Between the Interviews: Slow Burn

In the words of Kacey Musgraves, “I’m alright with a slow burn.” I moved at turbo speed for so much of my life figuratively and literally running as fast as I could. For many years of my late teens and early twenties, I lived with the goal of “never saying no to anything unless I could think of 3 good reasons to not do it.” Let me tell you, I lived a full life during that time. I also didn’t sleep much and thrived being fueled by caffeine, anxiety, and forward motion. I don’t regret a moment of it, but my goals and mantras have since evolved into finding ways to simplify, slow down, and to find enjoyment from saying no. 

What I learned was that there is so much value in not getting caught up in the whirlwind of life when it’s not necessary. There’s value in doing without manufactured stress and arbitrary deadlines that aren’t always necessary. Life’s stressful enough; why create more stress? What I found was by making small decisions and making small changes, I ended up saving myself money, time, and stress. I carried that over to my work life and learned to prioritize thoughtful analysis and strategic planning over just checking the box. It turns out that strategic planning can actually help check the boxes when it’s done right.

What am I reading: The Joy of Missing Out by Tanya Dalton - The FOMO vs. JOMO comparison was a frequent topic at a recent trip to watch the Ohio Valley Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament Weekend in Evansville, IN - Go SIUE and Go Jayhawks! (really channeling my love for Ted Lasso here with Coach Barone being the real life Ted Lasso & the real life Jason Sudekis being a fellow big Kansas fan here) - in comparing introverts with extroverts and finding ways that we’re all different or similar. We’re all different and we all have different ways that we feel fulfilled. In the last decade, I’ve really leaned into the JOMO part of myself and it’s served me well. 

I'm not telling you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar: I’m not. By that I mean that, I’m relatively frugal. I don’t often buy single use things or even things that don’t need purchasing. I’m talking about reusing glass jars and bottles as storage containers and vases. I’m talking using old towels and t-shirts with holes in them instead of paper towels. It’s probably been more than a decade since I’ve spent money on paper towels or napkins. If there’s not a real need or desire for it, generally I’m not buying it. Now, again. I’m not over the top. I try to keep my life pretty simple and 10-15 years later, I’m happy to report that while life can get stressful and can get to be a lot, I don’t feel it the way I used to. I credit that a lot to purposely simplifying as I’ve aged. It didn’t happen overnight. It happened slowly over more than a decade. I have a strong desire to not stress over things that don’t absolutely need to be stressed over because I’ve learned that there’s so much in life that is unexpected and deserves the stress. The last thing I want to do is manufacture more stress. 

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Transcript

Hey folks, this is the Between the Interviews show, where I'll provide some context, background reflections and recommendations associated with the Capitalism for Good philosophy. While the interviews are obviously focused on highlighting businesses and their leaders through talking about their experiences and philosophies, the Between the Interviews shows will be mostly me connecting the dots, providing some additional insight, spotlighting the things that I'm listening to, reading and watching in order to learn more, as well as some of the why behind where I am choosing to put my dollar. These Between the Interviews shows will be sprinkled in Between the Interviews and will be posted on the main feed but will also be posted weekly on the Patreon in video form. So if that's your jam, head there. There's a link in the description. Alright, so I have previously described myself as a slow burn of a person rather than a hot, flashy, bright kind of person.

There were a lot of times in my life when I moved at turbospeed, and while that has its own advantages, and there are a lot of really great things that came out of that, really, truly, at my heart and soul and core. I am a Kacey Musgraves slow burn, truly. I find that there is so much power in waiting, in experiencing things, in just taking it all in.

Another kind of comparison that I've used in the past between me and other people that are around me of like, there are people who are really filled up by getting to the destination, and there are people that are really filled up by the journey. And I am the journey person. I just like experiencing things as they go.

I love a good road trip. I like, you know, I have a lot. Again, I've been very, very lucky in my life.

I have a lot of long time friends that I have known and that have been in my life since elementary school and junior high and high school, and through college. I've met people kind of all along the way, and I recognize that that is kind of my sweet spot, being in it for the long haul and kind of sticking around. So if we compare that a little bit to Capitalism for Good, it's the power of waiting, the power of kind of eliminating this sense of urgency when it's not serving us or when it's not necessary.

