What's up guys, welcome back to the Homework Assignment Podcast.
I'm your host, Rj Patino, and today we're going to talk a little bit about change.
Podcasting first of all is a lot of freaking work, I can tell you that much.
It takes time and it takes dedication and it takes a lot of planning, a few of those
which we are a little bit bad at, but at the end of the day it definitely, not only I think
helps other people, but it definitely helps me and I think those of us that are actually
making this and producing this.
Last night I was reading a book, my daughters always want me to read a book at a time, so
they brought me this book about this dinosaur who discovered hamburgers, for those of you
that have read it, you know what I'm talking about.
But basically it really is that, I forget the dinosaur's name, but he lives in this
village and there's all these great kinds of food, they got french fries, chicken tenders,
pizza, really all the basic American food so to speak even though most of those aren't
even American, but he felt like there was something missing.
And so the book goes on to tell the story of this dinosaur's journey through the land
that he lives in and him pulling up to a bread, or like yeah, a bread forest, finding pickle
plants, a river of mustard and another river of ketchup and anyways he basically discovers
all the key ingredients to make hamburgers.
Then at the end he goes through a little bit of trial and error on how to stack his hamburger,
whether he has bread, you know, patty, bread and then all the toppings and condiments and
you know he finally got it just right and he realized that this is what was missing.
How many of you guys feel like there's something missing in your life?
How many of you feel like there's just something that needs to be added to your home life,
to your work life, to your business, to just everything in general maybe or to your emotional
stability, mental stability.
I think at various points in our lives there's something missing and I think as we grow up
and we experience life and we venture into new careers, new paths, we enter into new
problems and therefore there's something we're missing, right?
Everything in life is trial and error and the only way to discover what you're missing
is to seek for what you're missing is one of them, to acquire the knowledge and find
out what it is and then a lot of times you have to apply that knowledge and which that
means it leads you to change, right?
It leads you to changing something about yourself or an action that you're doing to acquire
a new outcome, a new result, right?
Change can be pretty hard.
I don't know about you guys but for me change is fortunately and unfortunately very consistent
in my life and it breeds a lot of results as well as maybe some results that we don't
want some of the times but it's essential.
It's essential to life itself, it's essential to success and every aspect of life and change
can be a little frightening at times I think for those of you that follow this podcast
you may know about some of the changes that we've been doing here in our company, elder
contracting and some of the new systems procedures as we have break in some thresholds and breaking
points and revenue and we've grown and added more people to our company.
Our structure has shifted a little and changed and come to find out we were missing key components
in our structure, right?
That's that question what am I missing?
There is something missing here and so we had to go on a little bit of a journey ourselves
into the hamburger forest to find these key ingredients that needed to be added to our
DNA as a company in order for us to complete ourselves and be able to acquire what we're
seeking, right?
Which what we're seeking is success.
We're seeking to change the world, to disrupt our industry and a lot of us you know we're
big on self-development so a lot of us are also trying to change things at home and if
being able to accept that change is needed I think you know let's go through the steps
of change.
First you have to identify, right?
Let me back up.
First you need to accept that there's something missing.
You need to realize there's something missing then you have to find what is missing.
Once it's found you have to develop a plan to apply it and a plan to execute applying
it right and make it work and then adapt.
I think that word change and adapt right I think they're synonyms I'm pretty sure.
What?
What are they?
Synonymous, yeah.
Synonymous?
Yeah.
Same thing, you could've just left it at synonyms
Anyways so, but I do think they have two different meanings.
Maybe that's not the right way to put it but let's think about it.
Change what is change?
Change is pivoting, altering the things that you are currently doing for a different outcome.
Adapting is also change right?
Synonyms but I think personally adapting is to transform yourself to transition yourself
to make what you're being handed work.
So rather than changing the situation perhaps you're adapting yourself to fit the situation.
And I know that may seem like they're the exact same thing but for some reason in my
head they feel different.
When I say I need to adapt into this situational workspace or if I need to change myself or
change the situation itself.
To me they're just two different things.
