S2E20: You Know What to Do. So Why Aren’t You Doing It?

Most of us already know at least one thing that would make our lives better.

We know the workout would help.

We know the budget matters.

We know we should eat better.

We know we should have the conversation.

We know we should keep the promise.

So why don’t we do it?

In this episode of Cheese Curds & Coffee, Katie and Allen talk about the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it when the moment arrives.

Katie shares a workout she had planned all week — one with rope climbs, bench press, and heavy sandbag cleans — and how she hit the point where she wanted to stop. She had the knowledge. She had the skill. She had coached other athletes through the same workout. But in the middle of it, the emotion still showed up.

Instead of quitting, she paused, adjusted the workout, lowered the sandbag weight, and finished with nine seconds left.

Allen shares his own version of the same struggle: cutting the grass.

After a long morning workout and run-walk, he did not feel like doing it. The rationalizations started immediately.

Maybe it could wait.

Maybe the HOA would not notice.

Maybe he could do it Monday.

Maybe it did not matter.

But the grass was not really the issue.

The promise was.

This conversation became the center of the episode: discipline does not mean the argument disappears. It means the argument does not automatically get the final vote.

Katie and Allen also talk about Allen’s trip to an AI summit in Dallas, asking a question in a room where he felt out of place, making a lower-agency food decision with three pieces of red velvet cake, and using a delayed flight with no Wi-Fi, no AI, and no charging ports as an opportunity to work on the dream.

The theme running through all of it is simple:

A feeling can be real without becoming the instruction.

“I don’t feel like it” may be true.

But that does not mean it gets to decide.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why knowing what to do is not enough
• Why “I don’t feel like it” is often the moment that matters
• How Katie finished a workout she wanted to quit
• Why Allen’s lawn story became a lesson in keeping promises
• How emotions can become instructions if we do not pause
• Why discipline still includes internal arguments
• What it means to practice higher-agency decision-making
• How to pause before reacting
• Why companies, social media, and marketing often push us toward emotional decisions
• How small promises create evidence that we can change

This week’s challenge:

Think of one thing you already told yourself you were going to do.

A workout.

A budget.

A conversation.

A household task.

A food choice.

A promise to yourself or someone else.

When the moment arrives and an emotion shows up — “I don’t feel like it,” “I’m too tired,” “It doesn’t matter,” or “I’ll do it tomorrow” — pause.

Ask:

What am I feeling?

Is this feeling useful information or am I letting it become the instruction?

What small action can I take that moves me toward the person I said I wanted to become?

You do not need to fix your whole life this week.

Just pause once.

Make one intentional choice.

Keep one meaningful promise.

Collect the proof.

🎙️ Thanks for listening to Cheese Curds & Coffee! If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who could use a little inspiration.

✨ Connect with us on Instagram for behind-the-scenes content, tips, and community updates: @cheesecurdsandcoffee

💬 Join the conversation, share your wins, and let us know how you’re turning life’s mess into momentum—one challenge at a time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello everyone and welcome back to Cheese Curds and Coffee. My name is Alan Thompson and I am joined by the beautiful, talented, wonderful Katie Thompson, star of the show. How are you?

unknown 0:14

Great!

SPEAKER_00 0:17

You look phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

I don't know why you keep saying that. He's buttering me up for something. Something's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

I love that for you that you think that, but no, it's just literally like I just think you look.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I put a headband on today. It's been a hot minute since we wore this bad boy. That's the only difference. Everything else is exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

So the title of today's episode is You Know What to Do, so why aren't you doing it? Dun dun dun. Um it's a question that came that came up yesterday, I think. And we we kind of live this throughout the week. Um you're a you know, you're a coach, excuse me, you're a coach at a gym. So you want people to show up regularly and do all the things, and I know you're working with a bunch of uh a few people for nutrition, and I think you and I have had several conversations about people know what to do, we know what to do, and then for whatever reason, we don't do it. And now we're gonna talk about how to not do that, how to keep your commitments to yourself. Excuse me. So first, like we always do, let's cover the week. So, how was the week for you? What came up? What were your thoughts? Good week, bad week, average week?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Hmm, depends on which thing you're asking me about. But generally speaking, probably average and good most of the time. It was average coaching schedule for me on my normal, you know, regular shifts, but we also had a coach that was traveling to take some time off for the weekend, so I picked up a couple extra shifts, um, which I enjoy doing, so that was fine. Uh, also, we introduced a new substitute coach into the community. So we brought her in, had her shadow a couple of classes with us this week. She got to watch Stacy uh in the evening, and then she came back today and shadowed our morning class. Um, had some drop-ins, had some members, had some, you know, regulars. It was great. Uh she's a good addition to the team. Excited to be able to get her in front of everybody, and she'll come back again next week and do some more uh work with our team and continue to build, you know, her roster of hours as they become available. Uh I'm on a non-kind of coaching front, other general business responsibilities for me this week. There was a big conference call with the software platform that we use, and they kind of do a mid-year state of the business. So logged in for that, had that for gosh, about an hour. Uh fire inspection came through. That's an annual occurrence, which is interesting because I think it depends on who is like in charge of who's in charge of our area. So when I said like mostly good for this week or whatever, uh I was frustrated with how the fire inspection went this year. We've owned the business for just over about four and a half years now, and we've only had two fire inspections. So whoever the fire inspector was in our area previously wasn't super regular. Sure. Um, but last year's inspection was relatively seamless. We didn't change anything. So what we assumed to be like everything was up to code, everything was great. I thought this, you know, inspection was gonna be maybe 15 minutes long. It ended up being an hour and a half, and there's minor things, nothing is major, um, but minor things that we just need to uh fix to make sure that we're up to code and we get a month to do that, and she'll come back and go through the things. So that was that was like my Friday afternoon was like sort of frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Oh, frustrating times, yeah. No. And we'll get those things fixed and you know, we'll go about our business. But yeah, I love the way you dealt with that. I know you were frustrated with it Friday, so and Saturday probably.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