That doesn't mean that emergencies don't happen. And that doesn't mean that you don't forget things. And now you just have to kind of do what you gotta do in order to get something done.

That doesn't mean that you can control everything in your life. There are gonna be things that are thrown at you that you'll just need to roll with the punches and sometimes there is urgency that comes along with that. Same with like true deadlines.

And I'm not talking about like the arbitrary ones that we put on ourselves. For example, a couple of weekends ago, I was going to visit a friend in Evansville, Indiana. And at first, I was running late.

I was out of practice with packing and traveling and all of this stuff. And so I had originally put in my brain that I was gonna leave my house at 10 in the morning. And I don't think that I ended up leaving until 1130.

And at first, I was really stressed about that. Like, oh shoot, I said that I was gonna be there and that I was gonna leave at 10. I really need to leave by 10.

And then I was like, oh, why? We're not in any hurry. Like, yes, I want to get there and see my friend and hang out and stuff.

But at the end of the day, there was no true deadline. The deadline was that I made up that I was gonna leave at 10. And I just chose a time that meant nothing.

And so while I definitely don't want to keep people waiting, if I said I was going to be there at a certain time, obviously I'm trying to communicate along the way. But at the end of the day, why put these arbitrary deadlines on ourselves and these arbitrary timeframes on ourselves when they're not needed? I think that's a really important distinction here.

There are times when a deadline is important, when you have a doctor appointment, when you have something where you're taking up someone else's time, when there is something immovable that is a true deadline. Those things, it's important to be on time for, and it's important to have a sense of urgency. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the times when you don't need a deadline. You don't need to do everything right now. I'm not saying procrastinate on everything and just never get anything done and live on your couch all the time, but if you don't need to rush through something, why do it?

If you don't need to speed when you're driving, why do it? Why not just let it happen and let it be? And I found that, at least for me, that drops that pressure because it's unnecessary and allows me to live in the moment, to think a little clearer, to consider what is truly most important to me at that time.

One common theme that I hear so often of the people around me is that so many people feel stretched too thin, too little time, too little money, too much information, too much to do, too many notifications, and that just gets exhausting. I have definitely felt that. I have felt that so hard.

I felt that so hard that some kind of goal of like simplifying my life or finding ways to reduce stress or focusing on my priorities has been some version of a goal of mine for probably like 15 years or so. I said at the top of this that, you know, I was definitely someone that was fueled by going at turbo speed. And I just realized that there are parts of going at turbo speed that maybe, maybe there was a different way to go about it.

Maybe there was a different way to kind of approach life. And, you know, just in general, like my memory doesn't work so great. And part of my memory doesn't work so great is because I'm always looking ahead.

I'm always looking forward, quite literally running as fast as I can toward or away from whatever was happening in the moment. It is kind of a figurative thing, but also as also physically, literally, I just was putting a lot of pressure on myself to just go and go forward and go forward fast. And that was a goal.

And again, we've talked about, I'm very goal oriented. I am very competitive. And so you say something like, okay, get there as fast as you can.

And that I, okay, sounds good. I like a challenge, I'll do it. So going along with the , I like a challenge and I like a goal.

Being able to like switch my mindset and create a goal of simplifying my life or focusing on different priorities or creating a goal of finding ways to reduce stress was so helpful to me as a human. I get that that's not really going to be helpful for everyone else. I get that everyone else needs different priorities.

Totally fine. Just talking about my experience here. And these kinds of goals of kind of simplifying, slowing down.

That was after I had these goals of literally never saying no to anything unless I could think of three solid reasons to justify saying no. That was an actual goal of mine that I had in my late teens and early twenties. Don't get me wrong, I lived a lot of life.

I had a lot of fun, but I also did not sleep very much for years of my life. And I lived off of a lot of caffeine and a lot of anxiety to propel me through life. Again, I packed a lot in those times with that goal.

And I don't regret that at all. But that was a time, that was a goal, and I did it. And so then moving into this phase of having goals to slow down, somewhere around like my mid probably 20s or so is when I really kind of switched that focus.

