Brian Gubernick outlines five habits to cut distraction and build results: look in the mirror not the window, play the long game with aggressive patience, surround yourself with focused people, concentrate on what you control, and define a clear North Star through multi-year goal mapping.
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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 we're going to be discussing the steps you can take to eliminate or limit the noise and volume in your world, in your business, and in your life? How do you limit the noise? How do you turn down the volume? In other words, how can we get hyperfocused on whatever it is we're looking to build or improve or change in our respective worlds? What I'm going to share are the things that I actively think about. I'm not saying they're the right things. If anything, maybe I prompt you to think about something a little differently today. And you come up with your own solutions. But I'm going to share with you the things that I'm thinking about quite often, with the intention being to lower the amount of distraction or noise in my life so that I can focus on what truly matters. The first thing, and this is something I've been saying a lot this year, and I say it so much because I want to remind myself to make certain that I'm honoring it. I think we all have to be looking in the mirror quite a bit more and looking out the window quite a bit less. More mirror and less window. What do I mean? Rather than looking out the window and seeing what everybody else is up to and looking out the window and comparing ourselves to what we see going on outside of our environment, outside of our, our own personal world, I think we all should be looking in the mirror a little bit more and focusing on ourselves. Focusing on our growth, focusing on our development, getting better every single day personally, and not comparing it or worrying about what anybody else is doing around us. I think today's environment, today's world, it's so easy to fall victim to that, comparing ourselves. And in the spirit of getting rid of the noise, the chatter, the volume, the distraction, I think it's a lot more mirror for all of us and a lot less window. The next thing I think about when it comes to lowering the volume, reducing the noise, I think about, or I have to remind, remind myself often that I'm playing the long game. What do I mean? Well, it's not my intention to, to, to run this business or live this life for the next day or the next week or even the next month or even the next year. It's my intention to be doing this for decades, right? Getting better every single day for decades, building businesses and building wealth for the next several decades. So I'm playing the long game. When there's noise, it's oftentimes because we're shortsighted. It's because we're getting caught up in the day-to-day and the things that seem like they matter in the moment. But in the grand scheme of things, they really don't. They really don't. So for me, I've got to constantly remind myself to practice what I like to call aggressive patience. Meaning that I'm very aggressive in outlining my plan, aggressive in designing how I think I'm going to get somewhere. But once I have that design, I've got to be really patient to allow those results to happen. I've got to be patient to allow what I put into play to come to fruition. And as long as I practice this aggressive patience and I'm committed to that process, it lowers the volume for me. It lowers the distraction. The next thing I remind myself quite often about or to do, and it's something we've been talking about quite a bit here in terms of our environment or the people we're surrounding ourselves with, For me, if I want to limit the noise and distraction, I got to get around those people that are on a similar journey to me. I got to get around those that are on a similar journey. Do they desire to focus? Do they desire to build? Right? And if they do, guess what? They're probably trying to limit their noise as well. Right? And so when you get a bunch of people that are on a similar journey and taking similar approaches, like limiting noise, Well, you're a product of that environment. So you got to get around those that are on a similar journey. Next thing I think about quite often, I've got to remind myself regularly, if I want to simplify my life, if I want to limit the noise and distraction, I've got to control the controllables. I've got to focus on controlling the controllables. This means a couple different things. To me, this means I can only control what I could get my arms around, what I have an influence over, you know, what I can drive. I can't control everything outside my purview. I can't control what the weather's gonna be like tomorrow. I can't control the challenges that the people in my life or my world and my business or personal world, I can't control necessarily what they're gonna experience in their own individual lanes. But I can control how I behave. I can control how I think. I can control how I'm gonna improve. I can control the actions I take every single day that contribute to a specific project or whatever it may be in business. So in order to lower the volume, I've gotta focus on controlling the controllables. So for me, I oftentimes ask myself, is this something that can be controlled? Is this something that I can have an influence on, that I can impact? That I can drive to finality or drive to a conclusion? And if so, I can go all in on that. But if I learn something different, like, hey, this is outside of your control, sure, I can do some things maybe to mitigate the challenges that may come along with it, but I've also got to be accepting that I can't own everything here. The last thing I think we could all do to lower the volume lower the chatter, the distraction, eliminate the distraction. I think it's really to get super clear around our North Star, get very clear around where we're going, know exactly where we want to go in life, in business, in relationships. Have it outlined. For me, I, I do life plan. I do go through an exercise— not that this is the right thing, I'm just telling you what I do— I do map out exactly where I want to see myself in a year, 3 years, 5 years, a decade. I do map out how I want my daughters to think about me, you know, in 10 or 20 or 30 years. I go so far as to write my own eulogy, and I know for some of you that's very morbid, but I think, hey, why don't you write your own eulogy, then work your way backwards? So if my North Star, if the direction, if the way I want people to remember me is this sort of way, well then I'm clearer, or I get clearer, on the actions I got to take in order to make sure I I drive towards that desire. So know your north star, get very clear around that. That's all we have today. Limiting that noise, limiting that distraction, and today we could take action around it in the No Days Off movement. What can you be doing? What can you be doing to eliminate, or at least limit the distraction and noise in your world? Thank you so much for listening. No Days Off podcast. Remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's all go get after it. Thank you.