But it is what it is. Like we we need to be uh compliant. I I want a safe environment. Sure, no, yeah, that's a thing. Um, I just I'm struggling with the we didn't change anything from last year this year. Uh so that's a little funny, I guess. Ironic, whatever. Um disheartening. Uh workouts were good for me this week, uh, but still challenging myself to do the work by myself. Uh, I only jumped into a full class one time this week, and it was very early on in the week because I really loved that it was very strength heavy in the workout itself. And then the rest of the week for me was just my own style of strength training or picking up on some of the workouts on my own while other classes were going on. Um had a moment where I wanted to give up, and the workout was really, really hard. And I think we're gonna talk about that a little later, but again, like got the workouts done, got the work in that I needed to do, um, but still working through the new structure for myself. Not yet settled into what that routine looks like or feels like.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Got it. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

I think that's it from the business. It was your birthday this week. So we spent some time celebrating, had a really great uh lunch dinner out with another couple that we really enjoy their company. So that was I loved what we did on your birthday. You can speak to your thoughts of that. I know you're not big in with if uh celebrating things because society says we should celebrate them. But I love to celebrate Alan, and I think it's important for him to feel extra special on special days. So it was good. I enjoyed that for you.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Well, today's a special day. You should make me feel extra special today.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

What what's special about today? Is the day after your birthday?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Or Tuesday, or you know, whatever. But we'll keep going.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

We can keep and I got to sit in on the studio audience of a podcast collaboration that you did. That was a lot of fun. That is a good transition to turn over to what was your week like.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

The week was fantastic. The week was fantastic. The week was fantastic. I got to post my first essay on Substack. This was the first week just really leaning into build your proof and launching this business and posting online. People are probably like, what is going on? Like this guy is like posting like 100x, what he normally does. Um workouts were good. I had I had to travel to an AI summit in Dallas. New experience for me being on a plane with no Wi-Fi, no internet, no AI, no nothing.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

I couldn't even charge my it's because you flew on a budget airline.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Well, I'm just that's the experience you get when you fly budget. In a minute since I've done that. The return trip was frustrating. We got uh delayed in the air for about an hour, hour and a half.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

The storm that came through here was pretty nasty. So I'm grateful that you didn't try to land during the house.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

We literally headed to the east coast and had to come back, and then I know that disrupted our you know pickup situation, so I ended up catching an Uber. But yeah, all that was was actually productive and and um a good story to tell about that. First collaboration with Sam. I hope there's a ton more. It was a ton of fun for me. I loved sitting with him, working with him. Like definitely one of my favorite people. So there were a ton of moments this week where I got to practice what we're talking, what we'll be talking about, and thinking through it and using it, and I have just been more productive, effective, all the things as we kind of think through this and work through this in real time. So it was a really good week, and I it was my birthday. So okay. So this week could, you could argue this week was pretty average, pretty mundane, but I think it was full. If we take a step back and dive into some of the moments that we've kind of touched on, we're gonna dive into. If we think about the focus of this video, you know what to do, but you don't do it. Uh, and I think there were some moments there where that really came true for us and kind of broke through, and and we can talk about. Um so you are so Katie's gone through, for those of you who don't know, Katie has gone through quite the transformation. She used to be, there's a video floating around. I don't know where it is, we should maybe find it, of you on a squat rack.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

I knew that was what you were gonna say. This video comes up often.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

And uh Katie's form back then, this is probably I don't even know how long ago was this video?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

2016. It was right after we met.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah. Uh anyway. Yeah, so you can learn a lot in 10 years. Anyway, see so she didn't quite know her own strength and all capabilities. She didn't, she wasn't top tier when it came when it comes to techniques. Anyway, so she goes to do a back squat, fails in the rack, the rack, everybody's safe. We we re-rack the the bar, we have a conversation. I don't even know if we change the weights, but then you get back in and you just back squatted it, no problem. So the strength was always there. And I tell that story uh just because it just is an indication of how far you've come in your knowledge. So you know a ton about exercise, motivation, fitness, movement. I mean, you're too she surpassed me in that uh uh in a lot of cases when it comes to how to work uh efficiently in the gym and how to do workouts. So knowing all of that and your wealth of knowledge, you still were faced with this moment where you wanted to quit this workout this week. Can you tell us about that? Why did it come up for you? And how did you sort of work through it? What happened?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, okay. So the workout itself was a bunch of what I would consider fun movements. It had rope climbs, it had heavy sandbag cleans.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Those were fun.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Uh, which is funny because past me was terrified of climbing ropes, but now if I see rope climbs in a workout, I I want to do the workout because I think that's fun. Uh heavy sandbag cleans, which we because of just equipment, we don't get to program that often in class environments. So this was programming for one of our competitive groups. It's a little bit smaller, we can accommodate that, we can, you know, coach it in an environment where we have enough equipment to meet the needs. And bench press. So I'm working on strength. I get to do, you know, heavy strength day, couple this with, you know, some things that I enjoy. This on paper looked like it was going to be great. I coached our team that was in the class through the workout before I did the workout. Now, normally I prefer to do it and then coach it so that I know what it feels like. And my goodness, I actually apologized to these two individuals that did the workout before I did, as I was dying through it, because I was so positive in my encouragement of like, you can do this, you know your strength, don't quit. Like, come on, keep going. As they were also challenged through this workout and taking breaks. So what I didn't understand was how the volume was going to creep up on me and that the movements were going to tax me the way that they did. Um, so I was trying to the the bench press, I think, was probably the easiest part of the workout. But it was um in the beginning a high enough volume that I was a little apprehensive that like maybe I might not be able to get every rep and I might have to take a break and shake it out and then put it back in and not do them unbroken. Um that was okay. Then I went to this heavy sandbag clean, and I know that I have used a hundred-pound sandbag in a competition. So I'm like, I should use the hundred-pound sandbag.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

