Ep51_TakingAction
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] so I had this situation where a friend from high school called me Facebooked me, and he told me, Hey, remember that? When you spat in Craig's face, and I had to think for a second. No, I don't. But then it came to me and I was bullied a lot in middle school. He went to middle school and high school with me.

Actually his name's Justin. And I remember now clearly cuz I was bullied and I ended up dealing with the bully and I ended up punching guy and breaking my hand on his face. But, On the very last day of school, the bullying started again. I had stopped for months and months cause I had faced it. And I remember being a school assembly and this guy Craig, kept pushing me from behind, like really hard, pushing me from behind.

And it kept happening and I asked him to stop, but he wouldn't stop. I asked him to stop again. He wouldn't stop again. Then I said, in my mind, I settled it. You know, I'm gonna deal with this stuff right now. Even though we're inside, I can. Punch him or whatever. So I saved up the biggest stinking luie that I could and I turned and I said, if he, in my mind, I said, if he hits me, if he pushes me again, I'm gonna spit right in his face.

And sure enough, he pushed me really hard again. I turned around, I looked at him, I spat right in his face. And I didn't use some very nice words. I said. I said, F you. And if you want some more. I'll give you more. And I sat right down next to him and then I sat the rest of the school assembly next to him, and I walked out with him basically saying, if you want more of this, I'll give you more.

But I stood up for myself and I took action and that situation, and that's what I'm gonna be talking to you about today, taking consistent action in your life and how that energizes you. So welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. If you haven't already subscribe, so you'll never miss another podcast episode if found this podcast helpful, please give it a like a rating or review on Apple or Spotify, wherever you get your podcast content. That helps it reach more people organically. And that's my hope for the podcast. So as I have done in every other episode, I'm gonna share some risks that I have taken with taking recently.

So one is on the plane ride from Sacramento to Wichita. I was sitting next to a gal and we ended up talking and it was fun conversation and I asked for a number, can you believe it? And then I reached out because I knew she was gonna be back in Sacramento over Christmas and I texted her. I haven't heard back yet, but I texted her and I asked her if she wanted to get some coffee.

We'll see how it goes. I did it. I took action and it felt good. Even if the outcome isn't great. I had a cigar with my dad and my brother, the first one ever. That was really fun. Over Thanksgiving, and I actually prompted my family to play some poker over Thanksgiving, and all these were risked because I could have been rejected.

So I could have been rejected. I might be rejected, but I'm willing to take some action. So constantly get the question from clients, Hey, I know what I need to do, but I can't do it. I know I need to take these steps, but I can't take these steps. I know it would make a difference in my life, but I keep talking to myself out of it.

And that's fear. That's fear that's holding 'em back. So for those of you who don't know, I'm Adam Gragg. I'm a legacy coach, a speaker, podcaster, mental health professional for over 20, almost 25 years. I started in 1998, believe it or not, my life purpose is helping people to find transformational clarity so they can face their biggest fears so they can take action to face their biggest fears and to live and leave their chosen legacy.

I talk about stuff that you could go ahead and share with your six-year-old, and they're gonna understand the concepts that you discussed with them that you've learned from this podcast. Just for example, last podcast number 50 was about a big mistake people make invalidation. Your six-year-olds gonna understand how to.

That invalidation hurts in that when you really listen to somebody and you tell 'em it makes sense to me, you'd feel that way and you make good eye contact, it's gonna make a difference. A six-year old's gonna understand that. I also talk about things. I struggle with myself. I'm a fellow traveler. I struggle with taking action.

I procrastinate. I want you today to listen as a teacher, not as just a student. Listen, as if you're gonna be teaching one of the concepts you learn today to somebody in the next 24 hours. Now taking action. I remember in seventh grade when I dealt with Craig, that was an action. I felt energized. I walked away.

I would've probably left for the summer wondering why did I not stand up for myself. But instead, I left for the summer feeling like I can handle life. I can take things on, I can handle when people are cruel and mean, and that was a bad situation. Today I'm gonna talk to you about six steps that you can take in your life that are gonna give you the motivation.

To take consistent action if you apply them six steps. As I talked before, I kind of call this Adam's rule right now. 30% of transformational change is going to be insight. You're gaining insight. You're listening to a podcast, you're reading a book, you're getting information. Insight. 70% is action. Action is more important than insight.

Action is more important than insight. So right now, take an action for me. [00:05:00] I want you to write down something that you're procrastinating. Write it down or speak it into your phone. Ask Siri to write it down as a reminder, something you're procrastinating on. I'm procrastinating on asking my boss for raise.

