Ep 409 | The Ripple Effect Changing Yourself

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today is going to be a quick episode, and it's going to be about a story that I can almost guarantee you've heard before. We, we've all heard some version of this. Sometimes it's called the Serenity Prayer. Other times it's called— I saw the Paradoxical Commandments. I even saw that this particular story was inscribed on the tomb of a bishop in Westminster Abbey. We've heard it, and I want to review it today really as a reminder to you and how you go about impacting the world. So the anecdote typically goes something like this. A man in his youth decides that he wants to change the world. However, as he grows older, he realizes that changing the entire world is an incredibly daunting, nearly impossible task. So instead, he shifts his focus to changing his country. But as time passes, he finds that This too is overwhelming. So he decides to concentrate his energy on changing his local community. But as he keeps aging, he recognizes that even changing his community is really, really difficult. So he just decides to focus on improving his family. And he makes strides, but even that's hard. In the final stages of his life though, The man realizes that the only person that he could truly change was himself. And upon changing himself, he sees that his transformation can have a ripple effect on his family. And when his family improves, it could turn around and influence the community. And as the community improves, it eventually impacts his country. And as the country improves, the world around him changes. This is a really good story for all of us to think about. Again, I'm sure we've heard about it, but I don't know if we've internalized it. I don't know if we've thought around it. Maybe I'm speaking for myself. Oftentimes I am looking to change or influence on a grander scale than maybe is possible. However, if I focus my energy on changing myself and thereby impacting my family, and then from there there's a domino effect Maybe I have more meaningful impact. See, this narrative, I think, teaches us that personal change is the foundation for broader societal change. And the focus or the emphasis should be really on the importance of beginning with ourselves, especially before we seek to impact others. At the end of the day, it's kind of what we're trying to accomplish here at No Days Off, right? I say countless times, many of you heard it over and over again. Hopefully it doesn't ring in your head too often, but every single day presents an opportunity for us to get better, better at our leadership, better at our relationships, better at our health, better at, you know, a whole variety of things, all of these things. And as we improve ourselves, the byproduct should be an impact on those closest to us. And as we impact those that are close to us, ideally they turn around and impact others at a broader scale. And as they impact others that at a broader scale, those individuals begin to impact even greater change and the domino effect occurs. Again, this is short today. I just want to, I want this to be a reminder that we should change the world by changing ourself first. Confucius— we've all heard of Confucius— is a very similar idea that he shares, and he's a pretty wise individual. Confucius says, to put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order. To put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order. To put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life. We must first set our, our hearts right. Today, what I love for all of us to do is maybe look in the mirror a bit more and ask ourselves, what can I do today to be a slight bit better version of me, of myself? Like, how could I be a slight bit better than I was yesterday? And in doing so, who might I impact? As I model a certain behavior, as I speak certain words, as I aim to influence others, as I'm impacting, as I'm improving myself, how does this then impact the way I approach those things I just mentioned? And what sort of influence might that have? So the focus, all mirror today. Let's all look in the mirror today and figure out what can I do a little bit better? And ultimately change the world. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.