I wanted to figure out a different way to live. If we're being honest, I probably also leaned too far into the say yes to everything mantra that I had started to kind of lose sight of what I actually wanted and what I actually liked. And so then that became that new theme of my goals, which was also so great and that has led to a lot of really great experiences and stories, much like that phase of my life of going at turbo speed.

So then, you know, as things go and as things evolve, I felt like I had a pretty decent grasp on where I wanted to go and what I wanted life to look like. And I, it really transitioned into this deep desire to slow down, to not be so caught up in this whirlwind of life. Again, with my weather analogies, I often describe people as like hurricanes or tornadoes of people that just like blow in and blow out fast and come in and like shake things up.

And again, while there is a purpose of that, there's, you know, strong winds do serve a good purpose. It is also nice to sometimes, again, at least for me have a little bit of a slow down, a little bit of like light, nice, easy breeze. Maybe a nice little like trickle of a shower versus a big giant heavy storm.

Don't get me wrong, grew up in the Midwest, love a big thunderstorm. But, you know, there's a time and a place for all of these different kinds of weather and all of these different kinds of people and all of these different kinds of goals in our life. So, really moving into wanting to find ways to reduce stress wherever I could in just these like small, unattainable ways.

And I started with these small adjustments, goals of being quiet and trying to watch the sun rise and set every day when I could, but also like not really worrying about when that didn't happen. So it was more of just a bonus when I thought about it and I could do it. Again, one of those like arbitrary goals that I make up for myself, you know, is this really necessary?

Is it something that, you know, really I need to be putting this added pressure on myself? Or is it more of just attempting to be a little more intentional and when I could step away to be able to start and end my day to really have those bookends of just taking a minute, sometimes if you're lucky, five or ten, but just a minute, 30 seconds, to just look at the sunrise, look at the sunset, and just take a breath. I've also talked about how I'm a big nature person.

I had an ex-boyfriend at one time that would describe me as a dog, I promise that he's not an actual a-hole. But when I would get really tightly wound or antsy about something, he'd be like, you need to go on a walk outside. Like, just like take the dog, like a dog does, take the dog and go for a walk outside.

And you know, as much as I could have been rattled by that and annoyed, again, the power of perception in your mind and the way you choose to see things, he actually wasn't wrong. That is something that is truly helpful to me. Maybe I didn't appreciate being called a dog, but I mean, holding a mirror up to myself, God, I am.

So take that for what it is. So, you know, along with that, also, I'm generally a morning person. And when I was younger, I would wake up, caffeinate myself and start crossing things off a list.

I have a good friend who in high school, she and I used to wake up before school, before work, before even sometimes our sports practices. And we would go for a run. We would actually, this is kind of funny, we lived in two different neighborhoods.

And we went to yet a third neighborhood and met there in the morning and we'd go for a run in the morning. And while that was a really great, again, thing during that time in my life, to be able to have that goal and to start my day that way. What I have evolved into is to actually drink some water and a protein shake and start my day a little bit slower.

At least in this phase of my life is so much more beneficial than the hit the ground running kind of way that I used to be. Turns out my brain, at least now, works so much better to be able to start my day in that slower way and to be able to take these moments to just like check in, center and in fact that's when I often get the most inspiration and I feel the most creative. I used to say that I wasn't a creative person at all and it turns out once I allow myself to just have a minute and be take a breath and be a little bit calm that these ideas and these thoughts really come to me and being able to tap into that different part of my brain that quite frankly had never tapped into before has been so cool and so nice.

A part of that, becoming a morning person and really changing...

As you can imagine, someone who is a morning person, but is also not naturally sleeping more than, let's be honest, five or six hours a night for many, many years of my life, being fueled by caffeine, being fueled by anxiety, and really just again, running as fast as I could. One of the ways that I also started to kind of adjust my routine and adjust my goals and adjust what I was kind of focusing on was trying to figure out how to sleep better, building a really solid bedtime routine. And it turns out, again, I've evolved into a person who can sleep more than five hours a night and not just when I'm not feeling well.

It's interesting to kind of think back and reflect. Who knows if it is evolving and growing up and evolving as a human or if it's actually tapping into kind of the way that my brain and my body work best. But these goals of just trying to very slowly shift my brain, you know, building a solid bedtime routine didn't happen overnight.

