Discounting Our Own Experiences

Business Brain, episode 6:30 for Wednesday, March 12, National Alfred Hitchcock Day 2025. Maybe that means this episode's for the birds. Greetings, folks. Welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take some ideas, we crunch them, we use them, maybe we look at them through our rear window to tune our business brains to better live our charmed lives each and every day. Shopify.com BusinessBrain is our sponsor for this episode. That's where you can go to sign up for a $1 per month trial period. We will talk more about that in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I am Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm good. And this week I will be at the Northbo. North. No, the south by Southwest conference. What was the Alfred Hitchcock movie?

Yes. Two bad dad jokes in a row.

Oh, I threw the Rear Window thing in there, too. That's three.

That's you're out. Strike.

You're out.

Yeah, that's pretty funny. That's good. Yeah, that's great. I always like hearing about that show and seeing what goes on out there. Should be interesting.

Yeah. Every year with south by Southwest is different, and I'm eager to see how this one actually comes out. The schedule, it evolves so late in the process. Like, it was a week out that I saw some major things sort of drop into the schedule. Yeah. It's sort of bizarre. Yeah. I don't know. So I never really, I have an idea of what I'm going to be encountering there, but I never really know until I'm done.

You don't plan as much. You just kind of.

Oh, no, I plan the crap out of it.

Yeah.

Okay. But it's the one that I probably call the most audibles on. I, I, I've learned to double or triple book myself at any point in time so that no matter where I am, I can be like, all right, yep, it's going to be that. But sometimes it's, it's, well, I didn't have this particular thing on my list, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you just casually, you gently extract yourself from the other meetings in a polite way. Yeah.

But, yeah, it's all everybody. It's kind of the way things go.

I see. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know what it would be like to do south by Southwest with, like, a partner, a business partner, or, you know, like, trying to coordinate going through that with another human's desires of the things they'd want to See, there's so many things going on at once that what I've told anybody that says, oh, I want to go to south by Southwest, you can show me what to do. Like, yes, I will show you what to do. You are welcome to follow me around, but I will never choose to do something because you want to do it. If you want to do it, you, you go do that. That's the best way I've found for this, this thing to work.

You know, I like it.

Yeah, we can split, we can meet together. It's totally fine.

Yeah, yeah.

It's all good.

Trying to do at the same time as, as it's crazier. Yeah, it's crazy. It is crazy. Hey, I, I saw a post or somebody pointed it out to me actually that I, I, I thought plays into. We've talked about this kind of in the past little bit and I, I wanted to read it here and get your take on it.

Okay.

Yep, lay it on me and Michelle Penck, which is at Michelle Pen cz, which we'll post in the show notes at Businessbrain show. She posted. I don't know who needs to hear this right now, but sharing what you accomplished is a reverse to do list.

Huh.

And I thought, wow, because we have this concept here in the show that I've talked about ad nauseam about a to did list, Right? Yep. Which is look, taking aft or taking a look at the end of the day of what you got done and recognizing all the little things that you might have missed and putting it on your to did. I don't like the to do list concept as much because I'd much rather kind of jump in and out. I have a different framework for getting things done, but I like this idea and I like sharing and talking about what you've done, not what you're going to do. I think it's much more powerful when you, when you frame your conversations with. When this happened, I worked on this project and I got, I did this instead of, which is what most people talk about. I'm going to do this. I'm, I'm starting this. I'm buying this. I'm, you know, I don't, I just think it's more powerful if you invert and talk about. Just try. Sometimes it's hard, but just try to talk about things you got done.

I don't disagree at all with you. However, I want to ask a clarifying question. Is this only for external talk or is this also for self talk?

Oh, I think it's self talk. You should definitely talk about what you've got done. But I think you also the self talk, you need to talk about your, your story, your future.

Yes.

Okay, well, where you will be because that pulls like speaking just for myself, that pulls me me forward. Oh, I'm going to be at when I'm, you know, this, this is, it's a system that I use to, I always say it's like living. You get tell your story in reverse.

Right.

Finding and then back yourself out and then you're already in your head. You've already accomplished that.

You're.

You train your moist robot brain to accept the fact that you visualize yourself there. I vis in my world, in my frame. I visualize myself telling the story of the accomplishment. Sitting around the campfire. That's my power base, people. I love sitting around the fire. I love telling stories. And so I've had some success at telling stories that I from the past in my head. I use it to tell stories in the future.

Yeah, no, I, I, I, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah. Now I, I, we talk about the to did list here a lot. Are you someone who creates a to do list for yourself or, or like a written or, or a recorded to do list? You might have an idea in your head of what you're going to do, but do you, do you have a, a to do list when you approach each day?

No, I have my calendar.

Okay.

Because I understand that that's gonna, that's going to put some boundaries and what in my schedule and I have a, what I call an open calendar. So, so clients can schedule my time.

Sure. But how do you, what about reminders?

Like, like I use reminders all the time.

Okay, so you do have you. So you are using a to do list based on your reminders.

That's a reminder, Dave, not a to do list. Ah, I don't like to do lists, but reminders. I walk around with my phone all the time.

Yes.

Remind me to do this tomorrow morning at 9am remind me to call this person tomorrow at 11am remind me to. That's a constant in my life.

Okay, so this is, and I don't want to discount this. In fact, I want to highlight this. This is a phrase difference.

Yes. Correct.

You have reminders that are things you chose to remind yourself of to do which is not in, in the moist robot correct range or brain is not the same as I have things I have to do. It's things I want to remind myself to do. I want to remind myself not I have to do. I Want.

Because I'm to do. Yeah. As we discussed a couple episodes, you know, I spend my day on the hunt for dopamine. Right?

Yes.

I'm looking.

Yes.