This thing was destroying me.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

And the way in which it was spiking my heart rate, doing these cleans, getting this hundred-pound, literally like bag of flour sand from the ground up to my shoulder six times in a row and then five times in a row, I was watching the clock, recognizing that I was not going to finish this workout within the time cap because this apparatus, this specific movement was taking me so long. I was having such a hard time. I had to take so much rest in between each one of the movements before I could then move on. The rope climbs were challenging, but I never felt like I was not gonna make it. And the number of them was low enough. I only had to do two in the first round, two in the second round, and then it switched to one in the rounds after that. Like I can do one rope climb even if I'm tired. These sandbags were like the death of me. And so I looked at my clock and I was like, I'm already halfway through the time cap. I could just stop. Like, I'm not gonna finish.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

So, and just I'll make sure I, you know, the frame of reference, right? So a person that's full of the all the knowledge, who knows the workouts, who knows the movements, who who knows how to motivate herself to do all the things, is now faced with a choice. You get to decide to keep going or to quit, to stop. Yeah. In the middle of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

What choice did you make?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I kept going. But I mean I pivoted.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

So I I recognized that there was zero hope of me finishing this workout if I continue to try and use this 100-pound sandbag. And there was a 70-pound sandbag next to it that I was using as a warm-up to try and get ready for, you know, the heavy weights. And I know I can go touch and go at 70 pounds, which just means I don't have to put it down. I can tap the floor, I can bring it to my shoulder, I can bring it back down to the floor, I tap my shoulder and bring it back down. So I can complete the movements and make up the time that I was like, so much time has expired because I was taking so much break in between the other reps. So by round three, I did my bench press and then I went to the sandbags, and instead of grabbing the 100-pound, I grabbed the 70. So I could move through that much more quickly. Then I knew I only had one rope climb. Then I went back, there were two other rounds after that. So I finished the workout with nine seconds left of my time cap. I should have started with the 70-pound bag. I would have been more appropriately working through this workout. But it took the community that was there with me telling me the same thing that I told them: you can do this. Do not give up. You're strong enough. You know how to do this, you know, move that you your form still looks good. So Ryan Ryan was in the rig. I knew that he was there to help me with the bench press if I hit failure and needed assistance. Coach Sam was running class, but like still in my ear, you know, all the things. And I made it, and then I took probably 40 minutes to collect myself.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

I love that. So the question moved on in life for the question for the that I want to talk about, get a deeper dive in, is that you have all the knowledge, you have all the skill. What was the conversation like when you were considering quitting?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

This is really hard. Why am I doing this?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Good. What was it? How did you convince yourself not to fall into that emotion or listen to that conversation happening, that story that was happening for you? Why didn't you just listen to that story that was playing in your head? What what happened? What like what did you?

SPEAKER_01 17:47

I had previously coached other athletes through the workout. I watched them do it and finish. So I knew it was possible, right? I know what their fitness level is, I know what my fitness level is. Uh relatively speaking, we're I'm not super far away from where they are. Yep. We're in the same, you know, kind of wheelhouse. Uh and I knew I could do it if I adjusted and made a slight change to what was happening. I would not have finished had I continued to try and use the 100-pound sandbag. And at that point, I may have gotten hurt, right? Like when you're that tired, if you're moving load, that's too heavy for you, your form starts to break down. So these are coaching experience or training experience factors that are playing into I don't want to stop because I want to get a good workout. I don't want to stop because I still need to do my strength training. I don't want to stop because at this point I've only been moving for, I don't know, call it 10 minutes of the 15 minutes that I was supposed to go. How can I adjust so that I can do the whole thing?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

I love that. So if we do a deep dive into that moment, so for a lot of people, and again, the the overall theme of this conversation is you know what to do, so why aren't you doing it? And I believe that a lot of times for people, we succumb to the emotion.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

I was emotional.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

We succumbed to the story. So we set the plan the night before. I'm assuming you said, Hey, I'm gonna do this workout either the Oh, a week before. Oh, you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

I even I had even texted Stacy, one of our other coaches, who I know loves a rope climb and likes to do odd object movements. And on Sunday, a week before the Friday workout comes up, I text her to say, you're really gonna like the 9 45 class on Friday. You might want to take it. Now she forgot because I sent it on Sunday and I didn't remind her. Sure. But I had already been planning since Sunday that I was gonna do this particular workout on Friday.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I love it. And then the moment arrived. And the emotion creeps up, and this is before or after the fire inspection. Before. Before the fire inspection.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Oh yeah, so poor fire inspection lady had like emotionally disheveled Katie.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

