The High Value Man Conversation
The High Value Man gets what he wants from WOMEN, WORK AND THE WORLD OF MEN. He's confident, charismatic, creative and collaborative and it all begins with High Value Conversations. Have a listen to this weeks High Value Conversation.
Hosted By:
Erin Alejandrino & Josh Lashua
The High Value Man Conversation
Why Being Busy Is Destroying Your Success (And What to Do Instead)
In today’s fast-paced world, busyness is worn like a badge of honor, but is it truly the key to success and fulfillment? In this episode, we explore the difference between being busy and being purposeful. Learn how to say "no" to distractions and "yes" to alignment with your mission.
Josh and Erin dive deep into the myths of productivity, how overcommitting can sabotage your growth, and why focusing on what truly matters can transform your life. Whether you’re a man overwhelmed by obligations or someone seeking clarity in the chaos, this episode is your roadmap to freedom through focus.
It’s time to redefine success, reclaim your time, and live intentionally.
👉 Join the conversation to create the life you’re meant to live!
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If you're stressed about your finances, then you need to have a financial day with your wife. You need to sit down and go through it. You need to write things down, know what your income is. If your relationship with your wife feels like it's distant, you feel stressed from that, you can choose to be romantic with her, to pursue her, to have date nights. Soliciting wise counsel is to seek the input from the people that have what you say you want. They're a little farther down the road. They have fruit in their life in this area and seeking them with the question not to decide for you. That's got to come from you. And this is such an important dialogue, aaron, because Dr Gabor says that the greatest stress in life is to be someone that you are not. And we can find ourselves where we're adding so much to our plate that we just become whatever the circumstance and situation makes us become, versus being dialed in on the who that we are, so that we produce more purposeful fruit in our life.
Speaker 2:This is the High Value man Conversation Podcast, a show dedicated to the mission of building high value men. One great man means a great family, a great neighborhood, a better city, community state and the world. The question is, if not you, then who? The topic we want to talk about on this episode welcome back, by the way, highlight man Conversation this is episode 32, is are you preoccupied or purposeful? Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no, and don't just say yes to another thing, yes, yes, so not another thing. So this topic started because we were having a conversation around taking on new things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think both of us are wired to be movers, producers Not that there's greatness around that or not that we choose that, it's just how we're wired. So we often find our place ourselves in a place where we have the opportunity to do things, to do things, to do things, to do more things and, um, it's very easy for us to dilute the time that we have, the quality that we give, the value that we're able to bring, um, if we allow ourselves to continue to be diluted.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yes. And saying yes to things that are not aligned with purpose ran through a filter of core values. Um, that you don't bring good counsel in the check to actually hey, is this a smart decision? By not doing that, you end up just being full of activity but no real accomplishment.
Speaker 1:For sure, and this is such an important dialogue, aaron, because Dr Gabor says Dr Gabor, mate, who is a huge influence in my life for the past decade says that the greatest stress in life is to be someone that you are not, and we can find ourselves where we're adding so much to our plate that we just become whatever the circumstance and situation makes us become, versus being dialed in on the who that we are and then focusing our time, our energy, our efforts on that who, so that we produce more purposeful fruit in our life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where you're diluted, because you are overwhelmed and overcommitted and burdened. You're not able to show up in the world and give your best and your highest to your most like, your most meaningful relationships, close friends, your wife, your kids, all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So hugely important conversation that I know will land on on every man's plate or every ear that's listening to this because we've all lived it, or sitting in it right now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think the you know good thing to just to touch on is, if you are overcommitted, you know what it feels like. You're pressured, you're preoccupied. So you're sitting in the conversation, you're on date night. If you've scheduled date night with your wife but you're thinking about work you have to do tomorrow, or you're hanging out with the kids and you're distracted, checking your email, checking your phone, you're completely not present. So you're preoccupied with the one of the many things that you said yes to. That may not all be in alignment with your purpose. So this conversation, we're not only going to walk you through how to make intelligent, purposeful decisions so you can stay in a state of growth and healthy tension rather than being overwhelmed, but also how to start saying no to things. How to start saying no to things effectively so that you can create some more margin in your life, so you can be more effective as a man.