It was trial and error and figuring out what felt good and what wasn't a chore, what didn't feel like a challenge, but in fact was just really nice and worked out well and that I didn't have to think about and could enjoy more. Those types of little goals and those little changes and those little adjustments bled into things like my frugality. Can I invest in clothes that I really like a lot and fit me well instead of spending time replacing $10 t-shirts over and over again?

How can I spend my money on quality over quantity? What is my definition of quality over the course of a long run? You know, and again, these things don't happen in a vacuum.

Part of my intentionality in thinking about clothes and what I want to invest in happened when my sister and I did this color analysis a few years ago. It was a birthday or a Christmas gift that we did for each other. When we went together, something else about me that you should probably know is I do not have a good sense of style, a good sense of fashion, I don't really have that artsy eye, I can't really see what other people see in what colors look good and those kinds of things.

So again, for so many years of my life, I wore flat out black, black everything. It was nice, it was easy, it was very neutral. I was able to go like mix and match everything in my closet.

I didn't really have to worry about what worked and what fit and what coordinated as far as like colors went together because it was just all black or brown or white or sometimes gray was kind of a color where like a dark olive was probably one of the only colors or like a navy was the only like color that I really wore. I'll also say that maybe that is kind of the curse of being your red head is I always felt like I had enough color on the top of my head that I didn't need anymore. So I'll just wear black all the time.

So anyway, so we do this color analysis and she gives me this list and this little booklet of all these colors that are supposed to be more better suited for my skin tone and your eye color. And you know, all of these things, she is the expert, not me. But again, she gave me that little cheat sheet flip book that is really helpful.

And so in trying to think, okay, so if I'm going to transition away from buying just all black and not thinking about the clothes that I'm wearing into these clothes that wear these colors, then I really need to think of it more as an investment. So that gets me into, now, I'm looking at the quality of the clothes and the materials that they're made from and then them. I'm also looking at the places that I shop and I'm trying, just looking at everything in this new light that I hadn't looked at before.

I am considering the companies that I'm giving my money to. Where am I shopping at? Am I buying that $10 t-shirt at the big box store?

Or am I going to invest in a higher quality, probably more expensive, if we're going to be honest, sweater or shirt or something that I'm going to, I'm going to hopefully wear over the course of many years. And like that really changed a little bit of my definition of frugality. And before, I would have defined frugality as not spending more than $10 on a t-shirt.

But now, if you kind of break it down, what do they call this now, like girl math, like, okay, well, if I spent $65 on a sweater, but I wear it 65 times over the course of my life or whatever that is, then is that better than the $10 t-shirt that I wore 10 times and then thrown out. And so then I have to every year buy a new $10 t-shirt. You know, math, math smathing a little bit different there.

So, you know, it is also similar to just like decisions that I make in the long run. And again, who I am as a person, I had this idea and this philosophy of tattoos way back when I was a teenager. You know, it is a permanent decision that I decided that if my idea of what it was and where it was didn't change over the course of several years, then I would allow myself to get it.

You know, then I am thinking, I am probably not going to change my mind, I am probably not going to regret it, there is a better chance that I am going to be happy with it over a long period of my time. And so that kind of mentality and the way that I was viewing things was really already baked into my train of thought. But I was just only doing it with these things that I perceived as permanent.

And when I was looking at clothes and the decorations in my home and stuff like that, I was thinking of those things not as permanent choices, but more something a little more fleeting. So just starting to like flip my mentality on those things really changed the way that I viewed the world. And in fact, if we're gonna draw that line even further, then I'm not spending as much time shopping.

I'm not spending as much time looking for replacements for that $10 t-shirt. Maybe I have less clothes in my closet, and maybe I go shopping less often, but I'm buying higher priced things that stick around and have a better and higher quality. And so that's freeing up extra time.

So again, the kind of butterfly effect, the trickle down effect of just making these tiny little changes that ended up kind of opening up these different pathways in these different kind of elements of my lifestyle that I hadn't had before, just removing certain things I don't know. It was just kind of an interesting way to think about it and to consider how I was going about my life.

