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Bare Minimum Mode. What is it? How does it take hold? Understanding this will help us all recognize when we need to make changes in our lives.

Rohit says that we can very easily fall into a mindset that causes us to settle for the bare minimum to get by. In our careers we might recognize it in our appearances, or in the urgency we present in our tasks. Maybe you started at a new job wearing the best clothes you own. You come in dressed to the “nines” and put on the ultimate professional air. You show your dedication to your job on your sleeves and do everything with 100% of your abilities. Somewhere down the line though, you have those moments where you just don’t want to do as much work. Maybe you feel dejected because your team isn’t pulling their own weight. Maybe, you are just having an off day, but you decide to put in less effort. No one around you notices. This gives you the feeling that since no one noticed, no one cares.

The problem with this mindset is that your effort goes down, you do just enough to get by and not get noticed, and you settle into an auto pilot mode where you just go through the motions. If anything comes along and upsets your auto pilot mode, you get frustrated. Its hard to see things in a positive light and causes stress. Your mindset in Bare Minimum Mode is to get by without any disturbance to your standard routine. The slightest deviation can ruin your day.

How do you break this terrible habit? If leaders want to avoid their teams falling into this trap they should make sure their teams efforts are recognized. If you have a person going above and beyond, give them credit. Recognition gives a person a reason to improve. It can motivate others to do better in their jobs as well. If they are seeing their peers get recognized for good work, they know that they can earn that recognition as well. It is also important to encourage those who don’t get as much recognition. Let them know that they are not forgotten. A forgotten person feels like they are not valued, so they often resort to putting in less effort.

Outside of leadership, we can affect ourselves by setting challenges for ourselves. In my career, I think of new ways I can train and enable the people I work with and make the training a fun experience. I let my management team know what I am planning to do so that it gets on their radar. Once I complete my new project, I send out my results to everyone that I think might benefit from the project. This process helps me keep my job fresh, exciting, and challenging. In times when recognition is low, I can keep motivated and drive my own form of recognition.

Bare Minimum Mode is so hard to break up because it is human nature to take the path of least resistance. If we aren’t challenging ourselves regularly and if we aren’t looking to grow consistently it becomes all too easy to fall into the rut of doing just enough to get by.

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If you have never had a Beignet, you are in for a treat. However, this episode is not about pastries. It does help drive a point home though. Why not take the time to truly soak in the special experiences in life?

Kyle brings up a movie called “The Chef” starring John Favreau. In this movie a line really made an impact with Kyle. “Slow down. That is your first Beignet.” The character was telling his son to slow down and savor the experience of his first high end pastry. This one line can be applied to every part of our lives.

How many “first time” or “special experiences” do we rush through and miss the real impact of the event. Not to mention the in between moments that we disregard as “normal” or “mundane.” Kids getting a new candy to try are a perfect example. They wolf it down greedily trying to get as much sugar into their mouths as possible like there will never be another piece of candy given to them. It is gone so quickly that the memory of the taste isn’t as strong or doesn’t exist at all. If the child would slow down and take their time to enjoy every sensation of the treat, they would build a more intense emotion and feeling that the enjoyment is enhanced.

I can remember many of my “first” experiences, but others are more difficult. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my father growing up because he was always busy with church stuff. When we did things together it was always a special thing for me. He took me to my first MLB baseball game. It was 94 degrees out, the grass on the field was so green, the sky was so blue, and the players looked larger than life in their uniforms standing on the field. The smell of the food was strong, the crowd was loud, and it was exciting to step out of the shaded area into the open to see all of this before me. We went to our seats in the bleachers and my Dad put me up on his shoulders so I could see better. I never wanted that moment to end. We need to live each new good experience like that; like we don’t want it to end.

There are also those in between moments that we mis out on. Technology and social media has hurt how we experience things in life. We are all guilty of it. Going out to meet up with friends or family, we sit down to eat, and we pick up our smart phones to sift through notifications and social posts while we are sitting with people right in front of us. Its almost like we have forgotten how to have meaningful conversations and experience the amazingness of each other. Our moments on this earth are limited and our time with each other is fleeting. Make the most of each moment you have been given. Put the social media down and focus on living your life and stop living through other people’s posts. Savor every moment because your “firsts” never come again.

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Everyone feels helpless at some point in their life. Maybe you face a situation that you feel is beyond your control. Maybe you see a friend going through a tough time and you want to help them out. However, you may not know how to help, and you don’t want to make things worse. The feeling of helplessness can build and even end up affecting your health.

Communication is key to breaking the feeling of helplessness. My sister went through a tough medical time not long ago where her life would be impacted forever. I didn’t know how to help her and saw her suffering daily. She really didn’t know how to share what she was going through either. We never were good at communicating with each other growing up. Finally, I decided to start the conversation. I asked her about how she was holding up. The discussion led to how I wanted to help but felt helpless. Our discussion went for hours as we broke down walls that we had been building ourselves. The walls were there to shield us from our own insecurities and others from the pain we were carrying. In the end, we both felt better, grew closer as brother and sister, and our communication strengthened. We understand each other on a deeper level and know where to push, resist, and wait.