So so the moment arrives, you had planned on it, you have all the information that you need, right? You have the skill, you have the level, you have the CrossFit level two certification, you have the years of experience, your light years from the woman in the squat rack who didn't know very much about anything about exercise. And you still face the moment, this emotion comes up and you don't quit. And I think that's such a I think that is the answer to the question of you know what to do. Why aren't you doing it? Because that emotion comes up in the moment. Emotion comes up and now we start listening to that story in our head about I can't do this, or I want to quit, or I don't feel like it, or it's too hard, or I can't finish. Right? Um, and it's such a great example of you leveraging higher agency decision making in that moment and saying, this story that I'm telling myself isn't true. I can't finish this, I'm gonna tweak it, scale it, and you honored the higher agency decision to complete something you said you're gonna complete. Keep the promise that you made to yourself in that moment, and that's the secret. I think people, and correct me if I'm wrong, let me know if you get this or not from people. Over the course of the weekend, Sam accused me of being super disciplined. And I think there's a misconception where people look at your physique, look You online doing stuff. You own a gym, and it's always easy for you to go do a workout, or it's always easy for you to get through a workout. But they might be surprised that you have these conversations on a on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Right? So it's just not one off. Like this happens a lot for you.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Well, it's harder right now because I'm doing it by myself.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Like in the middle of a class, I am I am trying to think. I don't think I have ever stopped a workout in the middle of a class. I know I have stopped a workout when I'm working out by myself because I've decided three rounds was fine. I don't need to do six or whatever, because I let the emotional side of things win. If I am surrounded by other people that I know are also working and pushing, and there's a coach, you know, leading and all of that, like that emotion is different. So in particular right now, like some days even the getting started for me is a challenge. Right. Because I know I'm getting started on my own. Sure. The class isn't getting warmed up. I don't have the coach in front, like hyping the energy and uh asking us the question of the day and talking about, you know, like what whatever story is being communicated to the room. I'm like tucked in a corner, got my own equipment, got my own, and and unlike you who's got, you know, audiobook or podcast playing in your ear, and you're like working through whatever new idea you have or problem that you're trying to solve.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Like, I'm just here and yet doing the thing. And yet you get the workouts done.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah, this week they were really good. I did very well. I and I think I even deadlifted, and I hate deadlifts.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

I think that's such a great example, right? Like higher agency decision making. Higher agency decision making isn't some place you get to, and now it just happens effortlessly for the rest of your life. I was listening to an audiobook this morning, and Seth Gerdon was talking about this idea uh of the infinite, infinite games. Some games you play that are just infinite, like catch. There's no winner or loser, you just play catch. The point is to participate. And health, wealth, happiness, they're really, we should really think of them as like infinite games. Like we're just participating. There's no winner, there's no loser. Uh, there's no number that you get to on your blood test results that says, yes, I finally made it. I can stop doing whatever. Instead, high agency decision making is all about like just participating because it's a skill, you got to practice it all the time. You can get caught in a in a spiral where you just start making low agency decisions and success. And many times you're just making more high agency high agency decisions more often. And I think that's what has really helped you be successful in your fitness and wealth and happiness journey. So I had a moment where emotions came up for me.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Slightly different than my workout situation.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yes, I committed to cutting the grass today, one of my household chores. And I was out on my run this morning, thinking about I was listening to an audible book, thinking about how great life is, weather starts rolling in, temperature drops. I'm like, oh, rain's coming. Hmm, maybe I don't have to cut the grass today. Maybe I don't have to do that. Man, wouldn't it be nice not to cut the grass today? So now I'm going on my run. Going, I I did like uh almost eight miles this morning. Going on my run, and I think to myself, man, I just want to, I'm tired. I just wanna I just wanna get Chipotle and have my lunch, take a shower, take a nap. That's all I want to do. I do not feel like cutting the grass. And isn't that the worst emotion? I don't feel like it. Does that come up for you a lot?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Uh not a lot, I don't think, but it comes up before I work out. I don't I don't want to go to the grocery store. Oh I don't want to do the laundry, like, you know, the remenial non-glamorous things, but I like to have healthy food in the house. If I don't go to the grocery store, there will not be healthy food for me to eat. Yeah. At which point, then I'm like either sitting here starving or I go buy something that's not healthy.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I don't like so when we talk about this idea of like uh you know what to do, why aren't you doing it? I don't feel like it is probably I'm thinking the number one answer. I don't feel like it. I'll do it on Monday. It doesn't matter. Probably my top three uh choices. And uh throughout the course of my life. And I felt all of those today when I was debating about cutting the grass. It was real, and it was it's such a small thing, you know. I mean, it's like one of such a small moment.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

But also for our listeners, we have a very small yard. Oh like when he says it's such a small thing, we don't have like acreage of land. We live in this relatively confined small cul-de-sac, and we don't even have a backyard because it's a swimming pool and it's on a conservation area. So when we talk about mowing the lawn, it's literally like a tiny little parcel in the front of our house.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