Speaker 1:For sure. So let's get into this Life. Aaron is busy, this life, life Aaron is busy and it feels like, as as I look, if I, as I look retrospectively over the last two decades of my life, my entire life has been busy. But if I, when I do that, I think about myself in my 20s and what I accomplished there, leaving my 20s in my 30s and what I accomplished there and I go, man, I thought I was busy then. I do so much more now, on a 10, 20, 30 X scale, that I'm really grateful for those seasons because of the pressure that I allowed in my life, the tension that I created in my life, because it's also increased my capacity. So, as we have this conversation, to really think in that context of this is a preparation for my next summit and to be decisive with what you choose to be pressure, what you choose to be tension which we'll cover both of those as we move forward in the conversation but just to be very decisive in where you're spending your time.
Speaker 2:It's good, it's good.
Speaker 1:Yep, what I love is the topic that you kicked off just in our conversation before this was that presence is slow, presence is slower, and I think as we head into the holiday season because we're shooting this as we head into a holiday season this year is that I hope all of us have had the ability, especially over Christmas.
Speaker 1:For me, usually December for me. There's a couple of weeks in there where I'm a lot slower. I'm not as involved in the marketplace as much. I'm a lot more present with my family. Kids are out of school, we have time that we have scheduled to be together, mornings that we're going to sleep in, make breakfast, be in our pajamas and just be around one another, maybe with a fire in the background, and so just that part of presence does feel very slow, although it's it's, it's chosen right, it's actually on the calendar, we can expect it. So if you ever walk that out in your life, you've ever experienced that, as life can feel more that way If you choose for it to be that way, if you're decisive about your purpose versus continually over committing by saying yes, yes, yes, yes to everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what's interesting too is you can. You can create a far more efficiency and effectiveness if you take time to slow down so you can actually speed up. I think about the um the recent trip I had, uh, to Spain and Portugal. I was just noticing there's a completely different like climate and culture of people. They're just they have a slower like tempo. I sat in a coffee shop um multiple mornings when I was in Portugal, but um one of the coffee shops that I noticed there was this regular routine of people coming in and spending three, four hours there. It was very normal to just have an extended cafe time and they were just there hanging out with family. Other friends would come and drop in, but there was just part of the morning and it just seemed to be very culturally accepted. There was just this presence of being there. Versus America, it's like let me get my double venti, you know quad shot in and out through the drive, so the drive-through is like already moving too slow, so I got to run inside and yell at camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pre-order it. Hand it to me through my window so I can get to my desk.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then it's just like fast, fast, fast, fast. And I think about the two of those One is very purposeful and present, as you alluded to, and the other one is rushed and pressured and you're overcommitted. And I think that overcommitment season is exactly what we're talking about now, is that you can just get into the season saying yes to things, but none of your yeses really that great, they're just stretched.
Speaker 1:They are, they certainly can be, and so what we want to talk about today is that your overcommitment dilutes your ability and capacity. So by overcommitting, by saying yes to too many things, you're actually diluting your own ability, your own capacity and your own presence, which, fast forward to your 85th birthday. What will be most important to you, right? How many things you said yes to and how many things you quote unquote accomplished or you were a part of, or are the memories that you got to create in the midst of your presence what matters most to?
Speaker 2:you and we all know that the answer is right.
Speaker 1:So a great opportunity Now. If there's breath in your lungs, then you have the ability to decide. Now put some nose out there in your world and we'll get to focus on where you're spending your time and what gets your intention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I love that. So you know, let's purposeful choosing. You know purpose over preoccupation. You know how. How does a man choose purpose over preoccupation, not just say yes to things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so define forces. There's two ways that we can really lean into weight in our life. We have the, uh, the idea of pressure, which I think everyone can understand. We also have this, this um word that we lean into, Aaron called tension. So tell us what pressure means.