There are personal times when each of us feels helpless against the issues we face. Financial problems crop up and you don’t know where to go for help or how to fix the problem. Rather than seek that help, many of us bury our heads in the sand and wait for the problem to “fix itself.” The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t always fix itself. In many cases, it just gets worse. Communication could fix the problem, but we feel too embarrassed to reach out for the help we know, deep down, would be offered if we just asked. We feel ashamed of our problems in many cases because we know we made bad decisions. We can’t possibly let our closest relations see that we are human and make mistakes. The fear of being seen as a flawed person who can’t face his problems alone is sometimes a very real and strong fear that we carry. It is not healthy to carry that fear. Those who love us will accept us, flaws and all. They will be there to love and support us if they truly love us. Don’t let helplessness hold you back and drag you down. Reach out for support when you don’t know where to go. Let go of problems you can’t control. Understand the difference between the two and you will have an easier time growing through the problem every time.

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Time is money. At least, that is what everyone says. The problem with saying it that way is that people really don’t understand how much more valuable your time is than money. We exchange our time for many things in life; for laughs, for companionship, for money, for growth, and for frivolous things. So, just how valuable is your time?

Most people don’t understand or really know what their time is worth. In our lives, most of us have jobs where we exchange our time and effort for money that we use to pay bills and buy stuff. A business will hire you and define what your actions or tasks should be while you are on the clock. They determine what they are willing to pay for a person’s time to do said tasks or make such efforts. You decide whether your time is valued correctly by the business or if you think your time is more valuable if spent elsewhere.

Rohit draws a great comparison of time and value when discussing mowing the lawn. If you feel your time is worth $30 an hour, but there is a neighborhood kid who will mow your lawn for $10, you will come out ahead by $20 by letting this kid mow the lawn for you. However, if you are not spending that time in a productive manner that leads you to make that $30, you have wasted your time and your money. Only you can determine if your time is more valuable or not. Your decisions tell everyone else-and more importantly you yourself-what you think your time is worth.

Another thing to consider is “Are you filling time, or fulfilling your time?” Many of us will do things that just fill time. You know. Its those times when you don’t know what to do, so you sit down and turn on Netflix, Hulu, or cable, and just flip through to find something to watch because you “have nothing better to do.” That is the ‘average’ person’s view. A successful person will take those moments and look for things that enrich their lives or grow their earning potential. Instead of binging on a new show, grab a book, or look for ways to develop a new skill. I cut cable and streaming services because I found I was just filling time and wasting money. Instead, I started watching YouTube training videos on how to edit videos and build a growing stream channel audience. Find a way to get value out of your time because you will never get it back. We are only here for a limited time. How will you spend your time?

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One single fact is true of most people today. We do not know how to recognize our own magic. It goes against our programing to step up and celebrate ourselves. At a very early age we are taught to not be prideful and to lift up others. In many cases we are taught to be shy when others compliment us or our achievements.

Why should we recognize our own greatness? It is important to our own mental and emotional growth. Now, we are not saying that everything you do needs to be celebrated as if you are the greatest person and should be worshipped. Instead, we are saying that we are success oriented. Successes make us feel good about ourselves and what we have done. Celebrating those successes lets ourselves know that we are making progress. It reminds us of where we started, all the trials we went through, and the feeling we felt having reached each milestone along the way.

We have this misconception that celebrating our success is prideful. While in certain situations that might be true, there are times when it is necessary and completely appropriate. The celebration of reaching milestones is important in all our goals. It is proof of our efforts and dedication to our continued success. However, when you stand over an opponent and gloat, rubbing their failure in their face, that is no longer a celebration.

In order to celebrate success, we have to have goals. In order to celebrate goals, we need to have milestones. Milestones are a useful tracking tool that help us stay positive and adjust course as needed. We often set goals with no roadmap. The goal is the end destination for one trip. However, the best part of the road trip is not the end destination. It is in the road trip. The same goes for our goals. We are only able to track our progress in life and in each of our goals if we track our milestones along the way. The milestones give definition to the trip towards success.

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When 4 men sit in a hot room to talk about happiness, you really don’t know what to expect. While we sate in this hot recording studio, we explored why certain things or activities bring us happiness and who the real stakeholders in your happiness are. This is important to understand where our happiness comes from and whether it is healthy or not for us.

Stakeholders are just the people that are either reliant or integral to causing our happiness. In healthy relationships, you will always here from the individuals that what is important is the other member’s happiness. A husband cares about the happiness of his wife. The wife cares about the happiness of the husband. This is a great way to maintain a healthy relationship with your significant other. However, it may just be detrimental to your own happiness.

When people are so devoted to the other person in their relationship, they might lose sight of things that make themselves happy in favor of things that make the other person happy. I see this a lot in my parents. My Mom is one of the most loving people in the world to me and she goes out of her way to make us happy. However, she does everything in her power to make us happy, but anytime her happiness comes up she can’t express herself. She will go to movies with my family that she wouldn’t necessarily like, but when we ask her if there is something she would like to see, she will deflect and say, “well, what do you want to see?” This happens in many relationships and it can end up causing resentment from one or the other.

There are also times that we know what makes us happy and we want to share that experience with someone we love. We believe that what makes us happy will also make them happy and we set an expectation. Our expectations can lead to disappointment when the other party isn’t as enthralled as we are. Kyle talks about liking ski, but his other doesn’t. If he put his happiness investment in how the other party feels, he loses some of the experience he could be having while he is there.

We should actively seek to make sure our friends and family are happy. However, if we fail to make sure we are also happy, we build up resentment and negativity. Conversely, if all we do is focus on our own happiness, we cause negativity and resentment to build in our relationships. Balance is important for healthy emotional growth.