And I'm not trying to geek out too much on the definitions of each word, but I do think
they have two different impacts.
And I know we've gone through kind of both of the impacts of change and adapting.
We've applied new systems which is change.
We've changed the way we do things.
And then we have other systems that we've disciplined ourselves and adapted our lifestyle
to fit to go hand in hand with some of the systems that we've been doing to better them
right?
And it's been, it's hard right?
Nothing's easy.
I don't think anything that's truly rewarding should ever be easy.
Everything that has the most fruitful reward is going to be hard.
And it's hard to maintain that mindset when you're going through change.
But I think we all know change is essential.
So what is missing from your guys' life?
What is missing from your home life and your work life?
And how can you make the changes add to it, take away, alter, adapt in order for you to
be more successful?
In the past couple of weeks we've gone through some changes that were unforeseen.
Meaning right there's always changes you plan for, adaptations you know you have to make.
And then there's the things that are surprises.
We've had a couple surprises the last couple of weeks.
You know we're not perfect right?
No company is perfect.
We have problems.
We're a successful company but that doesn't mean that our jobs go as planned.
That doesn't mean that all of our clients end up 100% happy at the finish line.
It doesn't mean that we don't make mistakes like for getting to plumb in a certain fixture
or maybe our supers didn't take a look at the electrician's lighting sequence and ones
off two inches and they don't line up.
We make mistakes.
But there are those mistakes that come with the territory.
And there's the ones that are just surprises.
So what do you guys do when you get a surprise change?
A surprise pivot in your schedule, in your plan, whether it's a short term plan, long
term plan.
And it just completely shakes you as a person or shakes your company or shakes your home
life.
I think those moments are some of the most pivotal moments in who people are and how
companies are going to, whether a company is going to succeed or fail.
Because life itself consistently is throwing curveballs at us.
There's consistent changes and changes to our economy, changes to life.
Maybe some of you have lost a loved one that was unexpected.
There's changes to people, I guess, and their genders.
Which is interesting.
But there's changes all around.
So what do you guys do when you're when you're hit with a curveball?
I think I've seen enough of people who have changed, people who say they're changing and
people who have tried and failed at changing to know that it comes down to one thing.
And that is deciding to actually do something about it.
I've talked about this before.
And the reason I'm talking about it today is because I'm currently writing a book and
I have read quite a few books about money, like finances.
I've read books about building businesses.
I've read books about being a better person.
And in my journey to change my life, in my journey to become someone different than I
was, it came down to one thing.
And that was deciding.
And I want to share a little bit about.
Oh, I just hit the camera.
You're good.
Am I good?
And that was a change that shook the world right there, guys.
I want to talk a little bit about change and how it's affected me and how I felt going
through change and how the outcomes of the change affected my life and my home life and
my work life.
So I, as I started to build my business, there was like one thing that I there was a bunch
of stuff going wrong in our company for a little while.
And I used every excuse in the book.
They're growing pains.
It's normal.
We just have to get through this because this is going to give us experience of what not
to do again and et cetera.
And I used it quite frequently.
I felt that a lot of the problems that were happening were part of the territory.
I felt like a lot of the problems that were happening were probably mistakes of other
people.
I felt like people were making the same mistakes that I've already made 10 times and wasn't
sure why they're making it again and again.
I've like I said, I've used every excuse in the book.
And a little while ago, it finally dawned on me that the problem wasn't the territory
of the industry.
It wasn't the people that I worked with.
It wasn't my clients and it wasn't growing pains.
The problem was me.
And from that moment, my entire trajectory of my company and my personal who I am as
well as my family has drastically changed.
I don't remember what book I read it in.
It's either by Ed Mylett or Grant Cardone, but they talk about assuming all responsibility.
What does it mean to assume all responsibility?
It means that no matter what happens, no matter what goes wrong, it's somehow your fault.
And I think the example that they use in the book was that if somebody was driving behind
you, you're at a red light, you're parked and somebody was driving full speed and they
crash into whose fault would that be?