So, of course, as these things tend to happen, this ended up also being a little bit of the same lens that I was viewing business and financial structure and project management tasks at work. You know, I became a little bit less of, let's be this hurricane of a person that I was, let's move at turbo speed and let's just get as many things done as possible, to let's slow down a little bit. Let's be thoughtful and intentional about the decisions that we're making and the impact that that has.

How can we build in ways that lead to adaptability while also giving us this pathway to meet our goals? You know, there's a reason why the saying work smarter, not harder exists. You know, how can we again put that quality over quantity into our work life and our business world as well?

How can we build some stability, free up some extra time, free up some brain space, to be able to kind of dig in and create a better outcome than just getting the thing done, checking the box, make keeping the timeline moving. Again, there is a time and a place for a deadline. There are times that things need to be done by a certain time.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about being intentional and thoughtful about when can we find time to take a breath? When can we find time to kind of slow things down?

Are there things that we can kind of cut out of our day in the sake of, again, true efficiency, not just efficiency as a buzzword? Okay, so then that takes me to, what if you don't think that you have time or money to be intentional? Again, this is about being a slow burn.

1% better starts small and it starts slow, but then it gets easier as the work compounds upon itself. It might cost more at one time, that $65 shirt versus the $10 shirt, but it can often be cheaper in the long run. If we zoom out and kind of look at the bigger picture, then we'll be able to see the things for what they really are in a kind of more holistic way than just piecemealing, okay, what's the next thing that I have to do?

What's the next thing I need to cross off my list? What's the next thing that I need to purchase? If we kind of take a step back, maybe we will evaluate what is important to us in just like a slightly different way.

So, my passion for this slow burn growth instability with purpose has been an obvious opposite to the current federal government's leadership and while I promised that this would not become a government and politics podcast, it would feel irresponsible not to address the impacts of some of these decisions and tactics. So, just really kind of thinking, is it the buzzword of efficiency? Or, are we really talking about real efficiency here?

If we are looking at making a major change, because we're all agreeing, it wasn't working as well as it could have worked, but how can we do that to truly accomplish some of our goals? So, my goal here is how can we find little examples of little things that we're doing in our day, specifically here with how we make and spend our dollars, to just kind of encourage one another to turn the tide just one little choice at a time. And while that might seem like, well, that's just a grain of sand in the beaches of the whole world, but if we all do that, if we all just, hey, we're just going to find one little small thing, we're just going to start small, one, that's going to compound over time, and two, that's going to compound over the breadth of the amount of people making those changes.

Again, sometimes this happens within your business. Sometimes it's, hey, can we just change a little bit about what we're doing? Maybe it's, can we spend a little bit more time on strategic goal setting?

Maybe it's, we'll, let's be a little more thoughtful on the types of meetings that we're having. If we, can we do 10-minute, you know, stand-in, stand-up meetings at the beginning of the day, and, or maybe we do that a couple days a week, or, and then do one week-long together in-person kind of meeting. Is it where you're spending your money on advertising?

We talked about that a little bit in the past. Is, you know, free advertising is a great thing, and if you have free advertising based upon word of mouth in your reputation, then you're freeing up your money and your time to be able to be a little more intentional, a little more thoughtful, maybe put in some quality in some other aspects that will again, hopefully improve your reputation and capitalize on that word of mouth free advertising again. Just a thought.

Food for thought, consider it as you wish. I'll also take it back to my own personal life. I might not feel like I have the time to look up a podcaster's patreon or an author's sub stack or buy a gift from a local artist for someone, but if whenever I have an idea, I put it in a notes app of some kind, and then maybe once or twice a week, I organize that notes app into its respective place.

Maybe I block out time later. Then when I'm at the farmer's market, when I have a day to go bop around some local boutiques and look for some things, or if I am spending some quality time with a friend and we Tuesday do a little bit of shopping, then I already kind of have like, oh, here are my ideas of gifts to purchase for so and so. Then I'm not scrambling for Christmas and scrambling for birthdays and just getting something that is available quick, easy, that I'm like, man, this will work.

