Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of The Daily Gym. Today is Tuesday, November 19th, 2024. And today I want to talk about the fear of focusing on the long term.

So I was originally going to call this the temptation of the short term. But I don't even know if it's the temptation of the short term. Yes, it's the, I want this thing now. But I think sometimes it's the fear that it won't happen in the future. And so I need to grab it now.

I think this happens a lot when we're in moments of desperation when we have moments of urgency and maybe when we're used to not getting things, or we're afraid that in the long term things actually leave so we need to grab as much as we possibly can in the short term, because in the long term we don't trust we don't have faith that either the people or the resources or the things that we want in our lives are going to be around, or maybe we fear that in the long term yeah and it's it's not going to pan out that we're going to spend all this time delaying gratification delaying uh kind of you know overlooking certain opportunities that are here right now and that in the long term we're just going to miss it that it's not going to be there for us so why should we not take advantage of the moment, when there's much more of a guarantee here. Now there's a lot of economic theories about this, about whether somebody should take the money now or take the money later, even, I think, net present value or discounting or whatever the term du jour is.

But there is this idea that, I don't know, is it better to take the opportunity now or to wait?

And I'm being quite vague in this, and I can be a lot more specific. I did an episode yesterday talking about families and how it's helping families is helping individuals. And I think I have an urgent financial pressure on me or I feel an urgent financial pressure and also just an urgent philosophical identity pressure to, quote unquote, do something and or to have done something, something that I could write down and say, look what I did. And I think that pulls me into the, okay, how can I make a very compelling short-term message for people that people are very likely to, or more likely to rally behind and support and do this for the next five weeks? Okay, I can focus on families. I can focus on the conflicts that might happen during the holidays. Let's go. And then a part of me pulls back and says.

But is that what I really want long-term? Do I want to cycle through this short-term project, that short-term project, that short-term project, constantly having to reinvent myself every few months in some ways or few weeks to get the thing that is sexiest of the day just to get the attention? Or do I want something that is a bit more stable, a bit more maybe slower to grow but can grow in a much longer-term way? But might not. So instead of teaching these skills specifically for family conflicts around the holidays, what about just teaching the skills? What about just training people in emotional combat? What about demonstrating these skills? Again, not in a specific theme or topic, but just demonstrating these skills on a live stream, on whether it's Instagram or TikTok, or whether it's demonstrating these skills day to day.

What's the long-term play here? And do I have the courage to go after the long-term play? Courage slash endurance.

You know, somebody reached out to me earlier and said that money is not everything to have faith that God would provide. Now, I'm not a particularly religious person, but I believe in the concept of having faith that everything will work out feeling hope and confidence that in the long term things will be okay because sometimes in the short term we can get so wrapped up in anxiety and fear that what we have right now is not going to be here forever and that's all we have and we have to, grab the moment and now I think there's a way to do that in a very healthy way, to be present and to appreciate the time that we do have and I think the anxiety can drive us It's crazy if we constantly think about how we have little time left on earth.

A balance, right? And so here I am thinking, you know, what actually resonates with me? And more so, do I have the courage to go after the long term?

Do I have the courage to keep fighting and realize that it's not a one-punch-and-done thing? It will be a slog, it will be a fight.

What's the difference between loving and fighting? Not much, to be honest. I think loving is fighting for things.

You know, I played a lot of sports growing up, but I didn't go play the sports because I loved getting punched in the face or because I loved getting an elbow to the head. No, I mean, I loved the battle. I loved the intellectual, physical, emotional challenge of being in that space. If it wasn't challenging, I'd be bored. why would you play a sport where you don't have any challenge playing against somebody that you can beat all the time is boring playing against somebody who beats you all the time is boring most of the time so um yeah just trying to sit with this and say do i have the courage to, go the distance maybe that's another way to put it you know in boxing they talk about going through all the rounds it's not about just going through one round you got to get through all i don't know Was it six rounds, ten rounds? You've got to get through all the rounds.

So is life. We don't know how many rounds we get, but if we're like, well, I just want to do one or two punches, then I'm done.

We're not really going to build the momentum. We're not going to build the endurance to get to some of the bigger things.

And I think I've been in such, I'd say a rush, but it's really just such a zone of anxiety of trying to gain.

Attention, notoriety, money, so quickly that I don't even start. Or if I start, I stop immediately because it doesn't come. I'm so anxious and frustrated that it's not there immediately that I stop without recognizing that I can build momentum. I ran an emotional combat, a moco workshop online a couple weeks ago, and I think 10 people showed up. But then I didn't do it the next week. Why? It could have been 10, it could have been 15, it could have been maybe five, who knows, but it could build momentum and help people start getting these skills and help me realize that what I'm doing has worth in the long term. In the short term, it does too, but slowly, slowly it can build up and then maybe sometimes it accelerates more quickly than we expect. Maybe it's not that the product is bad. Maybe it's not that what I'm offering isn't helpful maybe it's just they're not offering it enough and consistently enough so that people can find out about it find out about me and start to build that relationship and the trust which often happens over the long term.

And, uh, it's less about starting a relationship and maintaining and more about maintaining and repairing a relationship and, uh, deepening one that goes for romance. It goes for business. It goes for, uh, family. It goes for self relationships with oneself. So yeah, I'm going to end on that note. Um, I've been quite consistent in reporting, reporting, recording these, uh, daily gym episodes, but again, not very consistent in promoting them, uh, especially promoting them to groups outside of my kind of closed social networks. So I hope to get better at doing that and hope to have the endurance and the courage to keep doing that. So talk to you all tomorrow.