I'm procrastinating on asking to come in later to my job. I'm procrastinating on. Confronting somebody on something that's been bothering me. I want you to think about and write that thing down. That's an action you're gonna take. So do it right now in your car, wherever you are. What is that thing you're procrastinating on that you know you could be doing?

You could be taking action on working out, eating healthier, getting to bed earlier, getting to know your kids better. I don't care what it is, but decide right now, what is that thing that you're gonna take some action on and you're procrastinating probably because you are at some level, a perfectionist.

If I can't do it perfectly, I'm not gonna do it at all. Perfectionism is your enemy. Procrastination is your enemy. It's gonna steal you. It's gonna rob you from having the full life that you know you can have. And people do know they can have a full life. It kind of oozes out of them. They can't run from that.

It's always there. We are always, if we are not living up to our potential, and there's a forks in the road moment by moment, and if we know in our gut that we're not actually living up to this potential that we know is there and it's ahead. We are gonna live in a way where there's anxiety and incompleteness and this feeling that just won't go away.

It's like a pain that's always there. So today I'm gonna teach you what I do and what's helpful for me to go out and take the action and take the steps that I know I need to take. Again, I struggle. I'm being inspired as I talk about this topic in myself, I struggle just like all of most people struggle with taking action.

You know, the crazy thing is, is that people don't. Do they know what they need to do and they can tell other people what they need to do, which I don't ever think you should really be telling other people what they probably should do, unless you're trying to, can take, take some action in yourself. So I know as a coach, I'm challenged when I have to meet with a client knowing that, okay.

I have to practice what I preach. I have to live the life that I'm challenging them to actually live. And it's the same with you. You're gonna be energized as you live more of this life that you want to challenge other people to live. As I said, most people know what they need to do, but they have trouble actually going out and doing it.

So step one, Don't think about it. Get outta your head and take action. Don't think about it. Get away from your thinking. You know, your thinking is there to protect you. If you know in your gut intuitively that I should go and talk to this stranger, I should go and try this new thing. Or I should go and listen to some new music or try new food, or go to this place, or I'm in the airport and I can go and walk around some area where I wouldn't normally walk around.

I mean, whatever it might be. It could be something very small, but it's an action that you could actually take. So don't even listen. To that voice at all. Don't give it any kind of power. You can outsmart it by just going ahead and doing that thing that you know you need to do, that you want to do, that thing that you want to do.

So even right now as you're listening, what I would challenge you to do is to, if you have Facebook or if you have Instagram, or if you have a list of people in your phone, which you probably all do, I want you to send a message to somebody you haven't communicated with in two years. Do it right now. You can ask Siri to do it.

Pull over to the side of the road and do it, and here's the message I want you to send to them. It's just very basic. How's it going? It's been a long time. How's it going? It's been a long time. You're facing a fear by taking that action, that one thing right there, and you're getting outta your head. If you actually listen to me and you're doing it, that's not gonna cause any damage to your life.

By reaching out to somebody you haven't talked to in a while. How's it going? It's been a long time. Didn't see what happens. I mean, they may, you may get a message back saying that. I don't know you or who is this, or you know, or somebody else has their phone number now, I don't care. But you actually taken an action and we're gonna feel generally better after we take an action, regardless of the outcome.

So that's step one. Get outta your head. Know that your head and your thinking and your thoughts are there to protect you and they're not gonna actually help you. And that. Thinking is very different than the intuitive coming up from within. I gotta do this thing. I'm going to do this thing. I'm inspired by this thing.

I'm gonna actually move in that direction. Number two, ask yourself, how will this help other people? . That's a step you can take that'll help you to take consistent action. How will this help other people? So if you want to take the action of getting more exercise, well, how is that gonna help other people in your life?

It could help your kids, it could help your wife, it could inspire people around you. It could help other people because you're not complaining about your health anymore. , it could help other people because they are seeing you take some kind of action that they know is hard for you, but you're doing it consistently.

And that intrinsic internal motivation that's gonna come with helping other people. I mean, I love to help other people. It energizes me, even though short-term, oftentimes it seems like an inconvenience and I wanna say no long-term. It's an energizer and something that's actually inspiring to me. So maybe I.

Feel like I want to go and make breakfast for my family and then I'm done and I make breakfast for my family and I feel [00:10:00] energized by it cuz they're enjoying this thing that I actually did for them. Maybe I don't feel like getting up and getting a cup of coffee for my client, but usually I actually do.

If they want a cup of coffee and when I get to go and bring them back a cup of coffee and they're all excited about it, that's gonna be energizing to me and. Things. If you list right now, and I'm having you take a lot of action here, list right now, how is it gonna, if it goes, you take that action and it goes well, how is it gonna help other people?

