How "Little Things" Ruined My Marriage & Are Ruining Your Life - FDDTC #40

What's up, guys? Devin Zander here, and today I'm coming at you with what I believe to be the most important message I've ever shared on this podcast. From delivery driver to CEO. We're not going to get into the intro today because it's a very serious topic. And the idea is that when I consider the consequences of little things, I begin to believe that there are no such thing as little things. That is a quote I heard recently that really got me thinking about the past eight or nine months, because this is something I haven't really talked about publicly yet. But I'm in the middle of a divorce right now. And with that, I've done a lot of self reflection. I've analyzed my life, I've looked at what led me to get where I am today. And I know that you're probably like, devin, this is a business podcast. I don't care about your divorce or your misfortune or the stupid decisions that you've made. I just care about making money. Fair enough. And that's okay. If you don't want to watch, you don't have to watch. But I do think that this could help you with business. And I think that if I can make an impact in the world, even if it's only just like three people, and I can help them have a better relationship, better marriage, better friendships, better interactions with people in the day to day. And yes, I do think that this quote will help you have a better business. But again, let's read this quote one more time. When I consider the consequences of little things, I begin to believe there's no such thing as little things. So what are little things? It's like the little actions that we do every day that we say, oh, you know, it's not that big of a deal, I'll do it just this one time. I'll be better tomorrow. Where do you do this all the time? What about in your relationship? You know, like, I didn't do that thing my wife wanted to do to today, but we'll do it next time. And the next time comes and you don't do it then and you say you'll do it next time and then the next time comes and you don't do it again or I'll just leave my coffee cup on the table. I'll get it later. I have things I need to do. I won't do it again. But you do it again and you do it again or, oh, it's okay, I worked really hard yesterday. I'm not going to Work that hard today, and then what happens tomorrow? You. You don't work that hard again, and then you don't work that hard again. But there's a rule in life called compounding, right? And if you look at the stock market, a lot of the wealthiest people, they got really wealthy because of something known as compound interest, which means that things just grew exponentially on top of each other over time. And that's how our decisions in life work as well. It's not just something that applies to the stock market. It applies to our marriages, our relationships, our relationships with our children, our friendships. Right? In an echo or. Sorry, in like, a vacuum. One bad thing doesn't hurt anybody. One little cut on your arm isn't going to kill you. But over time, when those cuts keep accruing, you bleed to death, right? That's. What's that called? It's called death by a thousand cuts. One cut, that's not that bad. Two cuts, not that bad. Five cuts, not that bad. 15 cuts, not that bad. 50 cuts. Wait, what's happening? 100 cuts. Dude, I don't feel so good. 500 cuts, you're dead. They all felt exactly the same. None of them felt different. You didn't notice it when you only had one cut. You didn't even notice it when you had 10. It's the same as the frog in the boiling pot of water. Not if a frog is in a boiling pot of water and it starts to heat up slowly, by the time it's boiling, the frog doesn't even realize and it's too late. He's dead at that point. So these are mistakes that we make everywhere in life. In my personal life, it's affected me in multiple ways. It's affected me with weight gain. Back in, like, 2016, I became over obese, for lack of better term. I weighed significantly more than I do now. I was a very chunky lad. And it's because I ate like shit every day. But it seemed so little at the time. I was like, I'm just gonna have one taco today. I'll just have a couple sodas. Oh, it won't hurt me. I'll be fine. But those little things, I did them every day, you know, once. I don't know. Like, when I have buddies who want to lose weight, they don't realize, like, how much of a difference just one soda a day can make. And let's go with the can. So a can is small, right? So let's see how many calories are in a can of soda. One can of soda has 150 calories. 3,500 calories is the equivalent of one pound. So if you have 150, just one can of soda per day, right? Just one. And you have that over the entire year, that's 54,750 calories, right? Divide that by 3,500 because that is 3,500 calories is one pound. That's 15.6 pounds that you are gaining per year just from that one can of soda. So if you were to skip that one can of soda, you would lose £15 over the year. Have you ever wanted to get in better shape? Have you ever wanted to have a six pack? Have you ever wanted to look better for your wedding day or just for a vacation you're going on? This is what I'm talking about. The one can of soda. It's so inconspicuous, it's so small, it barely registers on anyone's radar. It's one can of soda. But over a year the little things add up. It's £15. And it's the things like that that make you realize the little things aren't so little over time. They have big, big impacts, dude. The second place where I obviously, you know, have been affected by this in my personal life is my marriage. My marriage is coming to, to an end and I have no ill will towards my wife. She's an amazing person. I love her very deeply and I wish the best for her. I respect her for making the decision she did make. Because over time I thought that being a man provides, right? We provide monetary and we provide a good lifestyle. We pay for things and we allow them, the woman to not