In this solo motivational monologue, Steve Lichtman argues that lasting success comes from focusing on tiny, immediate actions rather than distant, abstract goals. He uses a driving‑at‑night metaphor—headlights only illuminate the next few yards—to illustrate how business progress is achieved one "lit patch" at a time. Listeners are urged to ask themselves a single, concrete next step each day, whether it’s buying a domain, sending a quick DM, or simply reaching out to an old contact. Lichtman contrasts this micro‑action mindset with the anxiety of future‑focused planning, citing the COVID‑19 pandemic as a reminder that long‑term plans can be upended. He emphasizes that stacking micro actions builds the macro outcomes people desire, and he caps the episode with a call to join his "Unshakeable AF" community, promising a live‑streamed launch and personal welcome for early members. The overall message is that the future is uncertain, but consistent, small steps illuminate the path forward.
Chapters
If I showed you the full five year plan, with all the failures, all the rejections, the never ending grind, you would quit what you're doing right now, today, thankfully, you can only see the next 10ft, right? We work in micro steps. You only see what's next on the list. You're not worried you have a goal, but we're worried about making those small accomplishments to build that confidence to get to those goals. So we don't sit there and just dream. Think about, oh, I'll be there soon. Well, you won't if you spend too much time thinking about that and not enough time doing what you need to do to get there. So think of it like this. You could be driving across the country in the middle of the night. Your headlights are only showing what, 20, 30 yards ahead? I really don't know. I don't know the exact number. 20, 30 yards ahead, 100ft ahead, whatever it might be. But you can't see the destination when you're driving at night. But you can make the whole damn trip one lit patch at a time. Because you're going from eyesight to eyesight, right? You go into that sign, you go into that roadside place, you go into that cow mooing on the side by the fence, you're going one lit moment at a time, one part where the light is shined onto you, where you can see to that next step, which is that next quarter mile, that next half mile, that next. It adds up. And the next thing you know, you've made it to your destination. Well, your business is exactly the same. So stop demanding the roadmap for 2030 when you haven't done today's task? Like if today you haven't gotten moving and gotten things done for yourself. What on earth makes you think that that goal that you have for 2030 is going to happen if you're not every day doing something to move your entire ship forward? And it doesn't always have to be, oh, wow, today I produced 3,000 hours of content. Of course you didn't. There's only 24 hours in a day. But what you do in those 24 hours that can push you into the next 24 in a positive way is what gets you to that 2030 map, right? And it gets you to that goal. Your anxiety lives in the future. It always has and always will. Peace lives in the next move. So think about that for a minute. We're always nervous about, am I going to make it big? Am I going to do this, am I going to do that? Well, I don't know. Who knows? Not if you don't do anything today. Today you sit on your ass and sit on your hand and doom scroll the Internet and stare at the wall and don't do anything. And don't make any small wins in your day. Well, you sure as heck wasted today, so that won't get you really well to tomorrow, will it? So what you need to do is you need to really just think about this and look, this is episode 20 by the way guys. So thank you so much for being 20 episodes in. It's been a drive, it's been an energy. It's something that I'm enjoying and learning how I like to do this. As I keep doing each episode, I record them in short blocks. So sometimes I do one, sometimes I do three or four. It's all based upon my energy, my time and my day and everything else. Just like whatever, tell everybody else. But every day I'm trying to move it forward a little bit further, a little bit further. I'm always looking at that next bit of light that my headlights are providing me. So what you need to do is you need to put those blinders on and ask yourself only one simple question. Ready? What is the single next step? Not the 80 next steps, not the list of steps that you spit out with ChatGPT. What's the single, the one step you need to take next to do something better for your business and your life? Is it to buy the domain for the new idea that you had? Well, it's a two minute task. Just go do it now. Is it to send that DM to somebody? Might not even be a work dm, it might just be one that you wanted to say to an old colleague that you wanted to reach out to, but you haven't do it. Reach out to people you haven't talked to in a while. Say hi. I love saying hi to people on LinkedIn randomly. Like old friends and old clients and people I haven't seen online in a while. I love to ask them, hey, what's up? How you been? I don't want anything in return. I just want to know how they've been. Hit the record button. It's another single next step. You could do do any of these things. Then ask yourself it again, what's the single next step? The macro will take care of itself. When you stack the micros right, we always talk about the macro actions and the micro actions. The macro action is, you know, that might be that you want that big thing built around you. You want that Big universe that you're building for your business. But until you do all the micro actions and stack them, you're not going to get there. It's not going to happen from magic or from a light switch. And even if you pay for other companies to build things for you and to run, take your IP and quote unquote, run with it and do stuff, it's even then. You need to put time into everything and put micro actions into things to make that macro happen. Nothing happens overnight. Things happen because people put energy into it. So your rift of the day is real simple. The future is none of your business. Execute the next 10ft and the road will light up. Think about that for a minute. Future is none of your business because you don't know what's going to happen in the future. A million other variables could alter what the future looks like. Think about COVID Think about the people that had five year plans that weren't doing anything and they were just pretending to execute and staring at the wall and just jerking around with their time and doing nothing. Then the pandemic hit 2019. We all remember it. It was crazy. I didn't stay home, but you know, I worked from home. What was I going to do? Never leave? Of course I was going to leave my house. It used to be hilarious. Used to see rows of cars driving down by the beach and just doing a loop. Very few people would actually park and get out. I always parked and got out. I made my wife and kid get out with me too. We would drive my car down, sunroof open, windows down. You know, on the nice weather days, cruise down to the beach, get out. I'd walk right on down to the sand. The sand isn't going to give me Covid. I'm not going to get it from a fish in the water or from touching some salt water from the ocean. I live near the ocean, so of course I'm going to go there and do that. Taking micro actions even then. But we all didn't know, right? Nobody knew what was going to happen then. So if you planned your future and you planned your five year plan out and said, oh, I'm sitting here waiting until this next big thing happens. Well, are you? Because the future could change tomorrow. The future could change before this episode's over, you know. And look, take the micro action, take the single step, move yourself forward and this is it, guys. This is literally 20 episodes. I'm super proud of myself. I'm super thankful for you guys. Anybody, Everybody that's been here and listened. Whether you've listened to one episode or if you've made it from one to 20 with me. Thank you. You're starting to understand a little bit about what I talk about with the rise system and the effort switch and just lots of micro tactics that you could use every day before lunch. I always look at this like this is a philosophy to get your day going and then do what you do so good. Do what's gotten you here in the first place. You're learning now that you've got choices that can make. You can keep spiraling by yourself or you can come execute those next 10ft with people that have your back. Like the community that I'm building. So you know what my goal is going to be? I don't even know if I could even make this goal. I probably can't make this goal, but I'm going to say it. My goal is going to be in the 20s of episodes, today being episode 20. So between today and the next 10 days, the unshakable AF community doors will be open. Even if it's not fully complete. You know what? I'm going to open them no matter what. Anyway, on one of the twenties, I got to look at my schedule and see which day I'm going to be home because I want to make sure I'm home and online the entire day. So that way anybody that comes in, I can welcome them personally as they arrive. To me, that's a big deal. I'll probably run a live stream that day also to welcome everybody in on day one. So food for thought. You could get signed up on the waitlist Unshakeable AF and go to the top right corner to become unshakeable. And you can go right on stevelichtman.com My name's probably somewhere in the podcast liner notes. It's easy to find. Just type it in and I will see you there. So let's all go build something that rocks and I will see you on the inside. Thank you once again for being here on Unfiltered and Unshakable and I truly appreciate your time. Have a wonderful day.