It's not that tiny. I was just to be clear, it's not that tiny. Takes me about 20 minutes to cut it and then um leaf blow it, and then I need to get more edging string because we're out of edging string, so I can edge it. So maybe 25 minutes. But um anyway, so I'm going through all of this like on the drive home, and the the sky's clearing up, and I'm just having this whole discussion in my head about cutting the grass. I don't feel like it. I'll do it on Monday. I wonder how high, how high does it have to get before we get an HOA warning letter? Is our neighbors' grass way taller? So they'll leave us. The neighbors just cut their lines, so then it makes ours look even longer. No, and then I was like, man, I don't want to wait till Monday. And then finally, I paused. Paused and asked myself a question, and pause is part of this uh the proof concept that we've been rolling out in the business. Um, this idea that you can pause and ask yourself a series of questions and say, hey, why is this coming up for me? What is is this story actually real? Like, am I actually too tired to cut the grass? I just lifted legs, I just went on a zone to slash uh run slash walk. Am I really too tired to take the 20 minutes to cut the grass? Probably not. And then I started thinking about you know, the future, Alan. Like when I'm sitting, laying in bed, filling out my journal, and it's on my to-do list. Do I get to um cross it out, like I did it? And then I went down this hole of like rabbit hole of like, well, I want to be a good husband. Katie's does so much at the business, she does so much at the house. The least I could do is cut our little yard. Um, and then I want to be a good neighbor. Like, I don't want to be that guy. I don't want us to have that house that's our.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Yeah, I don't want that house either.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Like disheveled. Um, so all that to be said, so I decided I was gonna give myself a little treat when I got home. So I had a fizzy water. What's a fizzy water? It's just basic um it's just it's a sparkling flavored water.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Sparkly flavored water. We just call them fizzy water.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

I had a sparkling flavored water and it was delicious. And then I went out and cut the grass. And it literally took like 20 minutes. Like my whoop recorded an activity for 19 or 10 minutes. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Increased your strain and everything.

unknown 31:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

But I think that is, I mean, for me, when I think about uh when people say you're disciplined or they look at you, and I think I was touching on, I was going, this is where I was going before. They look at you and they think, oh, you must have no problem getting up and go to the gym and not have these types of conversations with yourself ever. And I think people think of that about me, like, oh, you're so disciplined, you go to the gym. I have these conversations myself all the time. At least two or three days out of the week about getting up and going working out. Um, at least a couple times a week about maybe we should go out and grab XYZ for dinner, or grab these snacks, or grab gummy bears, or grab whatever. Um, and then today was just another example of like it's just cutting the grass. It takes fit, you know, it takes 20 minutes, but like I had this whole daggone debate in my head about getting it done. Um yeah, so for you for you, like how often does that come up for you? Not just the gym, but just in general, um, with the business, where you find yourself saying, hey, I committed to doing this and now I don't feel like it, or I could do it tomorrow, or I could do it on Monday, or it doesn't matter. Like, how often does that come up for you?

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I don't think it comes up super often. Where it does come up are the things that either I am not super familiar with, I'm not super comfortable with, or I don't feel like I'm an expert in. So quarterly we have to pay sales tax to the state of Florida based on how many t-shirts we sell, how many bottles of water, um, how many beverages we sell, like that kind of stuff is basically what we're you know, reporting and sending out for those. So I know what I have to do. I actually the last time like documented the process for myself so that every time I don't have to go rifling through a bunch of old paperwork to find the codes and the the login details and all of the uh business specific numbers that have to go onto this tax form. Uh but I'm four and a half years into the business, and every quarter I have to do this, and every time it comes up, I am notorious for waiting until the last minute because there's a due date, right? And then if you're late, you get a fine. And if I'm being transparent, there were a couple years, or not a couple years, a couple quarters in the early years that I didn't get it done on time because I had no idea what I was doing and I was still trying to figure it out and I was learning as I was going. Um now it's a matter of if if it were to be late, it would purely be because I was having that internal battle of like I don't feel like it. I don't, but it's because I still don't feel super confident. Like everyone every once in a while, our reporting software where we track all of our sales, like they change the report structures and then the reports that I have saved maybe don't yield the exact same result or the the formatting is different, and so then I have to learn the new format. Like just right, like silly little things that I am capable of, but it's mentally more exhausting for me to deal with that. So um instances like that, the budget, right? Like I know we have enough money to cover the bills, so do I really have to do the budget? Do I really have to pay attention to this? Or can I kick the can down the road a few more weeks and then just do it one time at the end of the month instead of every other week? It's it's the things that I don't enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

It's f it's interesting um that you were you're able to you're so much better at it now, to able to navigate that. Do you feel like I mean I don't feel like it is the quintessential, like it is a classic, it's just it's a feeling, it's emotion. And emotions can become instructions if we allow them to, right? Like I'm like I'm too tired, or I'm too sad, or I'm you know, those types of things. How would you how have you kind of work through those things?

SPEAKER_01 35:43

In most cases, if it if I don't do it, it doesn't get done. Like, right, like in the in the scenario of mowing the lawn, if you don't mow the lawn, I can mow the lawn.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Well, sure. Like well, sorry, I can also do the taxes. Yeah. But I would have to train you how to do the taxes. I'm gonna edit all this out because this is I don't like this. So I'll ask you again. Feelings are information, not necessarily instructions. What do you do to set like not allow the feeling to become the instruction? Like to dictate, like, this is how I'm gonna operate.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

I don't think I understand.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

I'm too tired. Are you? Are you too tired?

