Be More Productive with a Hero's Mindset

One of the things that I'm so excited about when it comes to understanding how to best be productive, focused, content, ambitious, balancing all of those things in our lives is to kind of see our productivity and our work through the lens of this, like, productivity power-ups that we can use. I'm so, like, enamored with this this lens, this idea of putting our work in the context of like a personal hero's journey. And you may not think about that as something that's very normal. You may not think of your life as this thing that's like a heroic journey or epic thing that you're doing. You're like, I'm just kind of doing my thing, and heroism is for other people, is for special people. It's not for me. And I started thinking about this in a little bit different way because I'm reading a book called The Hero Within by Carol Pearson. And it's a great book. And just on page 7, she has this great line, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, but she says that it used to be that we thought of heroism as this thing that only special people did. And if you weren't, like, special, if you weren't a hero, then you kind of found your safe space in the world and just kind of stayed there. Big epic journeys, that's for the heroes, that's not for me. In the modern world, a lot of the safe spaces are gone. I want to give a big shout out to the sponsor of this video, AppSumo. AppSumo is an online marketplace made for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. I've been an AppSumo customer since 2012 and have gotten some huge deals there. And you know what, that's pretty normal because all you get at AppSumo are huge deals. Like I'm talking 70% up off to 95% off. In fact, the two that I got that have made like some of the biggest impacts on me over the years are like, if you're a YouTuber, you've probably used TubeBuddy. I got a lifetime deal to TubeBuddy through AppSumo. One of the first like productivity apps that I got was through AppSumo, it was called Workflowy. These are And this is a community, this is a marketplace that is here to help entrepreneurs, to help creative people do more of the work that they love, to do more of the things that they care about, to build the business that matters to them. Best of all, signing up for AppSumo is totally free and only takes about 20 seconds. And I really love that because you'll see a lot of deal sites now where you have to like be a member of their deal site to then still spend money somewhere else. Not at AppSumo. Not only is it totally free to sign up and super fast, but my viewers can use the code MATTRAGLAN10 at checkout or just click the link in the description below, and you will be able to save 10% off of your first purchase at AppSumo. Like I said, these deals are huge, and a lot of them are lifetime deals. So even if you see that they start charging monthly, you know, at any other time, you're going to have lifetime access to that product because of the deal that AppSumo gave you. So thanks again to AppSumo for sponsoring my channel, for sponsoring this video, and And once you pick out your AppSumo deal, please let us know in the comments which product you picked and how it's going to help you lead a more productive, focused, intentional life. We're not willing to step into our own hero's journey, then the journey, the quest is going to come find us. It's usually better, but not often the case, but it's usually better if you step into your hero's journey instead of the quest coming knocking at your door. You know, Obi-Wan Kenobi knocking, you know, finding Luke Skywalker, Gandalf coming and knocking on the door of Bilbo Baggins and then Frodo Baggins in the Shire. These, like, these quests come and find us. So it's best that we understand the things that we can use, the power-ups that we have available to us to take on this epic quest that is our lives and is our work. One of my favorite games growing up, my favorite video games, was Super Mario 3. I thought Super Mario 3 was so cool because it wasn't, you know, just that it was a game and it was fun and you fought the bad guys. And one of the things that I always remember really liking, because it's really, you know, normal to like, is the power-ups that Mario could get. You know, you could get the flower power and like shoot fireballs. I don't know, I don't know where that came from. You get a frog suit and like swim in the water really easily. You could have the raccoon suit which helped you fly. I totally don't understand that one at all. But there are all these different power-ups that you could gain, that you could find, that you could use, the different levels and worlds that would help you, like, you know, take on the level, complete the world, beat the bad guy, conquer the boss at the end. I started thinking a lot about how our particular skills that we're learning as productive people really act as those power-ups for everything that we do on a day-to-day basis. Like when we look at goals or projects or things that we have to do, I think of those as like levels that I've entered into in the greater world of, say, like podcasting or video creation. How do I use the different productivity tools or power-ups that I've accumulated, that I've learned over the years to like complete that level, to like, you know, power up in that world, to, you know, do, do more things. One of the things that I commonly see that people have a lot of trouble with is that every single day you approach the day trying to do all of the productivity things. I gotta have my morning routine, and then I have to meditate, and make sure you exercise, and I gotta journal, and I gotta track my habits, and then I have to block my time, and don't forget to track your time, or is it tracking the time first so you can block it later, and then I've got to make sure my goals are regimented, and don't forget to make sure that I have like, what's my goal for the day? What are my 3 top tasks? Feeling a little overwhelmed right now, but we're going to keep going. And then make sure that you do a review so that you can do a better preview. And I mean, that's, that's just some, like there are, don't forget about taking notes. Make sure you take proper notes, not just like scribble notes, but then they have to be like notes on note cards and they have to be organized in a particular way. And don't forget to make sure that you're using Roam and Notion and maybe there's some other things. And oh, by the way, Oh my gosh, and don't forget about all the blog posts you have to read, all the books, you know, the YouTube videos, the workshops that you have to attend. I, you know, I'm a little overwhelmed. I have to take a deep breath just thinking about that. I can understand if that is the situation that you're in and you're like, oh my gosh, there are so many things to do. When do I have time to do the work? I still have to do the work. I can't do all the things. I have to like still do stuff. I've got a family, I've got work, I've got my side hustle. I can't tell you how much that resonates with me, how much I have been in that place. You don't have to do all the productivity things every day. Lord forbid it. Because what's really cool to understand and come to an awareness and a realization of is that you don't have to do every productivity life hack thing every single day. What you should do is look at the day ahead. Look at what you're trying to do. What is your goal? What is your quest? What is the challenge that's in front of you? Whether it's a challenge that you're putting in front of yourself for personal growth, or, you know, a challenge that someone else has put in front of you, you know, intended or unintended, a good challenge or one that you are not excited about at all, but you still have to face. You just have to use the tools that are appropriate, the power-ups that are appropriate for the challenge that you face this day, this week, or for this particular goal. I hope that when you hear that, you feel like so much better, that you feel more confident. So as you're starting the day, as you're starting this week, I want you to think about what do I face? This week, what do I need to slay the dragon of procrastination, as my friend Alante said in a recent call. How do I, like, use the power-ups at my disposal in order to, you know, do the things that I need to do, knowing that I don't have to do all the things, I don't have to, like, follow all the routines, I don't have to fill out all the forms, I don't have to do all that stuff, I just have to use the power-ups that I have at my disposal to face the challenge that I have in front of me. Thanks so much for watching this video about heroic productivity. I encourage you, as you go into the new day, the new week, the new month, think about it and approach it from the mindset of a hero. Because I— you can tell how excited I get about this, because when you think of yourself in that way and live your way into it, Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest, he says that we don't think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking. And I want you to practice that today, this week, as you approach the problems, the challenges, the opportunities of life. Think about the productivity power-ups that you've developed from our time on this channel, from other people that you follow, from things that you've just figured out on your yourself. Use those as like different tools that you can deploy and combine to live the life that you want, to do the work that matters to you. Thanks again once more also to AppSumo for sponsoring this video. Check out the link in the description below and also use the code MATTRAGLAND10, or use the code MATTRAGLAND10 at checkout to get 10% off your first order. Can't wait to share the next video with you. I'll see you then. Bye.