And by the way, your life purpose, which you can identify is gonna be some form of you actually helping other people. In a unique way that's been gifted to you, how is it gonna help other people? So if you found this podcast helpful so far, I want you to hit the link to shatterproof yourself. You're gonna get 27.

It's a mental health stress checklist, and there's 27 items, things you can do to improve your mental health right now. So number three. Step number three is how will it benefit yourself, your life, and your future. So we're kind of getting a little selfish here. So if I take this action, how will it benefit me and my future?

Whatever it may be. So it's a really scary kind of thing. It's you're actually searching for a new job, or you're even maybe going to the doctor, or you're calling up a coach to actually help you, and those are scary things. Or you're paying a trainer to help you out in the gym, or you're joining the gym, but you're taking an action.

How is it gonna help you personally? if it goes well. And then how is it gonna help you if it doesn't go well? I mean, maybe it doesn't go as well as you want cuz you're taking an action and you get rejected, you get embarrassed. Who knows? How is it gonna help you to get embarrassed? Well, it's gonna give you thicker skin.

It's gonna give you the ability to know that you can take risks and fail and fall and you're gonna be able to get back up again. So you list how is it gonna benefit you personally. Number four, and this is crucial, very crucial step, is to eliminate excuses. List them out. Whatever excuse you're gonna have, so you know this action.

One that you want to take, all right? You don't know it because of your head, because your head's probably gonna tell you don't have to do it. It's gonna tell you can't. It's gonna tell you you're too tired, you're too busy, it won't work. You're gonna fail. People are gonna laugh at you. It's gonna do whatever it possibly can to actually keep you safe.

And taking action is not safe. I'm not encouraging you to live a safe lifestyle. I think a safe lifestyle is gonna damage your mental health. I'm encouraging you to live a lifestyle that's full and a life that's living out your life purpose and a life that's living out your unique way that you can help other people and inspire other people.

So limiting those excuses. So what are they gonna be? If the action you're gonna take is getting up in the morning and running, and you got your running shoes out, you're gonna know that when you wake up, you're probably gonna wanna hit the snooze button. You're probably gonna tell yourself you didn't get a good night's sleep.

At least that's what I tell myself and I need a little bit more. You're probably gonna potentially tell yourself you don't have time because you have other things you gotta do for work, or you got other things you gotta do for your family. You potentially are gonna tell yourself that your body's not physically able because you haven't been doing this very often.

All these things are gonna happen. So be and have a written out answer to every one of those excuses. So you list out every single excuse you can think of that you know you're gonna actually have, it's gonna keep you from taking some kind of transformational action. And then you have your answer, you have your reply to that excuse.

So for example, I'm too tired, I haven't gotten enough sleep. You know, my reply could be, you've. You got enough sleep to get you through the day, and this is gonna actually help you to have energy for the day by getting up and going on that run and getting to the gym, or, you know, my body's not physically able to handle this.

That could be an excuse. Well answer that excuse, you know, with truth. What is the truth? Well, this is actually good for my body to help me to live a life longer than I would without the exercise. So you're rebuffing, all those things, the excuses for you. So if you call that gal or you reach out about that new job or you talk to your boss, or you go ahead and talk to your family, or you reach out to that person that you texted just a few minutes ago that you haven't talked to in two years and say, you know, who knows?

Maybe they follow up and then you actually are wondering, well, how do I follow up now to this text, to this person I haven't talked to in a while that I like? It's my friend, but what do I do now? So, You're gonna eliminate those excuses by knowing what they are gonna be in advance. And it could be that, hey, it's silly to text somebody that I haven't talked to in two years, or what benefit is gonna come out of reaching out to somebody that I haven't actually been in connection with in two years.

And then you answer that question cuz the benefit could be a new friendship. The benefit could be just a casual interaction. The benefit could be you learn some things about that person's life that you wouldn't have learned had you not reached out to them. The benefit could be that you actually are challenging yourself to do things that are uncomfortable.

The benefit is that you're not gonna be driven by your emotions any longer. So you list out your rebuttal to that, to that excuse. So that's number four. Number five. Number five of the six steps to going ahead and starting to take action consistently in your life is identify how you're gonna feel afterwards.

Identify how you're gonna feel after you take that step. And it may be that you feel awkward, that you're gonna wonder [00:15:00] how they're gonna reply. But if you can identify that, I am eventually going to feel energized, which you are by the way. When you take positive, productive action, you are going to feel energized eventually.

It may not be for a day or two, but eventually you're gonna look back and be able to say, I did something. I took an action. I stood up for myself. I believe in myself. I have confidence in myself. So write down how you're actually gonna feel, you know? And I remember even thinking as I look back at that situation where I had to stand up to Craig spat in his face.

