3️⃣ Keys for Transforming Your Life This Year

Have you ever wondered what simple changes could dramatically transform your life? In this concise but powerful solo episode, I'm cutting straight to the heart of what truly matters. While Martin was away at a wedding, I couldn't resist sharing three fundamental principles that have consistently elevated my personal and professional growth journey.

First, let's talk about who you're letting speak into your life. Beyond the common wisdom that "you're the average of the five people you spend time with," I focus on a critical distinction: it's about who influences your thinking and decisions. As I recently told my own children, "I'd rather have four quarters than a hundred pennies." Quality trumps quantity every time when it comes to relationships, and your inner circle directly determines your trajectory. Are your closest connections pulling you up or dragging you down? This single factor could completely change your year.

The second principle is something millionaires consistently emphasize: reading books. Why spend 15 years learning something through trial and error when you could absorb someone's lifetime of knowledge in hours? Books compress decades of wisdom into digestible insights that immediately improve your thinking and decision-making. Meanwhile, patience—my third principle—remains my personal work-in-progress but has saved me countless times from rushed, regrettable decisions. I share a current real-estate situation where feeling pressured nearly led to a premature commitment. Remember: everything unfolds in God's timing, and patience isn't passive waiting—it's finding something purposeful to do meanwhile.

If you've found value in these insights, the most meaningful way to support the show is simply by rating it wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps more people discover these conversations who might benefit from them. I genuinely appreciate our growing community and those reaching out to connect. Until next time, remember that transforming your life doesn't require complicated systems—just intentional choices about who influences you, what knowledge you consume, and how you approach timing.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Show Support

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to the Grind everybody. Hey, this week is going to be super short and sweet. We got super busy this week and Martin had a ton of stuff going on, had a wedding to go to. It's just me this week. I just wanted to jump on here and touch on three key things that you can focus on this year to start improving your life. Hey, and if you have been getting any value from this show at all, the easiest and best way to help promote this and just get the word out there is to rate the show on wherever you listen to podcasts. So if you're enjoying the show, just go ahead and do that for me, and it would be so much, so much appreciated. But anyway, let's jump into this week's topic of three things to start improving your life this year. Number one friends. Now, choosing the right friends is so, so crucial, and I had just sent this to my kids this week. So we have like a family group thread and I've been sending videos in the morning of just like encouragement for the day, just like a little tidbit for the day that they can take throughout their day. And this week I really touched on friends and this could completely change the quality of your life this year, because it is said that you know you are the average of the five people you hang around with. But I want to take it one step further and say that you are the average of the five people that you let speak into your life. Right, like, you can have a ton of friends, but who are you letting speak into your life? And I think it's so important to have that inner circle and that outer circle and just making sure that the quality somebody that has integrity, humble and have all the traits that you're looking for are the ones that are speaking into your life. And I heard it said that I would rather have four quarters than a hundred pennies, and what it was saying is is I would rather have four friends with high integrity that are humble, high producers, high performers Just think of all the characters that you're thinking of, who you would like to be. I would rather have four of those than 100 low quality friends that aren't anything that I'm trying to be. So, as you go through this year, just focus in on your friends. Who you're letting speak into your life. Are they pulling you up or are they bringing you down?

Speaker 1: 2:18

Number two books I cannot express this enough, and this isn't just me saying this. Multiple mentors that I listen to podcasts, videos. Millionaires read books. So if you're trying to grow in that capacity or just learn in general, or just grow your knowledge, read books Like it is so, so important. I can't tell you the amount of things that I have learned from just reading books, like right here I have this one sitting right here High performance habits. And if you're listening on podcast, I just showed it on the camera. So if you want to go look on YouTube or watch this on YouTube, feel free.

Speaker 1: 3:03

The Dylan Smith, but the importance of books and just the knowledge that you can gain from people's years of experience is unprecedented. So it's like I can take 15 years to learn a specific topic, or I can read a book and get somebody's knowledge and their life experience within a day or two and sometimes hours, just depending on the size book. So when you have to always be in a state of learning and constantly trying to grow, and it will significantly improve the quality of your life this year because you're going to have new knowledge that you didn't have before. Number three Now this one is still a work in progress for me sometimes, but I'm getting a lot, a lot better at it and it's going to be patience. I know you're like what in the world does that have to do with my quality of life? Now, one thing I've noticed is I make my worst decisions when I am rushed, and I don't know if any of you can relate. But when you feel like something's being rushed or things are moving too quickly, a lot of times we forget to just sit and think and pray about is this something that I should be doing right now, or is this something that I should be doing? But just you know, maybe waiting longer down the line? And I heard it said that patience is just finding something to do in the meantime.

Speaker 1: 4:36

So a lot of times like even in business right and I heard this from another mentor that I listened to is a lot of times when you make new changes in your business. You can usually see about a 20% decrease in your business before that change. Over time it'll gradually build and you can see like a 5% increase in your business, but initially it's going to take a 28% hit. Now, if you're constantly making changes, think of all that adding up 20%, 20%, 20%. Now, sometimes it's just better to, if you do make a change, just sit there and just be patient and just let things ride. And sometimes it's just better to let your business go and just flow and ride and, you know, enjoy the slow increase that you're getting over time and being patient of just like, hey, I don't need to make any changes right now. Like, let's just be patient, see, really see where this is going. A quick story Right now we're in the process of looking for another location.

Speaker 1: 5:41

We are looking to possibly, you know, really think about moving into it next year. But I was like you know what we're going to get with a realtor and start, just start the process. You know, let's start looking, seeing what's out there. Well, they ended up finding something like within the first week and now we're like going down the process and looking at this location and they're looking to try and get a lease signed in the next couple days by the first. We're looking to push it a little bit further. They're wanting us to like start now, and I'm it's one of those moments where it's like I feel like this is being a little rushed and I had asked the realtor, like if we don't sign it by the like, this is being a little rushed.

Speaker 1: 6:21

And I had asked the realtor, like if we don't sign it by the first, which is in a couple of days, like do they really have anyone else looking at it? And she's like, well, usually when you're further down the line, like somebody's going to lease it, they're not really showing the property a whole lot. So and I was like, well, that's my, my point is like they're trying to rush this for the first, but if we don't sign by the first, they still don't have anyone by the first. So it's like we're in this process but we're trying to get rushed.

Speaker 1: 6:55

And I have learned over the years it's so important to not feel that rush and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. And we got to remember that everything's on God's timing right and if it's meant to be, it'll happen. I think a lot of times too, like I know we say like if it's meant to be, it'll happen, and yeah, that is true, but sometimes we can force things that maybe shouldn't be happening, and I think in that patience, in that waiting time, is the best time to be in prayer as well. So just remember to not constantly feel like you have to be changing or doing something new or whatever the case may be. Just be patient, enjoy the moment, just let things sit, be in prayer, just enjoy what you're going through and don't always feel so rushed. I think this world and society is rushed, rushed, rushed, rushed, rushed, rushed, especially in America. Now, I know other countries may not be like that, but definitely in America it's constant rushing and I think it's so important to just sit back and enjoy the moment.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So I hope those three tips helped you guys today. If you guys have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to me and I would love to chat. I just I enjoy the community, I enjoy the ones that have been reaching out and again, if you guys would like to support the show, you can. I think there's like a button at the bottom of the description or something to support the show. If not totally fine, rating the show is the best form of payment because it helps spread this out there and we can get this to many more people that could use this, maybe. So, with that said, I love and appreciate you guys. I hope you have a great, great weekend and until the next video or podcast I will talk to you guys, then Love and appreciate you. Bye for now.