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Oh, I okay. Yeah, no, like you're not too tired. Most of the time, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

All right. Let's see here. Um why do you think um feelings overcome the plan that we lay out for ourselves? Why do you think that happens?

SPEAKER_01 37:09

I think by nature people are emotional. That's like part of the human condition. I am hyper-emotional. I am like an overly emotional person.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Do you think we always have to obey the feelings that come up for us? No.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

I d I don't think I don't think that's actually healthy to let your emotions get the best of you. I think you spiral when that happens, and it's usually spiraling into a negative situation. Like I I can't I don't know if there's ever been an emotion that I've been like so overjoyed or like so in love that it's driven me to do something that would be detrimental. But like on the contrary, like I've been so overwhelmed with stress or grief or sorrow or you know, anger or whatever, right? And then like you wallow in that, and those become detrimental, like that's that's dangerous, sure, depending on what your scenario is. So, no, you should not let your emotions take over. And I think that because we have a brain and a heart, there's this push and pull that as humans we have to navigate.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

I just I think so often that we do allow our emotions to take over, our thinking process. Like when I said before, like I don't feel like it was the per is the pervasive reasons why things don't get done that I say that I'll get that I that I commit to doing. I don't feel like it. Which is literally like the emotion. I just don't feel like doing it. Um whenever I get into uh I got into situations where it was like I wasn't going to the gym consistently or working out consistently, I don't feel like it. Whenever it was, I mean I knew I needed to do it, I just the emotion was like, I don't feel like it. Um when I know I needed to eat healthy, I don't feel like it. I know I committed to a plan, but I don't feel like eating healthy today. And I just think that emotions can be so misleading sometimes. They come from places that are like places and stories that have nothing to do with reality. Um, I'll give you a great example. Your workout, your description of this workout that you just went through involved you climbing a rope. Now there was a time in your life that getting Katie Thompson up on a rope was impossible. I was not likely. And the fact that you walk through this scenario where you're like, well, I know I could do a rope climb when I'm tired. Well, one. Not multiple. I know it's one. I'm down for it, I'm here. Um just shows like the emotions that you had about the fear that you had about climbing ropes and all that, unfounded. Like eventually you overcame them because they weren't grounded in reality. You just you overcame that. The emotion of like fear wasn't true. Or am I mis misremembering?

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah, you're remembering very accurately. I just there is still a fear when you're 15 feet above the ground, but I know I am strong enough so that out weighs the fear, I guess, or lessens the fear. No, I think because it's not gone entirely, right? Like I don't want to hang out at the top of the rope for 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

I think it's a great example of you not letting the emotion be the decision maker in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

I know I have the strength to do this thing. I know I have uh developed the skills. I can clamp my foot, I can, you know, I have the grip strength, the the mechanics are there. That is more powerful than the fear.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

If we if we take a step back and uh yeah, and um I think so many times we let emotions be the driving decision maker. I don't want to use coupons. This is something that was real for me. I don't want to use coupons at the grocery store because I feel embarrassed, even though using coupons is like a like a great way to build wealth. I don't want to use a budget because it makes me feel broke or it makes me feel cheap or it makes me feel like restricted, right? Yeah, I think this is the right word. But again, I'm letting in those cases where I I let the emotion dictate the outcome, I let it make the decision for me. What like, and it's not even, you know, forget the fact that it's true, not true, um, based on reality. You know what I mean? Like, like there's so many cases in in my life, and it sounds like if like maybe in yours too, where emotion really was a deciding factor. I'm not talking about like you get a sense there's a bear in the woods and you need to turn around and go home. Well, you should probably just turn around and go home. But when it comes to like your health and getting to the gym and working out, I don't feel like it won a lot for me.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yeah, I think part of the problem with that example or the eating healthy, right? I don't feel like it. It's easier for me, or like I like the flavors of my, I don't know, Panda Express more.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Um also in that moment, as we are making the emotional decision, aren't thinking about the long-term result.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Like, how is that gonna compound my decision today to give in to the emotion and do what feels easier, less, you know, less challenging, less mental capacity to get through the thing. And when we choose that on repeat, the starting over feels impossible.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Because now we've let ourselves get so far down the direction that we didn't want to be in. first place that we've in in my case and some of you know my past examples of ebbs and flows in my fitness like the comeback was harder than the first time in some cases.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