I know it's gross, but I remember going home and feeling like I can handle things in my life that are difficult. And that was a step. Those were a number of steps for me, taking some ownership of my life and seeing that I am not a victim, that I'm somebody who can influence and has an im, have an impact on the future that I have.

So how are you gonna feel? You know, you do these things that are risky and you are gonna feel energized. You're gonna feel positive, you may feel embarrassed, you may feel rejected. But how are you gonna handle those emotions? Are you gonna let 'em pass or are you gonna let them stick? Are you gonna just dwell on them even if it's really awkward and let it just stick and.

You know, define you or are you gonna be able to let it go and get to the other new emotions? Because what we find is that emotions only stick when we dwell on them. And if we recognize that, if we accept them and we accept that awkward feeling or that embarrassing feeling of rejection or whatever, that it's not going to last forever.

And this is gonna motivate you to take action because you know, for one, I can handle. The feeling if it doesn't go well and I can learn from it if it doesn't go well, which is one of the great benefits of taking action is you're gonna learn, and I'm not talking about just taking any kind of action, I'm talking about action that you know that in your heart is positive for you to take.

So could be something professionally where you start launching material or you create some kind of a worksheet you give away to people, or you hire a new employee, or who knows? Something that you're actually gonna do, but how are you gonna feel afterwards? I want you to reflect on that and how you're gonna handle those different emotions.

That's step number five. And then step number six is to write it down somewhere. Put it somewhere where you're gonna look at it consistently. Because the way the brain works is that what we focus on, we channel neurochemicals. Chemicals in our brain get channeled towards that thing we focus on. If we're focused on that, I can't do this, or I'm gonna be rejected, or it's not gonna work out, of course we're not gonna take any action because we're channeling energy into that thing going wrong, and that's creating neural pathways that are all centered around the worst possible outcome, which is gonna create.

It's gonna create fear in you, and fear is gonna propel you to actually avoid, because what do we do when we're afraid we avoid? So even the act of writing it down, which I want you to do right now, just like I asked you to text that person you hadn't talked to in two years, just like I asked you to write down the benefits to other people.

When you take this specific action, just like I asked you to write down how you are going to benefit from actually taking this action, I want you to write down the specific action that you're gonna take. Just write it down. You're setting a goal. It's like a really short-term goal. It's a vision. It's a short-term vision.

You're gonna do something now and post it in your car, so you're gonna maybe put it in your phone if you're driving. You're gonna eventually though write it down on a piece of paper where you're gonna look at it in your car, and that piece of paper is gonna glare at you until you actually do that thing, whatever it is.

And you can do that with all of your top four goals. You can do that with all the things that you want to actually take action on. You can put it right in front of you and it's gonna glare at you. You get in your car and you're gonna actually have to look at this thing. I guess you could ignore it, but it's gonna be something you're gonna have to look at, or you're gonna even subconsciously know it's there cuz you're gonna see that little piece of paper in the corner of your eye.

Write it down, what you focus on, you're gonna amplify. So I am excited and wanted to highlight that I'm in production of a new course. It's called Shatterproof Yourself. It's gonna help with self-care, stress, anxiety, depression, all this kind of foundational stuff for great mental health. And that's gonna be something that is you can purchase in coming hopefully weeks as we go here.

So on a scale one to 10, I want you to rate yourself on a scale one to 10, how would you rate yourself? In the area of taking action consistently in the face of your fears, would you give yourself a two? I mean, a 10 is like you do it all the time. You're doing a great job. You're always doing it. You're not afraid.

You're getting out there. A two a one means you kind of suck. You know you're procrastinating, you're letting fear get in the way you're putting things off. Give yourself a score on a scale of one to 10, and then I want you to ask yourself, so if you give yourself a six or a five, let's say, let's just go right in the middle, give yourself a five.

What would it take? What action can you take from today that would take it from a five to a 5.5? What step could you take? What is something you learned? And then I want you to teach and talk and share whatever [00:20:00] that action is with somebody in the next 24 hours. I want you to teach that thing that's inspired you, because that most likely is the thing that's inspired you the most is because you know that could take you from a five to a 5.5 when it comes to taking action.

You can do this. I'm not saying it's easy, but nothing that is good for you is really easy. I'm not saying it's gonna be comfortable. Because nothing that's good for you long term is always going to be comfortable. It may be comfortable sometimes, but it's not always gonna be comfortable. And remember, 30% of life transformation is insight.

I've gained insight. 70% of it is taking action. Take action. If you found this podcast helpful, again, subscribe. Give it a rating. Review Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast content. Have me out to speak if you're interested. I do that over Zoom. I can do it live if you're in my area. Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone, when people are sitting around talking about you at Christmas.

What do you want 'em to say? We'll live that life now. You decide your legacy. You decide your future. Nobody else. I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time.