It's actually a little more like thoughtful and I have the time and the intentionality behind it. Again, for a long time that I thought that I was a really bad gift giver and it turns out I just wasn't allowing myself to have the time to like consider and think about those types of things. You know, if I am writing down that, hey, I really want to look up to see if my favorite author has a sub stack that I can subscribe to so that I can support them or purchase a hard copy of the book so that I can share it with someone else at a different time or whatever that is, then, you know, when I'm waiting in the waiting room of a doctor office or watching a commercial break during a baseball game or something like that, then instead of scrolling social media, something that really only makes me feel good if I limit it to a few minutes of day maximum, then I can go to that list and choose something from there and I can be a little more intentional and thoughtful and efficient with my time.

So again, it kind of, it takes shifting mentality a little bit because in the past, if I would have had that thought or that idea of, I'm just going to write this down on my to-do list, I'm just going to write this idea down in my notes app, I probably would have perceived that as being, is procrastinating a little bit and not being productive. While in fact, I would argue that some of those things, the way that I approach it now is a little bit more productive and efficient and less procrastinating than maybe I was before when I was younger. So to try to wrap this all up and really like nail in where I'm trying to go here, I would argue that by simplifying your life just one choice at a time, at least within my experience recently, in the past decade or whatever, can lead to greater depth in the things that truly matter most.

So the current state of how many of us, including me, live means that saving time is the top priority, or saving brain space, or capacity. I get it. We get tired.

We get overwhelmed. Many people are turned off by the chaos around us. So let's not talk about the politics.

Let's not talk about the government. Let's not talk about all of the things that are difficult and hard. Let's not talk about the big picture end goals of taking down big corporate leaders with annoying voices just trying to stir stuff up so that you and your family can argue at the Thanksgiving table.

Let's not talk about that. Let's not talk about the bosses that are driving us crazy. Let's not talk about the clients that are putting a ton of pressure on us and are nitpicky about the outcomes that we're giving.

Let's just talk about how we can make and spend our dollars for just one percent better in the future. Let's talk about why we decide to do the things we do. Why do we choose not to buy paper towels?

Why do we choose to buy notebooks and journals? Why do we not drive an electric car? What's the why behind all of this instead of, this is just the way it works.

This is just what we do. That's just what the client wants and so we have to do it. Well, maybe we can give the client a better outcome if we have a deep conversation with them, figure out a little bit more about what they need and customize what we do.

Maybe, maybe find an alternative to the thing that they're asking for to allow for a better, stronger outcome. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn't. But if we just take a breath and we take a step back, could we get to a better, more efficient kind of place at the end?

Can we over the course of a decade stop buying paper towels because we took the time to find cloth napkins that match the color of the things in our kitchen and dining room and the things that we really like from a high quality manufacturer that we can truly get behind? And yeah, maybe we spent $30 on them or whatever those cloth napkins cost, but then we never again for the rest of our lives buy paper towels. So again, take some time, take some money, take some thought, take some investigation on the front end, but on the back end, it's truly saving us time and money.

It's one less thing to do. And I get it. It is where I'm talking about paper towels in the grand scheme of things, but that honestly I couldn't even tell you how much paper towels cost because I have not purchased them in a decade.

But we're saving that money, we're saving that time, it's one less thing that I'm going to the store for. And then that over time adds up. It gets to the point where I don't often have to, if really at all, make those Amazon orders or target delivery or whatever that is because I don't have those things to purchase anymore.

But it doesn't start, you know, by just being like, oh, I'm going to go from having a gajillion things on Amazon, so subscribe and save to nothing ever again. I mean, it could, but it also doesn't have to. It can be just 1% better, just 1% different, just these tiny little decisions that add up.

And then one day you wake up and you're like, huh, I've never had to do that in a really long time. You know, just again, food for thought here. And again, it's not just all about paper towels.

Like we've talked about in the past, the way that our company culture and the way we treat employees and those kinds of things is also important. So let's, maybe it's overwhelming to really think about how are we truly changing the culture of our company and just snap our fingers and next week it's different and it's more positive. But instead, let's talk to business leaders about the decisions that they're making that support their teams and encourage positive culture resulting in positive business gains.

Let's break it down to like small, attainable actions and decisions that we can tackle one thing at a time. Let's find the things that feel attainable and think about how to intentionally do certain things now and make certain decisions now so that it can benefit us later. When we can, when we have the time, don't put a lot of pressure.