The this reality this is such an interesting conversation because like this past week this really showed up for me on this trip to to Dallas for this AI summit. There were some high agency decisions and there were some low agency decisions. And both of them and all three of them I was wrestling with these different emotions. So I get to the AI summit. I'm the only brown face in the room there's about 30 some odd people they're all tech people CTOs uh CIOs you know they speak the language of AI and databases and guardrails and prompts and I'm I'm probably the only operational person there. And so the first presentation starts you know we meet and greet blah blah blah first presentation starts and I have a question about how in my head I have this question about how this uh presenter had in his company decided to uh parse different projects and I went through this whole cycle in my head similar to the grass conversation about do I ask my question is it gonna sound silly it's an operational question not a technical question um the whole thing and so while he's presenting uh we we move towards the question and answer period I take my notes of my question and I go back and forth about like am I gonna do this like I feel nervous I feel I don't want to embarrass myself with a you know quote unquote dumb question and I end up asking the question I was like the second person to you know raise their hand ask a question or whatever and as I'm asking it there probably like a dozen people I can see start nodding their head and like giving it question right giving it a good question and he answered the question it was great and something I could take back with me to our company to do some things and maybe how how we think about how we're prioritizing projects inside the organization and I just man I felt proud of myself you know I've been doing this for this long it's not the first time I was the you know the only brown face in the room the least technical or one of the least technical people in the room and you know to be able to step up ask that question was big for me. Now you fast forward to dinner that night and I had gotten up I hadn't worked out that morning food was sparse just because it was traveling and they were bringing out the food and I know I committed to eating healthy on this trip and I was going to do the do well and I had done pretty well at lunch and they rolled out dinner and I probably had three pieces of cake he didn't tell me this until I had three pieces of cake it was red velvet cake too yeah and um I had you know we recently did our blood uh blood blood test and I I need to limit my refined sugar and I did not do that at the time and I thought to myself it didn't it won't matter this one time low agency decision I think on that one okay and then the third one was on the plane ride home on the plane ride home thunderstorms we're on a budget airline no ai no wifi no internet nothing's nothing's happening we're just sitting with a laptop with a notes page open and I had the option of getting frustrated and pissed off that we had to fly around in circles to let the storm uh um go by so we can land safely I was concerned that we might have to divert which was just a whole nother thing uh divert to a different airport and I asked myself in that moment like how can I maximize this opportunity? How can I I paused and I said to myself I can let the frustration take over or I can do something about my situation. And instead I decided to open my laptop and work on this dream that you and I have and I created a lot of posit like a lot of work that I'm really proud of sitting on this plane for three and a half hours. And it was it was just a culmination of culmination of all the conversations we've had thinking about our life together thinking about these moments that we have together and it was just really really good product work product that I was able to create so high agency asking my question low agency on the three pieces of red velvet cake high agency on maximizing the time I had on the flight without any internet connectivity it's a practice it is a constant ever evolving ever changing every day we have opportunities to practice pausing and thinking about our future self and try to make a higher agency decision.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Yeah so um you talked about the fire inspection what you didn't talk about is the frustration you felt after or probably during and after the fire inspection yeah how did you deal with it how did you respond to it I was pretty happy go lucky while going through the building and doing the walkthrough and um I asked a lot of questions because as she was pointing things out and I'm like we haven't changed this from last year. Did did fire code change right? Like is that a thing? And then you know she explained to me that yes fire codes do change it's typical every three years and come January they're gonna change again um so be prepared basically to whenever they come back again for next summer's inspection everything that we've covered you know this week or this time may be different as well but uh as it continued to go on and on and there was like even more things that to me just seem silly uh I am by no means like I have zero experience whatsoever in what should or shouldn't be considered appropriate for fire code. I I am not someone that should pass judgment. So I was getting frustrated and I caught myself like actually saying to her like this is this is I'm sure you can understand my frustration or something along those lines um because we've been in this building for August it will be nine years and we have not made changes to you know anything and um as she and I continued to talk more and she would explain you know certain things at one point she actually said well you're right to question this let me actually get my laptop and I will go through the specifics because I may have misinterpreted something or maybe this isn't actually you know what I remembered it being and so then she pulled out her laptop and she went through the um specifics and and as this is happening I'm recognizing that like she's just the messenger right so maybe the person who came last year was supposed to have done their job to this you know efficiency or or be this thorough um in their inspection and they didn't and she is doing this because it will provide the safest environment and I want to give that to every employee that I have every you know community member that we have every drop in that walks in right like there's this isn't something that I take lightly. So my frustration of you know just this new information settled a little bit I was less irritated. But then as I'm thinking through like you know Friday night I'm coaching and I like looking around at the I don't know exit lights that need to be replaced or the batteries or what I don't even know that wiring might be faulty and that could be causing the issue. And then Saturday when we're doing the walkthrough of like pointing you know stuff out and I'm communicating to you and showing you like all this stuff then of course I'm like irritated again that like these things just seem remenial or or silly like the building is almost exclusively windows. There are like a hundred doors in our place not really a hundred but there there is a plethora of doors if you cannot figure out where the exit is like I don't understand who is in this building that you cannot find your exits. So like just that kind of stuff I'm like whatever. So that inspection could have gone sideways pretty quick especially with frustration bubbling up I I I could have been very nasty to her but that's not gonna do anybody any good yeah like at the end of the day as a business owner this is our responsibility it's not our fault it's not our like we we didn't read fire code and then like deliberately go against whatever it says right like we we purchased an established business we've passed fire inspection previously we didn't make any adjustments to things that would then put us at risk and now we've you know found ourselves in this situation but at the end of the day like it's still our responsibility I have to fix it.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Yeah I know and um it's interesting my takeaway from that is as the emotion of frustration was building you chose not to let that be the default answer to just get frustrated with her and instead just leaned in and decided you needed to learn more about what was happening so you could um act on that responsibility. Right? And I I know for me in a lot of cases it's one place I can get better at when I'm faced with something that frustrates me lean in get curious and don't react or don't don't just react and I mean I think I was this happened the other other week I almost fired off an email I should have just because I was in that mode of like frustration react um so kudos to you I I mean she has a pretty thankless job I'm sure she is met with a lot of not pleasant discussions because her job is to come in and tell people like this thing is wrong yep and it's probably gonna cost you money to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

On top of this we have to pay them to do the inspection that's onto us.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