Speaker 2:Pressure is X, external, external overcommitment. You think about this in regards to a boss giving you a deadline. Pressure is I've got obligations, responsibilities and I have to perform a certain way based on my doing. Pressure is externally typically motivated I don't want to let anybody down. I think about pressure is a feeling of like not being able to meet the expectation. It just is like undefined pressure that is just looming when you have too much on your plate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for any of us with a driver's license knows that our tires hold a specific pressure and if you want to get down the road and have the full life of your tires, it needs to be a specific pressure. If there's too much pressure in those tires, they explode.
Speaker 1:If you have ever seen vehicles that do rock climbing, they'll actually decrease their pressure really, really low, so they get more traction and can climb at a slow rate, and so this, even this even shows up in the natural, in a very supernatural way, of the pressures that we allow in our life and what pressure can be and pressure can look like, versus what Aaron and I call tension is just like when you lift weights or you go and you use elastic bands, you're allowing tension against your muscles and so it's a very, it's a very strategic type of pressure. That is, that's a, that's a tension, and if you want to grow your muscles, then you have to have tension against those muscles on a relatively frequent basis. But the big difference there is is pressure can come in from left field versus tension is sought after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think tension too, it's an internal feeling. Right, tension is an internal feeling where it's a you versus you. You know what you're capable of, you know what's important, you know what's purposeful and you're feeling an internal drive to want to achieve and be your best. I think it's very much an internal feeling versus an external feeling. The external happens when we overcommit because we've said yes to things that we know that we can't really like fully execute on, and or we say yes things because of you know a vice of just wanting to say yes. Significance where we say yes because we just don't know how to say no.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, this is not a Webster definition, this is a a last year a definition. But I wrote, next to tension, purpose aligned resistance. Again, next to tension, I wrote purpose aligned resistance. So purpose is something that I that I can understand, if I have values, if I have vision.
Speaker 1:And so either aligns my purpose or not. So purpose aligned resistance is I have this ideal for my life that I have chosen to lean into, so that's the alignment portion that creates a resistance. If I want to go up a hill, if I want to grow a muscle, if I want to get better in an area, if I want to learn, if I want to seek excellence in my life, there has to be a resistance, otherwise you'll either stay static, you'll stay where you are, or potentially go backwards. So if we lean into tension in this conversation that that have in your mind, that is a purpose aligned resistance, which means you chose it and it's going to get you where you say you want to go.
Speaker 2:Yep, bench press Perfect example, right? You want to increase your bench press. That is your vision. You want to increase it by 25 pounds by the end of the year, so you have a timeline for it. You have purposeful, aligned intention, resistance, right. And so you put on more weight every single week. You have a progressive load. You increase it because you're moving towards that purpose. That is like tension. In a nutshell. Pressure would be. Someone else sets the goals for you, right? Someone else just starts throwing weight on the bar and you don't really want this and you're just doing it because you're trying to fit in. Uh, you're the knucklehead that can't say no to other people. And so you just try to go in and ego lift and you blow your shoulder out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great segue into the other side of that coin and to me. There's a lot of people in my own sphere that I know, but there are individuals that choose busyness and it's actually a vice. So if you draw significance from the feeling of being valued or wanted or asked to do something and this is often the door that swings open to all of your yeses then you need to realize your significance is drawn from that. Then you need to realize your significance is drawn from that right. So just because you're busy doesn't mean that you're being purposeful and that potentially, busyness for you can be a vice. If you overload your calendar, if you never really have time to date your spouse, if you aren't spending more than if you're spending 27 seconds with your kids or less, making the national average of presence, then you're being over busy and that's actually a vice for you and you have to take ownership of that right.
Speaker 1:This helps me feel good about myself. This helps me feel like I'm valued in these rooms. The feeling of being needed is you've got to be able to shift your significance away from those yeses into things that are actually valuable If you need to fast forward your brain to your 85th birthday on your deathbed not that you're going to die at 85, but generally speaking, then, what would be most important to you in that moment, as you're about to close your eyes for the last time? It's not going to be all these yeses, it's not going to be the busyness again. It's going to be the purpose amount of time that you did either building what you were called to do on this earth or the memories that you got to make with your family. It's good.
Speaker 1:So it's a big deal. Don't let busyness be a vice. Like the rest of us Americans, amen, amen.