Much like my goal of watching the sunrise and the sunset every single day, if it doesn't happen every day, you can't get down on yourself and be like, oh well, I'm never doing that again or I'm a real terrible person because I can't keep up with this goal. It's an arbitrary goal. It's a bonus if you get it done.

But it's not necessarily something that is going to make or break your day. But if you do it, it might make your day 1% better if you spent two minutes looking at the sunrise in the morning. Again, this is all a spectrum of gray.

We're all people that evolve and adapt. Check in with me in 10 years from now and I'm sure that the theme of my goals would have adapted and evolved in a totally different way. Maybe I've swung back to this idea of never saying no to anything unless I can think of three good reasons, why not too?

Who knows? We'll all find out later. All right, so moving on to what am I reading?

So this book has been kind of a theme of the past few weeks of my life. It is called The Joy of Missing Out by Tanya Dalton. It is the time that I first heard the word Jomo as an opposite or a counter to FOMO, the Joy of Missing Out.

And it came up in conversation of kind of this difference in people between introverts and extroverts and people who really get the FOMO bad and wanna say yes to everything and wanna be in everything all the time versus people who are very calm, cool and collected and feel very filled up by being able to say no to things. And it came up a couple of weeks ago. I talked about how I was just in Evansville, Indiana with my friend.

I was actually with multiple friends that came into Evansville from Oliver, Missouri in Kentucky. It was a tradition that we had for the past few years to go to Ohio Valley Conference Men's Basketball Tournament weekend that's held in Evansville, Indiana, go SIUE. And also, they just made it to the NCAA big tournament.

So go SIUE, go Jayhawks. I'm really channeling my love for Ted Lasso here with Coach Barone of SIUE being kind of the real life Ted Lasso and then the real life Ted Lasso of Jason Sudekis being a fellow big Kansas fan here. So maybe my theme is Jason Sudekis and also the joy of missing out here.

But anyway, we were talking a lot that weekend about the difference in people who can really get filled up. And like one of the things that kind of goes along with my theme of this whole being slow burn and taking a breath and being a little more intentional about my life is instead of saying yes to everything like I did when I had those goals, but learning the power of saying no, learning the power of saying like that's not for me, I don't want to do that, you know? I don't want to, while I'm saying no to hanging out with my friends and my family, which is important to me, I'm saying no to the activity because in this moment, I choose to do something else with my time and my energy because that is what is right for me and that that can become an empowering thought and an empowering mentality.

Again, it leaves for me in my life. And so I am again probably like halfway through The Joy of Missing Out. I'll be honest, it is a book that I have slowly read over the course of many, many years and whenever I feel the need to have a little bit of a reminder or maybe I just am kind of being a little more thoughtful and a little more intentional or also sometimes it's nice to have a little check-in and make sure that I'm not going too far overboard and I pick up that book and I keep on reading it again.

So I didn't even mean to like bring that up, but that is another example of kind of me being a slow burn is instead of like chugging through books as fast as possible, I'm often reading probably five or so different ones at a different time. And, you know, one of them, it might take me like this one a couple of years to get through. And that's okay.

It doesn't have to be done tomorrow. It doesn't have to be done today. That's an arbitrary goal that I would have set for myself to say, you know, I need to finish it and instead just really enjoying it and reading it when it feels like something that I'm interested in and I want to wrap my brain around and then another time I might want to read a thriller for a while or also reading Shoe Dog by Phil Knight about the start of Nike.

That's also a great one, but it also is a different type of book with a different theme that makes my brain think about different things. So, I don't know. Maybe the what I'm reading is also a little bit of like everything and whatever I want and it doesn't matter.

So, what are you reading? What are you doing? Again, that's something that I could talk about for like ages and ages.

So, if you want to start a book club with me and talk about books, but maybe we don't put a lot of pressure on ourselves to finish it by a certain day. We just talk about it as we read it and as we go along. That's why I kind of book club and I've loved that.

So hit me up if that is something that you are interested in. All right, moving on to the I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar. I'm not.

And by that, I mean I am relatively frugal. As I have said, I don't often buy or have not in a very long time bought single use things like paper towels in so many years. The same could be true for just things that don't need purchasing and being really like thoughtful and intentional about it.