Well, a lot of people would say it's the person that was driving that didn't see the people
that was stopped at a stoplight.
It's that person's fault.
Yet what could have you done differently to have changed that outcome?
Now that I remember it was Ed Mylett.
It was Ed Mylett that talked about this.
He talked about, well, maybe you could have left a little bit earlier.
Maybe you could have got dressed faster.
Maybe you could have went a different way.
Maybe you could have chose a different lane, but everything you did led you to that point
to get rammed from behind at a red light.
Now of course it's really easy to say, hey, this guy messed up, but the power of assuming
all responsibility leads to change.
Okay, because every situation in life, we can come up with an excuse.
We can blame somebody else and it's easy to do that and feel fully justified.
And sometimes you may be fully justified, but then that experience will not breed change
or adaptation in you.
And therefore it does nothing for you.
It does nothing for you.
And going back to my experience and realizing that I was a problem, that things that I was
doing were the cause of everything going wrong and assuming that full responsibility absolutely
changed me.
Why?
Because I finally realized that I had to do something different.
I had to adapt and implement change into myself in order for everything around me to change.
We talk about peer or friend groups, peer pressure, all that kind of stuff.
Well, you are who you hang around.
My parents used to tell me that all the time.
You know, like you are who you hang around.
If you're hanging around bad kids at school, then you're probably not making the best decisions.
It used to irritate the crap out of me because I used, hang out with Kyle over here.
Kyle is a good kid, but just kidding.
Just kidding about being a good kid.
But you know as a kid you think you know everything, but looking back now, how true is that?
And now I'm over here teaching the doctrine to everybody else that I know that like, hey,
you need to surround yourself by people that bring you up, that are better than you, that
are you know on the path to betterment and to success in order for you to get better.
And being able to finally understand that you have it's now in your hands.
Everything that's going wrong around you is the solution is you.
That is a powerful realization.
Understanding that you don't have to depend on anybody.
You don't have to depend on mom, dad, friends, teacher.
You don't have to depend on anybody but yourself to get you out of the situation you're in,
to better it and to breed results and breed success.
And again, this goes into business.
This goes into maybe your marriage, maybe, you know, a hobby.
It goes into everything.
Assuming full responsibility breeds change.
Now may sound easier than it is.
I'm sure some of you are thinking that and it's it is harder than it sounds 100 percent
because there's one key element to there.
You have to actually do something about it.
That is what I'm writing about is the power to choose.
It takes one decision, one decision.
That is it.
Whatever you're struggling with, whatever needs to change in your life, whatever you're
doing, if it's not breeding the results you're craving, if it's not taking you down, you
know, the path to achieve your vision, there is change that needs to happen.
Well, guess what?
You don't need to wait for a loan.
You do not need to wait to meet the right person.
You do not need to wait to move out of your house.
Whatever excuse you're thinking of in your head right now, it's wrong.
The only thing you need to do is decide to act because you cannot breed results without
acting, without doing something.
Everybody wants to be a millionaire.
But what are they doing to achieve a million dollars?
They're probably at home eating hot Cheetos, watching vampire diaries.
That used to be me.
Don't judge the choice of TV.
But at the end of the day, again, when I go through my experience, when I'm able to look
back and decide or, you know, look back at that deciding factor of like what made me
change my life.
I wasn't in the best place in my life.
I've told the story a few times on here and I was making every wrong decision.
I was hanging out with the wrong people and I was yearning for something greater.
But it never happened time and time again.
No matter how much I wanted it, no matter how much I tried, no matter how much I prayed
for it, it never happened until the day I decided, you know what?
I'm done.
It's over.
It's through.
I am making a pivot and I'm going to do something different.
I got up, I left, moved in with somebody else and started my journey and it has led me here.
And the change is drastic.
And I've been able to see my friends make those changes and I've been able to see the
friends that didn't make those changes.
And it's day and night comparison.
And it's so hard for me to watch people suffer and watch them wallow and feel like victims
because maybe they felt they weren't dealt the right cards.
Well, you know what, RJ?