I love that so during the fire inspection during the workout during the um meeting that I went to sitting on the plane cutting the grass these are all eating the three pieces of velvet cake these a red velvet cake these are all little moments that if you add them up together you can start to see a pattern where things will benefit you if you lean into what I like to call the pause before you react the pause after the emotion hits now you have a pause and then you kind of think about all these things before you react so if we go back to the top it's not about knowledge right I think people plenty of people know that they should work out they should eat healthy they should live on a budget when it comes to the time to actually do the thing this emotion pops up and it takes over it's taken over for me it's taken over for you but now I think we're in a place where we recognize that that's not a good and maybe it comes with maturity but I think more importantly it comes with recognizing that the emotion doesn't have the 100% say on what happens next does that resonate with you and what you experience yeah I think I've I think I know that my experience plays into this because past me was hyper emotional and always almost exclusively made decisions based on emotion.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

I led with my heart constantly and I am the type of person who wears emotions on my sleeve so if I'm feeling something you can probably sense what I'm feeling I I believe that my experience in business and working for you know big corporations, small corporations now as a business owner I am forced to take more information in before making a decision because an emotional decision isn't always the one that includes all of the facts doesn't provide me with the most rational view of the big picture and because of that I have carried that over into my personal life which then helps with you know our fitness goals my general wellness and and well being our relationship our relationship with other people my relationship with my family how we budget how we spend our money the fact that we don't live beyond our means right it's it's we use the term budget all the time because it's a tool that we've adopted but realistically speaking like we're just we we spend less than we make and we invest what as much as we can. Yeah we can grow our wealth and put us in a financial situation to be able to retire at some point or live the life that we want because we've got additional money working for us that we aren't necessarily trading time for.

SPEAKER_00 59:58

It's so interesting we live in um a society we live we're surrounded by systems I know you don't like that word but we're surrounded by companies uh marketers salespeople who uh social media who actively want us to make nothing but emotional decisions all the time they want to tap into that emotion and tell you to buy this do this react click comment do the thing and what it sounds like is that we have to do the opposite of that at least that's my takeaway that we have to reject this idea that we have to react emotionally to the thing like the better option is just to pause and figure out does this the does my reaction move me in the direction that I want to go and that is so hard for some reason. Maybe because we don't talk about it maybe because like I said there's so many things telling us not to do that but when we do that at least when I've done that positive things have come out of it I did not feel good after three pieces of red velvet cake but I felt really good after answering my question in the meeting and after knocking out a bunch of work on the on the flight and I felt really good after the grass was cut by the way just so you it looked so good I told him when I came out I didn't know that he had this internal battle yeah and the lawn looked so good. Yeah you know what's funny about that um the the I say that this internal battle the the the pause wasn't that long like when you were when you were with the fire inspector I don't know if it was 15 minutes for you to get frustrated and then figure out you just needed to lean in and ask it couldn't have taken 15 minutes she was still there that's what I'm saying so so there for an hour and a half so I think when we talk about the pause I want to make sure it's not like half an hour. I mean it can certainly take half an hour or like six days or six days I guess it depends on what what decision are you trying to make.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

Sure are we like you know making a life change accepting a new job moving across the country uh spending you know 10 grand on something like maybe that's worthy of multiple days to pause are we are we pausing I couldn't take uh 20 minutes in the middle of my workout to pause and decide am I gonna make an adjustment and keep going or am I really gonna actually just stop and quit because my 15 minute time cap would have completely expired.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

So the pause just needs to be relative enough time to make a decision that moves you in the direction you want to go. Yeah I agree with you I agree with you so I mean um for all of those people who are still listening to this conversation um you don't necessarily need a bunch of additional knowledge and we can certainly help but you don't need a bunch of additional knowledge if you're not getting the things done that you want to get done it may be that you're letting your emotions dictate whether or not you do the thing and you don't have to turn your power over to your emotions.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:23

You don't have to be this person that just reacts all the time even though everyone around you all the companies and all the marketing and all the social media says that you should just react you don't have to yeah okay anything else thanks for listening where can they find us and should they subscribe because we haven't asked them to yeah we need to start saying this in the beginning and then we can repeat it in the end because we always close this way but now that we're having this conversation I'm recognizing that we should also add it to the beginning. So next time we will also have this at the beginning we are on YouTube cheesecurds and coffee we are on Spotify Apple Podcasts basically anywhere you get your podcasts cheese curds and coffee we have a Substack account that we haven't really talked about but you've mentioned um Build Your Proof a couple times so Alan Substack is under Alan Thompson A L L E N Thompson T-H O M P S O N.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

You can get some articles they usually coincide with what we've got uh on the episode as well and Instagram at cheesecurds and coffee you can also find us hanging out at Mousetrap Fitness I would ask anyone still listening still listening just to do one challenge this week and next time an emotion comes up you're making a decision next time let me back up you let's just say you plan to do this thing take this action you're gonna do a workout you're gonna finally fill out a budget you're gonna make a promise to your spouse and the moment arrives and an emotion comes up that says I don't feel like it or I'm too tired or some emotion that suggests to you that you shouldn't do it I would ask you to pause and think about it. What small action can you take in that moment that can move you towards making that thing true what small action can you take towards making that thing true even when you're tired even when the emotion comes up I'm not saying the emotion isn't true but I'm just saying the emotion doesn't have to have a hundred percent say in our actions so think about that next time hopefully maybe it might come up for you this week I'd love to hear your comments read your comments about it see you next week thanks