Office Hours with David Meltzer

Resolve. And I always say if you have resolve, then you can practice good behaviors that create progress. Things just don't happen overnight and resolution doesn't necessitate the resolve or gain the progress that's necessary. Your book's all about making progress, not perfection, not outcomes. And so what ubiquitous steps, steps as far as making progress, not just about your jobs and your career, but I'm sure the steps that you've created are also steps that could be utilized to create progress in other areas of our lives. So I was wondering which steps applied to just creating progress in people's lives.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love the way you framed it. I hadn't thought about resolve versus resolution before, but it's a really good dichotomy because resolve number one. And I think this is the first thing it says, you get to hire your next job. You have agency in whatever you're choosing to do. The behaviors, the process, right. That's important. And it's sort of like the stoic, which is you control what's in your sphere of influence. And so that's the first thing I would say that is tangible across, which is we often think when we're trying to get a job or we're trying to land in the right psychology, if you're a teenager or you're hoping to get that promotion at work or whatever it is, you think, oh, the other side has all the cards, right? I hope they choose me. Whereas we have agency in this process and we can make choices that intentionally lead us toward progress. And if you get obsessed with perfection, that's a recipe a for disappointment. It's a recipe for stasis and sort of paralyzing in place and not continually moving. I would say the second thing that translates across is that we talk a lot about where do you get your energy from in your day to day in the work. You can do that across any set of activities, right. Think about what drains and drives your energy and how do you get more of the things that drive it and less of those that drain it. And that goes into the third thing, I think that's constant across it, which is as you think about prototyping what that next step in your career in, you know, exercise protocol. If you're a business, if you're trying to launch some new product, whatever it is, you want to have divergent prototypes, right? And as you're testing them, you're trying to figure out what lines up with what gives you energy the most and where are you willing to make trade offs. Because again, this Gets back to there's no perfection in life. If there was, it frankly would be a pretty boring world. And the question is, which imperfections are you going to take so that you get all the other progress, right. That is baked into different possibilities for your next step. And so we say, you know, make five prototypes, say for what your next job could be. Could be five prototypes for what college you could go to. Again, you can play this out in lots of different ways and literally look at not what the title is, what the name brand is, but what's the day to day and week, two week experience. How does that line up with what gives you energy? And rather than think about, gee, I'm going to have to settle, I'm not going to get this thing that I really love, think about where do I intentionally get to make a trade off so that I get all these other things that I don't have right now and get to make progress? That gets you out of that perfection mindset and more in terms of you get to call some of the shots. You have agency.

Yeah, I love that. You know, one of the things that you said maybe three times was this idea about energy and where you get energy. I think that's so important to think about as we move into different areas of our life and how we're progressing as human beings. It sounds like you have your finger right on it as far as like the rubrics of this is your ideal career catalog. But also here are some of the soft skills, some of the things that maybe you didn't think about or most people don't think about when they think about an overall career and what's going to affect that. You know, two words that you use in the bio was happier and more fulfilled. You know, I think as a humanity, we're moving into a more conscious time where that becomes the priority, where it's no longer just about the money or the lifestyle or the contribution, but it is about this idea of like, how do I actually experience happiness in my life? How do I experience a greater sense of fulfillment? Fulfillment, you know, what are you noticing in your observation of what's going on and why you wrote the book in this way as it compares to happiness and fulfillment.