Speaker 2:I love that. How do you make decisions? And so what we were you know we're talking about this, josh, cause you were gonna, you're sharing that, you're going to add something else to your week and it is purposeful, and then we just got off on the topic you know talking about. You know not another thing. I'm in a season also or I'm auditing where my time is spent, especially now that I'm married. I've got my commitments have changed, my commitment has now been hyper-focused, but my obligations and responsibilities have shifted a little bit. So I'm like I need to audit where I'm spending my time and I've got a particular client. I love this client, the client pays very well, but I'm spending a disproportionate amount of time on this project. So I'm like man, you know, I'm kind of at the seasons where I don't even think I could say yes to something, even if it was purposeful, because of what I currently have on my plate.
Speaker 1:What a great awareness. What a great awareness, and so I love that. I'll certainly share on my thing as well. But just to have the awareness that your time is being gobbled up, that because you have a vision for your life, aaron, because you have values for yourself and you now have values for your new family, is that this thing doesn't align with those values. It may have worked for single Aaron, but it doesn't work for married Aaron and multiple business owner Aaron. And so even just having the awareness and the audacity to sit down and say listen, even though this is a good check for me that it doesn't align with where I say I want to go.
Speaker 2:True, yeah, that's tough, that's unsettling, that means I have to make a decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uncertainty for sure, uncertainty for sure. Not to Bogart the thought, but just to add to the thought, my thing is my wife and I have this marriage mission called same team. Same team forever. We started a podcast a year and a half ago and did really well on it, and then we got pregnant and we had my son, and so that's been a hiatus for us for the better portion of a year.
Speaker 1:Well, I heard a message a week ago about service and to serve willingly, within my own capacity, what I'm called to do, and part of that was also generosity. And so it stirred this thought, it resurfaced this thought of this podcast which, to me, immediately felt like another thing. Like all of us, I've got a lot going on and can certainly consider myself busy lot going on and can certainly consider myself busy. Yet I had to stop and say well, is this just another thing, or is the Holy Spirit telling me that this needs to become a priority of my life? So what did I immediately do is I had the conversation with my wife and in doing that, we went immediately to our core values. So, as a lash it was, we have five primary core values. So, as a lash was, we have five, five primary core values. Number one is honor, number two, generosity. Number four is positive attitude. Number five is effort.
Speaker 1:And so of these, of this thing, this podcast, that that felt like another piece that would pull from whatever time I currently have left over, that it actually aligns with who I say that I am. I prioritize my marriage, I prioritize speaking into other relationships. In that way, I live a life that's honorable. I want to be and am generous. Then I have to act my way into a feeling and have a positive attitude about it and then also be willing to give great effort to see this through so it actually aligns with my values, which means I'm going to make time for it and this week we're going to get back to recording it, and so that's what helped me make my decision on that, versus the feeling and the potential frustration of adding another thing, yeah, cause that frustration, you know, you know, precedes that overcommitment and the lack of ability to fully execute on it the way that you want.
Speaker 2:And so going into it with clear awareness, understanding, okay, I ran this through my vision, I ran this through my core values. My yes is going to be yes. I'm having conversation and good counsel around it and it's a decision I'm going to commit to and I'm going to execute on it. And that's what a win looks like, as opposed to just jumping in and saying yes to something without any type of discernment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I want to throw something out there. This, this will help somebody. I'm obviously going to say it for for somebody in mind, but if you feel stressed we feel stressed as humans I'll just, I'll encapsulate it, I'll let me. Let me just give you my thought.
Speaker 1:If you feel stressed about something, that's because it's something you can do something about, things in our life that are completely out of our control, that we really don't have a hand in the pot. From, you experience a different type of I don't want to call it stress, but you feel a different type of emotion from it or pressure from it. But if you have stress in your life whether that's your finances, your health, your marriage, your relationship with your kids, your lack of male friends in your life, whatever it may be if you feel stress from something, you feel that stress because there's actually something, a decision and action you can put to it right. So if you just feel pressure, like pressure from a distance and it's not really stress, then that's one thing.
