Bigger Picture As I was walking, it hit me how often I do this exact same thing in my everyday life. Instead of taking a few minutes to take care of myself, to love myself, or to address a small boundary, I just let things slide. I tell myself, "It’s fine, I don't have time to deal with this right now." But here is what usually happens when we leave the "pebbles" in our lives: - The small stuff festers. That tiny irritation doesn't stay tiny; it feels bigger and heavier as the day goes on. - It steals our joy. We end up distracted, annoyed, and totally checked out of the present moment. - It affects how we treat others. When we are secretly suffering from a preventable "blister," we don't have the energy to truly show up for the people we love. Choosing the "One-Minute Fix"

I was walking out of the gym this morning and saw a friend's car pull up to a near by stop sign. Richard. Mid-fifties. Long brown hair and a graying beard. Oily face. Sleepy glazed over eyes. Chubby face. in a gold 1992 Toyota Camry with tinted windows. I jogged over to his car as he rolled down the passenger side window. Josh: "Hey, Richard. How's it going?!" I said, putting my forearm against his car leaning over to see in the window. Richard: "Good Josh. Need a ride?" Josh: "No, I'm jogging home. Just got done with my morning work out." Josh: "How are things going?" Richard: "Oh, alright. Three days sober." Josh: "Richard, that's awesome. I love that. You know... we all have our struggles. That's great." Richard: "Yeah. Thanks." Josh: "You know, Richard. You are doing amazingly well. You're doing great. Think about it..." I said, leaning into the car window a little further. "...you've had so many years of drinking and..." Richard: "...yeah, wasted years..." Josh: "No, not wasted. It's okay. We've all been there. Just think. Decades of drinking... sure. But, you don't change over night, most of the time. You're doing great. Keep going. Keep trying. That's all that matters. You are doing wonderful." Richard smiled again. Then, we talked about where he was headed. And, he was soon on his way. I turned around and started jogging home. But, I thought about this moment, and how my heart was just about to burst out of my chest. I wanted Richard to know what the truth was, that he is doing so good. Compared to... ...himself. That's it. I thought of all of you, here, in this community as I ran home and others in my life. Trying. Working. Learning. Doing the best you can. That's it. Everyday, we just keep trying, and doing, hoping, and praying, and moving, and thinking, and being intentional, and forgiving ourselves. We just keep going. That's what I want you to know. Sure, we could be somewhere else, have other things, be going to different places or in different places, be a different and better person.

I heard a story from Chase Hughes about discipline. "The Butler Principle" Here's how it goes: First, what is discipline... really?! "Discipline means to prioritize the future needs of your future self ahead of what your present self wants right now." This statement speaks volumes. Why? Because it requires some prerequesits or things to be in place before you can ever hope to master discipline. 1. Your future self is required to be defined, imagined, created, documented. In other words, who in the world do you want to become in your life? Be brave. Dream. Then, once you've got some kind of picture (documented, written down, with images and as much as you can create...) You take actions that are in line with getting yourself closer to that person, the YOU version you WILL some day become. And here's where "The Butler Principle" comes into play. "When you go to bed at night, set our your clothes, put your shoes out. If you're traveling, pack your things and put them by the back door so it's easy. Clean your office or room so that when you enter next time or sit down to work, you've served your future self. Make it easy for yourself as you do things to create space and harmony and enablement so you can continue to perpetuate change and lasting growth. Then, there is a gratitude effect. As you looked into the future to serve and enable your future self, you will look back in gratitude to your past self for serving, supporting, and believing in you." POWERFUL! And, what does that mean to you and me today. We create a pathway to becoming... which, by the way, we were meant to work on and keep going, every single day no matter what... keep striving to improve 1% better each day. That's the purpose of life, progress. So, what ever we are doing we are setting up and empowering our future self to make it easier and easier to do on the next day. —Josh

Yesterday I reworked my core values: - Truth. - Ownership. - Simplicity. - Compassion. - Transformation. And everything shifted. Here's what happened: I sat down with my client to discuss priorities. We had a plan. - CRM setup. - Email campaigns. The usual stack of "important" work. I was feeling, like: "Awesome. We have a solid trajectory. We are on to some foundational setup here." But, as I moved through the tasks we agreed on, I started seeing patterns I couldn't ignore. So I asked myself: What's the TRUTH here... right now... for my client? - The truth was that automations and email campaigns wouldn't matter if cash flow didn't start moving. - The truth was that the simplest path forward wasn't more setup, more research, more building. It was picking up the phone. In other words I went from: - CRM design research, to... - What are we trying to create a CRM for anyway? To... - Let's create the email campains first, then we'll understand the context of what we are after. To... - Let's create one email campaign, get it running, then move to the next... to... - Wait, my client could use cash now, and, emails just sit in inboxes. To... - "Hey, team, we are going the wrong direction here. I'm calling an emergency meeting." My thought here was, as I was going to create the following email follow up campaigns: - Leads - Current clients upsells - Innactive clients - Accounts Receivable - Proposals I realized that my client doesn't have much set up and that what she could use was some quick wins. So, my plan was to spend a few hours "rockin' the phone" and for me to call and close and collect some cash on some of her overdue accounts receivables. Luckily, this was within my wheelhouse and within my skill set. That's not a traditional move for someone in my role. But truth doesn't care about traditional. - I owned it. - I told her what I was seeing. - We pivoted. I said: - "Sales aren't happening because proposals aren't enough." - "There's not enough proposals because there aren't enough appointments." - "You're not booked with appointments because conversations aren't happening."

Have you ever stopped to wonder: "What if your life is actually perfect exactly the way it is right now?" It's so easy to focus on what doesn't seem to be working. We scan our lives and instantly spot the "flaws": - Our weight - Our relationships - Our children - Our finances We look back at childhood and think: - "My dad was too strict" - "My mom let us do whatever we wanted." The list goes on. Even day to day, we complain that it's raining instead of sunny. But what if everything around us is exactly as it should be? THE ILLUSION OF OUR BELIEFS We are who we are today because of our parents. I know I would not be the person I am without mine. And God says that I am His, perfectly made. What if the negative things we perceive around us are just illusions? What if they only exist because of our beliefs? If that's true, it leads to a much more powerful question: - What if those beliefs can be changed? REWRITING THE SCRIPT IN AN INSTANT I'm starting to believe that in an instant, in the blink of an eye, our lives can become more abundant. - Our relationships can improve. - Our financial situations can turn around. - We can find deep happiness in our work. - We can experience richer connections with our children, our spouses, and our neighbors. We are the ones who choose. "In an instant, in the blink of an eye, our lives can begin to be more abundant." But to get there, we have to be willing to make changes. If things always seem to stay the same, if we find ourselves stuck in the same habits and cycles, it's because we need to retrain our brains. We have to alter how we've been thinking all these years. We need to change the pathways of our minds, change how we view the world, and change how we speak. A SEED OF HOPE Is anything possible? Yes. Can we change in an instant? I believe the answer is yes. But the real questions we have to ask ourselves are: 1. Are we willing to make those changes? 2. Do we truly believe change is possible?