Yeah, and it's a great question. And I think one of the big things is we need to stop thinking that we can get all of our happiness, all of our fulfillment, which I think are both downstream of purpose right from one thing. And that instead what I think we're unconsciously doing and we need to more consciously do is is realize that purpose. And our well being, if you will, is constructed across our lives. So again, we could go choosing a spouse, choosing a job, choosing, you know, where you live, all these big decisions in our lives. Choosing a side gig, a hustle, a volunteer thing, getting to coach your kid's softball team. You get to construct this portfolio of activities that really creates how you derive personal purpose. And then hopefully downstream of that, right, you get happiness and fulfillment and so forth. But again, I think those aren't the goal. It's how do I line up all these spheres of my life to maximize where I get my energy from. And I think that's a big thing that, you know, historically, companies, we, as individuals, we've thought, oh my gosh, you know, career is this one sphere. And I think about it independent from the rest of my life. A. I don't think that was ever really true, but it's certainly not how we're living right now. And so how can we be more intentional about the interdependencies between the rest of your life and your career and these big decisions that you make on an ongoing basis? And it's interesting you sort of pushed it here, Bucky, because we've been thinking about how does this framework actually apply to choosing a better mate in life? How do we think about, you know, we, Bob and I wrote a book, Choosing College. How do we apply this to helping you make better lifelong education choices? Right? Not just, frankly after high school, but y' all know, the pace of change in life is such that we have to be constantly learning new things. How do we make choices about that? So you can apply this in a lot of different spheres if you start thinking more holistically and in terms of progress and purpose, as opposed to sort of this end state that you may not always get to control.

So good.

Yeah, great moves. And it's interesting because I always say that people are really in search of a meaning of life. They're more in search of feeling alive. And I will revert back to what my grandfather taught me, which I've made a few adjustments to. He told me when I was young, you only need three things to be happy and fulfilled in life. One, I changed this a little. You need to learn to love the activity you get paid for, because you spend a third of your life in activity that you get paid for. You need to learn to love one intimate partner in your life because he or she will be the liaison between all relative human beings in your life. And you need to buy the best bed you can find. Because you spend a third of your life in activity, you get paid for a third of your life with your family and friends, and a third of your life sleeping or stooping. You can figure out what stupping is if you're young, but you can imagine anyway. I love anything that evolves or involves movement and progress. And you've written the book with our careers and jobs in that movement of progress. Nine easy steps to progress to where you want to be or better. Michael Horn. Tell Bob we missed him. But you held your own, my friend. And you both are welcome back anytime. Thanks for joining, Bucky, and I would.

Love to do so. I appreciate it. And we'll talk about sleep next time, because it's funny. People. People hire, like, Advil and all this other stuff to get over the fact that it's their mattress. Get a new mattress.

I love it. I also have a sleep coach, so. Great, great stuff, my friend. We'll have you back soon. Happy New Year. Thanks.

Happy New Year. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Michael.

That's awesome. All right, we're moving and grooving as always and progressing as usual. That's what Bucky o' Neill and I do here on the human experience with office hours. Our last and final friend today is John D. Martin. He is here today with us, CEO. It's Texas State Capital Optical. Sorry, is. Is John here? Oh, maybe not. Bucky, are you here?

I'm here.

All right. All right. I guess. I guess John may have some weather difficulties as we're in a Nordic thrust. Last guest canceled. Okay. All right, Buck, let's go ahead. I'm more interested. How about the takeaways of today relative to maybe one of the takeaways of 2024? A lesson that can be carried forward.

You know, it was interesting. I. I spent some time in Hawaii, and part of what I was doing was I was helping my mom reorganize her house. My mom's in her 70s, and part of the reorganization was getting moving around and donating some of my father's old stuff. And one of the things that I ran into was about 100 notebooks that came from all the different workshops and facilitation that he'd done. And then photos of him running firewalks and running events. And one of the things that I realized is, you know, when it comes to 2024 and 2025, we think we spend so much time. I spend so much time thinking forward and thinking, okay, what's next? Where am I going? What's the direction of the business? What's the direction of my life, my half, my family, my health? And you know, what that reminded me of is as, as. As much as it is important to look forward, it's also important to look back and to understand that, you know, the direction in which you're moving is associated to the direction in which you came and the momentum in which you can are creating is also something that's already been created in your life and it's already moving in your life. And a lot of times we don't recognize that because we think that we are on our own individual journey. That me, Bucky o', Neal, I'm on my own plan, creating my own life, doing what I'm here to do, because this is who I am and I didn't. And, you know, the. The learning for 2024 and going into 25 is recognizing that again, recognizing again that the path and the plate is already made. And it's my job to arrive at it, to accept it, to own it, to take responsibility for it, to nourish it, and to love and to breathe life into it. But the path is already made. There is no path for me to make. There is only the work and the walk for me to walk. Walk, which is similar to a walk in which I, you know, me and my lineage has been walking me and my former selves and my parents and my grandparents have been walking.