have to work. And that was a really old fashioned view. Obviously I now realize more about emotional connection and intimacy and empathy and trust and just really being there and being a partner for someone. But the thing is, is, you know, people come to you or my, my wife would come to me and she'd want to talk about something and I just would be like, that doesn't really seem like a big deal. And in the moment it really wasn't a big deal. It probably wasn't that big of a deal to her either. It in that moment. But when it happens every single day, just like the can of soda, it slowly wears at that intimacy and that trust and that closeness. And all of a sudden you're basically roommates that live together. All the small things really add up over time. And it's the same thing with your business. You know, you drop the quality of Your products a little bit. And, you know, over one sale, it doesn't matter. Over 10 sales, it doesn't really matter. Over 50 sales, you still don't really notice a difference. But over time, people stop reordering from you and your revenue goes down. And all of a sudden, your ads are no longer profitable. And you don't quite know how you got there. But it's just these little things. Every single thing we do has a consequence. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. And the little things are. Are the things that we need to most be aware of. Because when it comes to. And there's so many parallels all across life and the death by a thousand cuts, one is so important because something you'll realize if you look at. If you've ever looked at your credit card statements or if you've ever looked at, like, your cash going out and you've wondered, like, where has all my money gone? I actually had an employee who came to me and he said, devin, I need to make more money. And I was like, he's paid well. He makes about $100,000 a year, and he doesn't have a ton of expenses, or so we thought. So he came to me and he's like, devin, I need to make more money. And I'm like, dude, you make good money. What's happening? I don't understand. He's like, I don't know. I just don't know where it's all going. And we analyzed his expenses, and he wasn't making any big purchases. He wasn't. Okay. So we dove in, and what we noticed was a bunch of really small expenses. I'm talking like $5 here, $10 here, $30 there. Again, the little things. Because when we think of big expenses, we're thinking, like, hundreds of dollars, we're thinking thousands of dollars. We don't consider the coffee in the morning or the McDonald's at lunch or the takeout at night or whatever, because it's all under a certain threshold. If it's under, like, 20 bucks, you're like, dude, I don't really care. And now I know not everybody's in that financial situation, but it's just a common thing, right? It's like we have these little expenses that have become habits of ours and parts of our daily lives. So we don't really consider them a whole lot. They're just little things to us. But as we went through his expenses, we realized, dude, you're not making any huge purchases, but all these little things are adding up. And you're spending almost $40,000 per year on these little purchases. A coffee here, a little bit of food there, a little bit of this, that there. And it just adds up. And I can almost guarantee you, because it's the same at our business, it's the same in my personal finances and it's the same in most of my friends finances. And maybe it's just a thing, maybe it's part of the times, maybe this is the new generation of us irresponsible adults. I don't know. But it's all these tiny little things that add up. Okay, I have my rent, right. I have my car payment and all that. And like those things together along with insurance, that's like $6,000 a month, right? And. But my expenses are higher than that, more than double. So what is it? It's the Netflix. It's the eating out, it's the coffee, the Kratom, it's the tea, you know, it's the go out for a drink with the friends. It's all these little things that just add up. And when you buy the one thing at a time, it doesn't feel like that big of a deal. But then you analyze it over 365 days just like the one can of soda. I wish I had a can of soda. All these things add up. The little things in your life matter. So if you want to live a good life, pay attention to everything. I truly think that I could still be married if I did not overlook the little things. And it's important to realize when dealing with others as well, that the things that are little to you might not be little to them. And that's where empathy comes in. But watching the little things, paying attention to it, it's going to give you much more control out of your life. And it's going to give you a much clearer, less stressful, more enjoyable life. And guys, I know you come here for business, but this was an important message to share because it really struck home for me. And I've learned so much about life and about myself and relationships and even business and what's important to me. Over the last eight months. I'm thankful for my wife for putting me on this journey. Even though she's left me, I feel that she still pushes me to be the best version of myself. And I'm. I'm grateful, but I hope this has been helpful to you guys. I don't know if I'll make more content like this in the future. I am planning on starting to work in the men's mental health and the men's marriage field, working with guys to become better husbands and better fathers. And clearly, you know, like, it's. There's a bit of a irony there because that wasn't me. But sometimes it takes someone who's failed miserably and has realized what not to do to point men in the direction of what not to do. Anyways, but for now, we're still on our E. Commerce grind, and I just wanted to share this with you guys. So I hope you all have a beautiful day, a blessed weekend. With God behind us, all things are possible. Baby, let's get it. Have a good one, guys. I appreciate you.