I don't know the same people as you.
You know what, I'm not as lucky as you.
That's one that pisses me off.
I'm not as lucky as you.
None of this is luck.
It's action and it's results and it's not perfect, but it's something to show.
Right?
Or RJ, you know what?
All the worst cards you could imagine are against me right now.
You could have the absolute worst life situation you can think of that anybody can think of.
Yet the one thing that can change you, change your life and get you out of the position
you're in is you.
And it's the only person, it is the only thing that can do it for you.
There is a, I don't know if it's a parable, a story of, and I'm sure many of you guys
have heard this and I'm sure you've heard it in a million different forms because that's
just how the world works.
This guy is stuck out at sea and he's stranded out in the ocean and he's praying to God and
he's asking God, please save me.
Lord save me.
Little time passes by and a boat comes and the boat says, here, we're here to save you.
And this guy said, no, my God will save me.
I'm sure these guys looked at him all funny and like, okay, and they motorboated off whatever
that verb is.
Then the guy continues to pray, Lord save me.
Please help me.
Please save me.
Another boat comes by a little bit later.
We're here to save you.
My Lord will save me.
My God will save me.
I'm waiting for my God to save me.
They went off.
Man continues praying, Father, please save me.
Then a helicopter comes search and rescue.
We're here to save you.
Now you know, this is a story, you know, a false story, obviously, or a metaphor because
obviously search and rescue would not leave this guy in the ocean.
But for the story's sake, he says, my God will save me.
So the helicopter leaves.
The man dies in the ocean.
Gets up to heaven and says, God, I prayed.
I waited and prayed for you to save me.
Why did you forsake me?
Why did you not come?
And God said, I sent two boats and a helicopter to you.
And I'm sure most of us are told that as a kid, you know, that story, or if you haven't
heard it, it is a good, a good point, a good lesson.
It's always stuck with me, though, because sometimes we miss the mark.
Sometimes we are looking for a grand change, something dramatic to happen for us to actually
change like, oh, I want to be a millionaire.
All right.
Well, I'm just going to keep betting on the lottery.
Right.
Or just like that story.
Hey, I want to be saved.
Yet he passed up every opportunity to be saved.
Sometimes we miss the mark.
Sometimes we think the change in our lives needs to be some big pivotal moment, like
becoming famous, for example.
And therefore we miss some of the greatest opportunities.
In our one of our business meetings, we were taught a lesson about how the small things
matter in life.
I've heard that phrase apart from the gospel.
I've heard that phrase a lot in relationships.
Women always say it's the little things that matter.
It's the little things that matter.
And it's true.
The little things do matter because you can wait 10 years for the big thing to happen
or you can do the small things frequently, consistently without pause.
And you're going to get to that thing you've been waiting for that you were going to wait
for for 10 years within a couple of years because small, consistent movement brings
results.
And the change that sometimes we think we need may be too small to think it will have
an impact.
Therefore, it doesn't happen.
So to kind of wrap this up and review a little bit.
Number one, you need to understand that you are the problem.
Whatever problem you have in your life, it's probably your fault.
Whether someone crashed in the back of you at a stoplight or whether somebody made a
terrible decision that affected you somehow, someway, it's your fault.
You made a decision.
You made a move that puts you in the position to be hurt.
Okay.
Number two, after assuming all responsibility, then comes the time to plan and act.
Then after that, you breed the results.
I 100% wish that people could understand the amount of power they have to change and that
people could understand that it doesn't need to be something big.
It could be something small.
And a lot of times it's sitting right in front of your face.
Had one of our subcontractors come in here, really awesome guy, and he's grown his business.
And he's like, you know what, RJ?
I am working my butt off.
I am trying to be successful.
I'm investing in my company.
I'm investing in myself.
And I'm doing everything I can.
I'm not taking any money from my company.
My wife is a nurse.
She's paying the bills right now.
We're just trying to make this thing work.
And it's hard.
Well, he's right.
It is 100% hard, right?
Being able to understand that you have the power to change where you're at is the most
important aspect of starting a home life, starting a work life and succeeding in both
of those areas.