Right.

So I'm in a position to continue that lineage and move it forward in a way that is already set and in this way that is authentic to me.

Beautiful. It's so interesting because I use the term divine direction and divine time, which allows all the detours in their divinity as well. And not everyone is at a level of understanding or awareness to understand in that divinity is infinity, and in the infinity is past, present and future. And that not only do we give meaning to everything we see, not only do we give meaning to our past, but even our upsets, our interference is giving meaning to something that does not exist. And when we're in that realm is both of these transformational books of progress. Both have to do with an understanding, giving some sort of contextual, step by step, the different ways, philosophies, the four elements, whatever that may be, as we will see throughout 2025 from tons of different speakers, authors, leaders on this show that in the end, what you and I share is the understanding and quest to understand divinity, infinity. And I think you are articulating in an extreme level for me, the same thing that I try to articulate in a different manner of what am I doing to interfere with it? And I think in its simplest pragmatic terms, that paradigm shift has really had a great impact over decades for me now in my own journey within the context of the infinite journey of every collective conscious. And it's such a fun way to have a human experience as we expand into the divine and the divinity and the infinity that exists. And I can't tell you how excited I am to partner in that with you and Leah as well. Let's go. And I just look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thank you so much. I also just celebrate my birthday with you, Hope, hopefully both at the Napoleon Hill, 8am for everybody, 8am Pacific Time. The birthday launch, the birthday of Napoleon Hill was January 11, 1958. My birthday is January 11, 1968. And Napoleon Hill Institute 2.0, 2.0 that I'm the chairman and we're going to give it a new birthday, January 11, 2025. And let's all celebrate together the celebratable I love you, my brother. Happy New Year. I'll see you tomorrow.

Okay, Sounds good. Love you.

Take care. He's the best. All right, man. I just love Bucky because he, you know, can articulate things. That gets my juices flowing, gets me faithful in my journey of where I am and what I'm doing and where I'm going and what's interfering with what what I am is so important. I want to remind everyone. Join us Saturday at 8am for the double birthday, triple birthday, the birthday bath, the launch of Napoleon Hill Institute 2.0. I'm blessed to be the chairman of Napoleon Hill Institute. And we are celebrating three birthdays, January 11th, my birthday along with it. Come and join us 8am Pacific Time, 11am Eastern Time on Saturday. It'll be one hour full of amazing guests. Come and join us to celebrate. Also, I will be in Atlanta with The usual goggins, Mr. Wonderful, Eddie Wilson, Danny Fleishman, all these amazing folks are going to be with us at the Aspire business tour. We'll be there every month, different cities from Atlanta to Charlotte to Fort Lauderdale to Denver. Come and join us. And then I'll be at ces. I'll be keynoting an event at ces. We're in studio. Come by the win. We'll be at the Wynn on Thursday, January 9th. Come and join us in our studios, the SiriusXM studios where they host the Playbook on Sirius XM app. You can check us out there. And of course, our VIP dinner experience with the global Gaming League and Clinton Sparks. We got so many celebrity guests coming from ces. Come and join us. Email me if you want to join us. David Meltzer.com text me if you want to join us in the 200 cities we're going to be in. 949-298-2905 right there on the screen. Join our alerting community. Almost every day we're doing something, so if you don't want to be bothered, don't join. But if you want to be educated, invited, not obligated. 949-298-2905 Remember, most importantly everyone, be more interested than interesting. Be kind to your future self and do good deeds. Hit it. Gigi welcome to Office Hours. I'm David Meltzer with Bucky and Leah.