Speaker 1:But to really highlight a moment of, if you feel, stress about a certain thing, that's because there's something you can do about it. There's a trick to that, for sure. Just to let that massage in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you're stressed about your finances, then you need to have a financial day with your wife. You need to sit down and go through it. You need to write things down, know what your income is, know the budget most people live on versus. You can choose to live on a margin type life If your relationship with your wife feels like it's distant and you feel stressed from that. You can choose to be romantic with her, to pursue her, to have date nights, to be the one to schedule who's going to be watching your kids while you go. Do that. If you feel stressed with your body, you look yourself in the mirror and go man, I'm not where I was X amount of year ago and you feel stressed from that. That's because there's something you can do about it. Choose what you're putting in your pantry. Choose what you're stuffing in your pie hole. Get more physical activity, even if it's 30 minutes a day. Just make a decision. So, again, if you feel stressed about something, that's because there is action and decision that you can make around it.
Speaker 2:It's good. It's good, and there's always something you can do. That's the truth matter. I think the reason most people feel stressed and overwhelmed is they lack the vision which requires a certain amount of action, and they certainly don't want to live by core values. And so there's always something you can do, for sure. For sure, it's good. So the how?
Speaker 1:Yep. So here's the point. You've already gotten a flyover of the house that we solicit when Aaron and I get in these scenarios, but the first one that I just want to hit like we do seemingly week after week is you have to have a vision for your life. If you don't know where you're going, then you'll end up wherever the ocean takes you, right. If there's not a uh I'm at, I'm at location a and my life, I desire to be a location B, then you will never get there. Whatever the circumstances of the situation is, that's just where you'll end up. So, wherever you go, there you are, it's kind of life, um.
Speaker 1:But you have to have values for your life as well, which means, as a lashua, as I talked about, I have values that I lean on. If something, if a thing, aligns with my values, then it's at least up for consideration. If it doesn't align with my values, then it's automatically a no. If, let your yes be yes, your no be no. So the values as a lashua, as I talked about, is a life of honor, generosity, health, which for us is spirit, mind and body right. Those things have to be a part of health, and then positive attitude, which I get to decide, I have full control on. And then effort, the amount of energy I put to something, amount of action I put to something, all of those are things that I can't control.
Speaker 1:So, again, the values of my life are the strainer that all my decisions go through. All these things that go through, all these opportunities go through, and they either help me say yes, this aligns, it needs to be considered in conversation with my wife, or no, it doesn't align at all. That's an easy no, easy no. So we've got to have vision for a life and you have to have decided values for your life. That's tool number one. Without that, the others don't matter, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Nothing works without that. If you don't know where you're going, what your life looks like, you're going to say yes to too much, feel overwhelmed, pressured and completely diluted in your effectiveness as a man because you don't have clear direction. So first and foremost and we talk about this every single week is vision, direction of where you're going two years, five years, 10 years down the road, core values as a man, so you can make your decisions faster and more effectively. And then the third piece is the ability to say no, like saying no is the most powerful thing that you can do for yourself, your overall effectiveness, your ability to get more done because you're saying yes with full authority and with enough margin, rather than just saying yes to everything, knowing when to say no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when, when? Every time we say yes, we dilute our no. Every time we say no, we empower our yes. So don't just flagrantly give a yes just because don't be a yes guy. Please don't be a yes guy. And when you are a yes guy, it needs to be something that Aaron talked about, something that's done with decisiveness and authority so you can truly show up for that, and authority, so you can truly show up for that. Yes, that's good. Number two that I have is solicit wise counsel. I think about any of the fortune fortune one fifties out there for a decision maker. He's going to have a council, a cabinet, a group of individuals that he goes to to look at the data, the metrics, the potential outcome. You know what the desire of this is. Before decisions made, how are you, as a man, any different right? You have to operate your life that way. And I specifically say solicit because you have to choose who you're going to go to. Right, it can't just be the buddy next door, it can't be your what do you call it? Your?
Speaker 1:your barstool buddy, barstool buddy barstool buddy, because in the middle, middle of the game you want to ask a random question that actually is important to you, but they're not half paying attention because they're watching a game drinking their ninth beer, so soliciting wise counsel Isn't it?