I cannot emphasize it enough.
You after everything that can go right in your life, everything else that's going wrong
is simply because with the things that went right, you made the right choices, made the
right changes, and you acted, and these things, you're not applying as much effort there.
And it may sound crazy.
You may say, you know what, RJ?
You're wrong.
I've tried every single thing, right?
Like this kid, I've tried everything to get you.
I'm trying everything.
That's fantastic.
What are you doing wrong?
What are you screwing up?
I get you're trying.
That's fantastic.
But you're doing something wrong if you're not bringing results.
And I'm not saying this kid wasn't bringing results.
I'm just going off of that experience, right?
I'm doing everything I can.
I'm trying so hard.
Well, that's fantastic.
What are you not doing?
What are you not changing?
If you are doing something consistently and it's bringing you no results, well, guess
what?
It is time to change.
It is time to adapt.
It is time to implement a new system.
Go back to the drawing board and figure out what is not working and figure out a different
way to get it to work or a different method to get what you're trying to achieve.
You cannot escape change and change is a consistent thing in business and home.
And if you think you can run away from it, you're very, very mistaken.
And it's really interesting, you know, talking about all this because sitting here now after
as much responsibility as I have assumed in the past, I don't know how long and as much
changes I've implemented, as much action that I've taken.
I sit here and feel like I'm not doing enough.
You guys, all of us that want to be successful, right?
And I'm not talking about getting your.
Unfortunately, I'm right now.
I am not talking about just success being successful.
I'm talking about being ultimately the utmost successful you could be in what you're doing.
There's one thing that needs to happen, and that is you need to be obsessed with change.
You need to be obsessed with you need to have more wants to change than you do breathing,
than you do money, than you do anything else in your life.
Because if you have enough want and obsession over change, your life is going to breed more
than what you're hoping for.
Because what people fail to understand, and I'm talking probably a little political here,
is that people think they can stay idle, that they can be slothful people, and that they
can get by by doing the very minimum or by consistently doing things wrong.
I went to, so at our builder conference in Austin, Texas, and I forget the guy's name,
gosh dang it, but he owns an instruction school basically on building.
It's like building science basically.
It's the science behind building construction.
And he says, there's a lot of people in here that are good at doing things wrong, meaning
nobody knows that they're wrong because they may hold up.
They may last 20 years like they're supposed to, but doesn't mean that it was built right.
And that got me.
Okay, well, there's a lot of people out there that know they're doing something probably
not right.
Maybe they didn't follow the directions to 100%, but they still got a good enough result.
And therefore, that is okay.
It's the mediocre, the average mindset that you know what, I just need to change a little
bit to get here and then I'm good.
If that's you, totally cool.
If it works for you, that's great.
But for us to become a different breed, a different animal, to be the absolute best
in everything we're trying to do, change needs to be an absolute obsession.
Change needs to be in every aspect of our lives.
Assuming responsibility, accepting that we need a change, implementing change, executing
change and moving on to the next dang thing that you got to change.
That is how you become one of the very few humans on this earth that is on the level
that I think, I hope most of you are trying to get on.
I know I am.
It can be overwhelming, 100%, but you guys need to be obsessed with it.
You need to want it consistently all the time, changing as much as you can, adapting as much
as you can, assuming your full responsibility and going forward and understanding that the
power to change the trajectory of your life, your mission, your vision lies within you.
No one can help you if you can't help yourself.
Going back to that story about that man that prayed and prayed and prayed, he did not let
God help him.
And yes, he missed the mark in that story.
That's a great story to show you both.
He missed the mark and he didn't allow God to help him.
But how many of you guys have what you need to change, but you're too stubborn, you're
too prideful to actually allow someone, maybe a curriculum or something to actually change
you.
It's time to allow it to happen, allow change into your life, assume full responsibility,
allow yourself to believe that you are the problem.
And I promise you, promise you everything is going to change positively.
Everything's going to get better.
Things are going to work out the way you want them to.