I mean, I think all of us do it. So I'm looking for this. And the, the surest way to suck the dopamine out of my head is to look at a big long list of things I have to do. Even though I know I have to do those things for me, I present them in a way that during my day, they pop up on my computer, on my phone. It's like, oh, yeah, that's right. I want to get.

I want to do this, I want to call Dave.

Oh, yeah, I want to do this, I want to do that. So it's, it's just how you present it. And it's just a system that works better for me. I know that I'm. So I'm, I definitely have like adhd. And part of the ADHD is not wanting anyone to tell you what to do.

Right.

But the other side of ADHD is needing to be told over and over because you get distracted because you gotta do it. Yes, yes. It's a bad combination.

Oh, yes.

So, yeah, so the. Using the technology, I slip around that concept of something telling me what to do, like some gross looking list.

It's just that term change from term change.

Yeah, have to, to want to. And I don't see them all at once.

Right.

I trick myself. They pop up during the day. So I'll say at 9:00am, do this. At 9:30, do this. At 10:00am, do this. And so I don't have that big list. It kind of unrolls itself throughout the day, which I know from my own experience is a better approach for me.

All right, so you know that we're all about working smarter, not harder. And that's exactly why I use our sponsor, Shopify, to sell merch for my other businesses and podcasts. Seriously, it's so easy. I barely remember setting it up. It happened all in one day. In fact, the first time I used it, from having the idea at a staff meeting in the morning to selling our first product by the end of the day, it's like Shopify just read my mind, built my store and whispered, go forth and sell. Shopify gives you the best and me the best checkout experience on the planet. And shop pay boosts conversions by up to 50%, meaning fewer abandoned carts and more cha ching moments. Whether your customers are scrolling, strolling, or impulse Buying at 2am, Shopify makes sure they can click Buy Buy now wherever they are. And listen, if Shopify were a person, I'd hire it as my cfo, my coo, and possibly my life coach. It's that good. So if you're ready to upgrade your business and start living that charmed entrepreneurial life, upgrade your business and get the same checkout that I use. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/business brain, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com businessbrain to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, you're on. The wisdom train is rolling today, my friend. So let's keep going with it.

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to read something to you that I wrote. I keep notes just of things to talk about that interest me and see if I can find it here. And it kind of comes into the. It's related to the discussion we just had a bit. But I reminded someone of this who was having a hard time sharing about their life and trying to tell me that nobody was interested in hearing about what I did over the weekend or this. What I did this. And I was like, well, you're wrong. They do want to. Have you ever heard of reality television? Everyone is, everyone is interested. So what I said when I wrote it down, I said it's human nature to discount our own experiences. Of course we're not fascinated with our own lives. We're living it and so we're in it. And it just maybe it seems a little bit more. I mean, hopefully you're fascinated a little bit, but it, the. What appears fascinating to other people could easily be mundane to yourself because you're you and it's your life. So I think shifting out of that framework that no one is interested in what I had for lunch or what I did today at my office or that that's wrong. They are interested. And you can use those in lessons. Whether, you know, you can use them with your employees. You can use them if you're sharing on social media. You could use it with your clients and your customers. I mean, I had a, when my kids were little, my son was just, I don't know how old they, how old are little kids when they eat their boogers? Like two years old, something like that.

Wait, you're supposed to stop.

Yeah.

I didn't know.

There you go. That's right. I'm sure you're. I'm sure listeners. Kids never did this, but my kid and I, I shared that in a newsletter that I wrote for one of my companies years and years ago. My kids are all grown up now. And that was my first sentence. My kid won't stop eating his boogers. And it was the biggest. It got the most opens out of, I think, any newsletter I ever wrote. And it was just a hook to get them to read and to buy what I was selling at the time. But so, you know, I just think that. Don't discount your own experiences. Share them with people that you love more. Share them with friends and share them with the rest of the world people. You know, you'll. You'll benefit from it. So will other people.

I. It's hard to remember this. That's the, that's the trick is. And, and it's interesting that it's hard to remember because as much as we discount our own experiences, at the same time we're discounting our own experiences, we are actively seeking out the most mundane things that, that other people are doing. And.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Right?

So it's like zoom scrolling through somebody.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe he, you know, he did that. The way he trimmed his cat's claws like that, like, you know, or. Look at that. Look at that hamburger. That looks amazing. And, and yet we won't, I won't think to post a picture of my hamburger or whatever. And we all know people want to see it because we're all those people. We're just not those people to ourselves. So it really is good to remember. And if you need to make it a little bit of a competition to remember, do that, because it really can help.

Yeah, it does. I write this stuff down for me.

Yes.

Yeah, it makes me better. And I take all these notes for myself. I do this show for me so I can talk about this. And it trains my brain that, oh, you got to remember to do that. You got to do this. Know we've done 630 episodes of this, which is basically an hour or so a week to train my brain to be better. And, you know, just the fact that I have. We happen to share it with thousands of other people. That's great. That's a fun byproduct.

Yeah.

The fact that sponsors want to come sponsor, you know, have a. Share their awesome products with our listeners. It's another byproduct. It's awesome. Yeah. So if I. It kind of comes. I don't know if I've, I think, I'm sure I've talked about this on the show. This concept of writing one page a day. It's the same kind of thing.

It's the same thing. Yeah.

You're just writing stuff down. That repetition to remember to help make yourself better, to. To continually improve.

10,000 hours, man.

Yeah, that's it. So, yeah, yeah, if, if, if you have tricks like that that you want to share with us, you know, feedback at BusinessBrain show, I would love to hear them help us get better, and we can help everybody else get better, too.

Feedback at BusinessBrain show is what he said. Email us. Send a review in BusinessBrain Show Review. We'd love to have it. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you on Friday.

See ya.