Speaker 1:Soliciting wise counsel is to seek the input from the people that have what you say you want. They're a little farther down the road. They have fruit in their life in this area and seeking them with a question, not to decide for you, because that's got to come from you, but to seek how they might show up or where they may go with with the current opportunity. It's good.
Speaker 2:Good and wisdom, wisdom. I love the next one.
Speaker 1:If you're married, this is good.
Speaker 1:So, if you're married, a lot of the voices, a lot of the ears that hear us and listen to us are married, but you have to agree before you decide. The Bible talks about there is so much power in unity, and one of the greatest practice areas, one of the greatest anvils for this life lesson, this life template, is in our marriage. And so I have an individual in my life right now that I spend time with in coaching, and he makes well over a million dollars a year, has been doing that for years. He does well for himself, but he's also realized that there's been a cost that he's had to pay in his marriage. There's been a price that he's had to pay in the relationship with his younger children, and so he's at a place he has an urge just to completely walk away. Completely walk away, focus on his family.
Speaker 1:He's got plenty of cash, what he wants to do, at least for a while, and he could easily be hired somewhere else, in my opinion. Yet at the same time, because he's married, he doesn't have the power of agreement. Yet You've got to go and have that dialogue with his wife and make the decision together. So staying there may be the best thing for them. But he can't just follow an urge or if, choosing to leave the organization to do and focus on what he says he thinks he wants to do, and then find a new landing location somewhere else. That's all. All is good and well, but you don't have power until you have unity and that's comes in agreement. So, especially if you're married, you have to have the dialogue in order to get the unity. It's good.
Speaker 2:It's good so and it's not a. I want to just add an asterisk to this. This is not going to your wife for her to make the decision. This is yeah, please don't be the the type of guy that says I got to check with my wife. Um, this is a matter of when it's worse. If you've ever, ever, ever, been in a sales profession and you get to the end of the line, you had a great dialogue with a customer and they say, ah, I just got to check with my wife. Well, when you get your wallet and your testicles back from her, let's make a decision together as men.
Speaker 2:But it's not saying that Josh is not saying that. He's saying that, if your decisions are going to affect the overall direction of the family in regards to taking margin or adding margin, I think that's the biggest thing. We're talking about pressure, tension being overcommitted, letting your yes mean yes and your purpose decisions being. You know, first and foremost, you need to have that conversation with her and you need to have a conversation from a leadership capacity Like this is what I'm thinking. This is the direction I think I should go in, but obviously I need to consider you, because you are my other half.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. None of us have the freedom of living life on an island. No one lives in a vacuum. Every decision we make affects people and typically our home life first, and so, if you have any ounce of wisdom, you'll understand that having the conversation with your spouse, and having it first, is most important. And, um the again, the power of agreement, the power of unity, really puts the hand of God on the decision, whichever direction you choose to go in.
Speaker 2:It's good. It's good, not another thing. Men, if you're listening to this conversation, you are pressured, overwhelmed, overcommitted. You need to go back. You need to quickly review Do I have a vision for my life? Am I operating from core values? Have I ran my decisions, my thought process, through a counsel? Are you getting some counsel and are you running the overall direction of your life by your wife? Are you checking with her? These are your quick hows to make sure that you're staying purposeful and not just preoccupied by saying yes to too much. And if you are in a season where you're stretched because you have overcommitted yourself, well, there's some resources for you. We have a free community, high Valley man Community, where we will slap you around left and right and provide you a swift kick between the legs to get you back on track with your purpose, because if you don't have purpose, you don't have vision, you don't have a mission as a man, you are lost, looking, wandering and holy cow, that is a-.
Speaker 2:You're an easy target, horrible place to be Anything you want to add no, I think it's great.
Speaker 1:So we all have again. We all are busy, but you have to decide what type of busy that is. Busy doesn't mean you're producing. And so, again, vision for your life, values that you lean on, counsel that is respectable and fruitful, and agreement the power of agreement with your spouse are intricate in your decision-making process. Do not live a life that feels stressed. If you're stressed, there's something you can do about it, and what you can do about it are one, if not all of these three things. Boom, we're off to podcast. Get back to the fucking mental lab.