And only after you assume responsibility and you actually change yourself by putting in
actions.
If you have to write down exactly what you have to do every single day, like a gym plan,
hey, you know what, I want a six pack.
Okay, well, what are you going to do every single day for the next however long to get
that six pack, write out your plan and then execute.
Okay, this is I'm not talking about a new year's a new year's goal.
Okay, I'm talking about actually building a plan and committing to it and executing
it.
The greatest players in sports of all time.
And I'm talking I mean, there's been great players.
Let's talk about this.
There's been great players and great success stories or successful people in the world.
And a lot of these people, we have no idea who they are.
Well, it's because they embrace a little bit of change and they made it work and they succeeded.
And then at some point, they stopped.
At some point, it was enough.
And at some point, they didn't feel like they needed to do much more.
And there's the people like Michael Jordan, Kobe, LeBron, Tom Brady, in my opinion, Larry
Fitzgerald, that's my homie.
You know, the amazing people in the world that have changed the course of history, Ford.
I mean, Ferrari, I mean, I could think of all kinds of people.
And what these people did was they embraced change.
They embraced thinking outside of the box.
They embraced implementing new things.
They I mean, we talked about who created a light bulb, Edison, Thomas Edison, right,
created the light bulb.
Okay, how many times did he fail?
I forget how many times it was like hundreds of times that he failed and he kept going
back to drawing board.
He kept figuring out what he was doing differently.
But he accepted and assumed all responsibility.
I am doing something wrong.
This isn't working because of me.
This has nothing to do with it being possible.
It has nothing to do with being possible.
It was him.
And the only reason he achieved the only reason I have two lights right here in front of me
right now is because he decided that he was the issue.
He was a problem.
And he needed to change it to make it work and he freaking made it work.
And it changed the course of history for mankind.
What can you assume full responsibility for that can change the course of mankind that
can change your life?
Those are the things you need to focus on.
If you get anything out of this podcast today, I hope it's that you have the power to change.
You do not need to be codependent.
You do not need to rely on anybody else to change for you to change themselves in order
for you to benefit or for things to work out.
It's you.
You're the problem.
It's hard to say it.
If you hate me for it, it is what it is.
If you don't hate me for it, then I hope you apply it.
Or if you do hate me for it, I do hope you apply it as well.
I know I'm applying it.
I know our whole team's applying it.
I know it's done absolute wonders for us.
So life is a balance.
Work, life, everything in between.
It's insane.
It's chaotic and it's absolutely amazing.
If you choose to enjoy it, if you choose to do the things that can bring the results you're
looking for.
If not, you can sit down wallow in sorrow and have regrets at the end of your life.
So this is the homework assignment.
Okay, change guys.
Go find something.
Identify what needs to change in your life and then act on it.
Tune in for the next episode next week.
We're going to be doing another Q&A.
So again, post as many questions that you guys have on there.
I want to tackle some topics we haven't talked about before.
What are some things that you guys are dealing with on a daily basis that is just really
throwing you off?
Really getting in the way from you, from allowing you to achieve what you're trying to achieve,
from allowing you to live the life you're living.
I want to hear about it and I want to break those down and I want to solve this.
I want because I can tell you a lot of things you're dealing with, I'm dealing with myself
and half the other people that know whether successful or not successful, it doesn't matter.
We all go through the same stuff.
Cards are different.
I get it.
But at the end of the day, for those of us that are really trying to be the absolute
best we can be and trying to achieve success in what we're doing, we're going through and
battling the same battles.
They may come at different times.
They may be in different capacities, but we're battling them.
This is what this podcast is about.
Discussing it, brainstorming, working together, going through life experience and finding
out how to change, how to make things work.
If you guys haven't followed us, click the link below.
We have our elder contracting links in there so you can follow our business, see the work
that we do, follow our team and all the events that we do.
And then also the homework assignment.
Follow us on social media.
Share this podcast, guys.
Please tell other people about it.
We want to hear more from them.
We want everybody to be able to tune in and really focus on how we can balance this thing
called life.