Shane reveals how to take back your time, set powerful boundaries, and build a circle that fuels your purpose.
Al Dunning's Advice and the Power of Intentional Influence
Welcome to this week's You Are Destined For Greatness. So I had a chance to interview and talk to and meet Al Dunning and take and go to some of his horse clinics. Al Dunning is one of the most respected and successful horsemen in the world. He lives in Arizona, and he's an exceptional horseman.
He said—one of the things he said to me is, he said, "Shane, life's too short to ride a bad horse." You know, when I thought about that, and I've kind of applied that to... my dad used to...people, my dad used to say, "Shane, birds of a feather flock together." You know, we've all heard that. We’ve all heard that we're the average of the five people that we spend the most amount of our time with.
What the point is, is how much other people influence us. And here's the thing about that. This happens with horses, and it happens in our personal life, and that is we're not really intentional about it.
How We Drift Into Unchosen Influences
You know, that looks like a pretty good horse, I'll try that one. Or it kind of goes like this in life, we just end up in a school that we didn't choose, and we just kind of bump into and happen chance, you know, get involved in groups and people that seem easy, and we kind of go on like that.
We end up after school and college, we end up at a job that we chose but not around people necessarily that we chose. We spend all this time with them. Sometimes those relationships develop to bigger relationships outside of work. Then we move into a house or apartment or whatever, and we move into a place, and we happen to spend time and make friends with all of our neighbors. And none of that's bad, it's just not intentional, right? It's like maybe it's good and maybe it's not, if you're not paying attention.
Because remember, our default to our brain is going to be to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. And while those things don't sound bad, that's not how you achieve more and become more and experience all that there is available in this world.
Intentional Input: The Key to Growth
And the same thing goes with people, okay? If it's not intentional input, chances are you're not going to be able to reach as much as your potential that you're available to be able to be had in this lifetime. Same with horses.
Three Steps to Intentional Input
In this week's podcast, check it out. I go through three steps to intentional input, okay? And those, I'm gonna give you the three steps. Here they are. This is important, okay?
Step 1: Do an Audit
Number one is to do an audit. Sit down, just take a few minutes. Audit is a pretty strong, ugly word. It reminds me of the IRS. And I've been through some of those, and they're not fun. But take a few minutes and look at yourself, okay?
You can make it as big and complex as you want or as simple and as short as you want, but take a close look at yourself and say, who am I spending my time with? What movie and media, okay? Not just people, media. Books, if you listen or read books. All the different media channels. All your TV and movies and series and all the stuff, right? Magazines and everything.
Most importantly, the human beings that you're spending how much time with. Take a close look at it. Start to make some decisions.
You might have to make some hard choices. Because well-intentioned people, they are destroying our dreams. They are not helping us get to where they're... They're fully good intentioned. There's nothing wrong with them. It's just not our best use of time.
Step 2: Calendar Your Intentions
Second of all, once you've taken a close look, is to put your time and how you want to put your time into a calendar. Put it into a calendar. What are you going to do? How much time are you going to spend this week on movies? How much time in media? How much time on Instagram? How much time on TikTok?
How much time are you going to spend, you know... phone rings? Oh, two hours. It was two hours later. You didn't expect a call. You're going to take the call. You're going to get off the call?
Even though it seems intense, even though it's difficult, just be purposeful and put it into the calendar of what you want to do with your time, okay? It's easy to get it in there, but then you have to follow through. Step two is to get into the calendar and follow through.
Step 3: Go Find the Right People
And step three is—hey, the people that are going to help you, that are going to lift you, that are going to push you, that are going to give you the knowledge and the skills and the motivation and the inspiration and back you up, and appreciate you and build you up—they're probably not lined up at your door waiting to come in.
You know, you might have to do more than just open the door. You're going to have to go out and find them, okay? That's the way it is. It is your responsibility and my responsibility to seek out the media and the human beings in our lives that we want in, okay?
Be Intentional—Because You're Worth It
Here's the deal, okay? You're worth it. I'm worth it. We're all worth it. If you're not really sure about that, I'm going to ask you to take my word for it.
You only get so many breaths until all the breathing is done and there won't be any more—no do-overs. So if you take a look at your time, I don't want to regret it. So, I'm doing my best to be intentional with the human beings and the media and whatever that I put into my brain, okay, because it comes out. And I'm going to ask you to consider doing the same thing.
Because I'm telling you what, you know, and I know, You Are Destined For Greatness.