I get that there are people who that is the thing. I'm going to bring up this paper towel again. There are people for whatever reason is that that's the thing that they can't let go of.

It's fine. It's not about the paper towels. It's not about the thing.

It's about, okay, what can you let go of? What can you slowly release from your life? One of the things that I often do is instead of buying new different kinds of tupperware or things that are plastic, things that might break more easily, things that I don't know are quote unquote meant to be a tupperware, I'm talking about reusing glass jars and bottles as storage containers and vases I'm looking at my window right now that got all these little plants propagating that are in like old little cleaner bottles and hot toss bottles and ginger beer bottles and those kinds of things. Instead of actually buying like 10 different little vases, I'm reusing jars. It's also things like I use old towels and old t-shirts with holes in them or things that don't fit any more instead of paper towels.

I'm utilizing cloth napkins instead of paper towels. If there's not really a real need or desire for it, I'm generally not buying it. Now again, I'm not over the top.

I'm not getting mad at myself if one day there is a need for that. You know, we're on a camping trip or at an Airbnb and I'm not bringing my own reusable towels to clean the counter with. But I'm not bringing my own cloth napkins.

If we're gonna go to the grocery store for that trip, then okay, fine, let's buy a thing of paper towels. But it's all about balance. It's about needs.

It's about being intentional about those things. And so, you know, when I'm trying to keep my life pretty simple, like I talked about with those goals, you know, 10 and 15 years later, I'm happy to report that while life can get really stressful and it can get to be a lot, I don't feel the way that I used to. I don't feel this external and internal pressure about these, again, arbitrary and made up tasks and ideas and deadlines.

It's something that has personally been such a table turner for me. And so, if that's something that is kind of of interest to you, again, for me, it started really small with just trying to make these little teeny tiny decisions. I credit a lot of this to just purposefully simplifying things as I've aged and, you know, 10 and 15 years ago, when I started, you know, having those types of goals, I never really, I think, truly imagined what it would look like.

But just removing that stress and that pressure, being able to, like, open up different spaces of my life has served me tenfold over. Maybe that's a personal version of the better business karma of just, like, being nicer to myself and being able to focus on reducing some of that stress and that pressure, like, is something that came back over to me kind of multiple, over multiple times, and I never really would have guessed that that would have been the case. Again, it didn't happen overnight.

It happened really slowly over the course of more than a decade. But now I can tell you without question, I have such a strong desire not to stress over these things that don't absolutely need to be stressed over, because I've learned that there's so other, so many other things in life that is unexpected and deserves the stress and that is appropriate for the stress. The last thing that I want to do is manufacture more.

So whether that's freeing up space in my budget, allowing me to unintentionally keep my cost of living lower, so that I can spend more money and be less stressed about, you know, the amount of travel that I do, or that I'm spending $65 on a shirt versus $10 on a shirt, or maybe it's just freeing up my actual time and, you know, there are a lot of days and a lot of years when I worked jobs where it was normal and expected to work well over the 40 hours a week. I often, you know, I talked about how many jobs that I've held in my life. A lot of that also happened because I was working multiple jobs at multiple times and just like really throwing myself into that.

And while I don't regret that at all, that gave me experience, that gave me, it gave me the ability to live the way that I do now. Being able to be a little more like intentional about how I'm utilizing my time and how I'm prioritizing those things. It has been really, really helpful to me in being able to embrace the Kacey Musgraves slow burn rather than moving at turbo speed is something that I am really appreciative and really grateful for.

So alright, before we go, I've mentioned that this project is supported through Patreon. There's a link to Patreon down in the show notes. And if you want to jump up a level from the free version, you can do so by becoming a direct supporter of the project through that platform.

Once you sign up, you'll get a link to a different feed on Apple or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use that will take you to exclusive shows and bonuses. As a thank you for your direct support. Also, this project is new and still working out how to make it better and making sure that it's resonating with the folks that are listening.

So I really appreciate any and all feedback. I truly do want to hear from you. So if you follow and message me on Instagram, it's at Capitalism for Good Podcast or email me and message me with your thoughts.

Check the links in the show notes for different ways that you can also contact me. It's a really good chance that I'll send you a discount code for Patreon as a thank you. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. All right, that's enough. Let's go leave this place better than we found it.