#23: The Funnel of Life: Why Discipline Now Creates Freedom Later

What are the things that I can do now that's going to set me up for the rest of the year? Today's episode is going to be about a lot of things maybe that you've all heard in the past. I know growing up, I heard a lot of the analogies I'm going to use today, but they all go together so nicely. But the main topic today is the funnel of life. We think about the funnel of life and what could that mean? And here's what this boils down to. I'm going to use this descriptor right up front, which will really set the tone for the whole episode is the funnel of life. If you are living your life currently at the large end of the funnel, what does that mean? It means maybe right now we're having fun. We're doing the things that we really enjoy. We're just taking maybe the people around us for granted a little bit. We're going out, we're partying, we're having a good time. We're kind of living life right now in the fun zone. What does that mean? That means later in life, the more and more that we do, the more and more that responsibilities start to come among us, the more and more restricted we will be later in our life. And you guys can think of a lot of people, maybe in these situations, they live life at the very beginning. They're having a lot of fun. They're doing things and they start to realize, oh, wait, I'm still living with mom and dad. Things are getting really tough for me right now. Oh my gosh, life just seems to be doing one of these numbers on me. That's because at the very beginning of life, maybe we didn't have the discipline. Maybe we didn't have the things around us that we really needed to keep us structurally sound. We're living our life at the big end of the funnel, and it's only going to get harder as opposed to the opposite. A lot of you know this now, the more successful people that I have known in life, whether it's on a business front, whether it's with their families, whoever it is, they're the people who live life at the small end of the funnel, right off the bat. My dad used to ask me this all the time growing up. What's the end of the funnel you're going to live your life on? Are you going to be the more disciplined person now who maybe doesn't have as much opportunity right away because you're keeping yourself a little bit more grounded? You're going to school. Maybe you're going to that trade school. Maybe you're doing whatever it is at the beginning. You're putting the time, you're putting the effort in up front. Maybe we have to say no to more things right away, but it's because you're keeping yourself disciplined. You're keeping yourself grounded to the things that you absolutely have to do because you want to create more opportunity later in life. This goes really well for you younger generations who are watching right now. And by younger, I mean anyone under 40 maybe. But what is it that you're currently doing so that you're creating more opportunity later in life? I mean, think about even like your 401k. Are you putting disbursements into that? Does your job even allow you to do that? It's like, yes, I'm leaving a little bit tighter right now, but I know later I'm going to have the opportunity to live a little more freely. It's about making the decisions and doing the things now to set you up for more success later in life. And that's called living your life at the small end of the funnel now, more disciplined so that you create a lot more opportunity for yourself later. This also goes very well with another analogy that I heard, which is we all know about the professor who stood up in front of the class and was just like, okay, I've got this jar. Now this is another analogy I heard growing up, which is the professor who said, I've got this jar right now. And he had some rocks and he starts putting these big rocks into the jar. And he asked the class, is this jar full? And the big rocks were all at the top. And I was like, well, yeah, it's full. So then he grabbed some pea gravel and he starts pouring the pea gravel. And the pea gravel starts filling in around the larger rocks. And it's just filling up to the bottom. And it's almost all the way up to the top right now. And he's like, well, is the glass full now? And everyone said, well, no. They start kind of catching on a little bit, like no. So he grabs a bag of sand. He starts pouring the sand in. The sand's going down between the pea gravel. And it's just starting to fill up the whole jar. And all of a sudden now you've got this whole jar that's just full to the top. And is it full now? Well, then there's always still a little bit more room. So you grab some water and you start pouring the water in. And then the water's filled up to the top. So now you have this jar that's completely full and every single void is filled. Why is that? It's because he put the big rocks in the jar first. Now, what happens if you were to do the exact opposite? Put the water in first, all the way up to the top. Then we go in there and we start putting the sand in. Now the water's overfilling. Then we put the gravel in. And then we put the larger rocks in, right? It just doesn't fit the same. It's not compacted. Here's what that relates to. The big rocks are the things in our lives, like the people, the friendships, the family that we have, our health. Those things, the big things in life, are we accounting for those first now? And you could probably put into their tool, like your education, putting in the things right now that you really have to do, that you don't want to do, takes discipline to do, but you're really taking charge of those things really early on, right off the bat, because you know you have to. And then we start filling the fee gravel, which is like, what does that mean? Well, now I'm actually, I'm going out and I'm starting to purchase a home. I'm starting to invest in the things maybe that maybe make a little bit more sense outside of those core values, but things that are gonna set me up later in life. I have this great job. I've got maybe friendships. And then I'm going, maybe I do a little bit of funds mixed in there. And then we start pouring the sand in. Okay, we've taken care of the big stuff. Now I'm gonna go out and have some fun. Now maybe there's not as much fun now because you have that big stuff in there, but at the same time, you're able to pour in some fun and then you're able to, you fill in the blanks. But the most important things are taken care of first with the big rocks. If we do it backwards and we start pouring the fun in and we start doing the things maybe we shouldn't be doing that we know we're not supposed to be doing, those things then start to fill up the jar first. And what happens? Our life starts to overfill. So what happens when our jar is over full? When our jar is over full, then that's the things in life that really create a lot of stress and imbalance and things that are just now way out of control and out of whack. You want to have more control. You want to have more discipline. You want to set yourself up better in life. And where does that... Let's think about a funnel too. A funnel isn't something that stays so constricted, right? It gradually gets bigger and bigger. So we really put the disciplinary things in first. And as we start to get further and further on in life, the things that were so constricted before, now just anything outside that seems like more fun. So we slowly just start to enjoy life more and more and more. And we set ourselves up now that we're having a family. We've got kids. Now we're having grandkids. All of these things just fulfill us so much because we did the work at the beginning that we absolutely had to. Some of you right now need that reality check. And there's been times where I've needed that reality check. Every single one of us can use that reality check at some point in our life. It's like, what are we doing currently to set ourselves up for more success later? Let's talk about diet and health first. Maybe early on, we're thinking to ourselves, it really doesn't matter what I eat. It doesn't matter if I exercise. It doesn't matter what happens. You're living your life big now, I guess literally. Then what starts to happen? Then as you get further and further on, it gets harder and harder and harder to be more disciplined with our diet, with our workouts, with things like that because we set a standard early on. And then what does that do? Then that goes to our kids. Then that goes to our grandkids. And the standard we set was because we decided to not be as disciplined at the beginning. We take that to our work as well. We think to ourselves, okay, I'm going to get out of school and I'm just going to go get just doing a job, doing this or that. I want to take a year off. And sometimes we can do that. But some of us, we can't do that. Maybe for some of us, we have enough discipline where we can take those years off or we can go do something else. And then we know that we're going to get ourselves back on track. But for a lot of us, that's just going to snowball a little bit for us. What are we doing now to set ourself up and your family up better in life? What are the examples that we're setting? What are the things that we're doing? What are the things that we're teaching our kids? What are the things that we're doing towards? You put yourself in that area in life that you're in right now. Maybe you're a student. Maybe you're that young parent. Maybe you're someone who's got your kids gone. Whatever that situation is, there's always something that we can be improving on. It comes down to having discipline. It comes down to making sure that right now, I'm taking care of the things that I absolutely have to take care of now. You know, I think about, when I think about this, I think about a building. And there's a lot of analogies that can go back to a building. But we think about the steps that we're taking right off the bat. And I've talked about this previously too, but it's the things that we're doing when nobody's watching. It's the things that we're doing to make sure that that building is structurally sound so that later in life, you're doing the work right now. It's the stuff that you don't necessarily wanna be doing. It's not the fun stuff because you're not actually building. But you're doing the steps to make sure and planning for, okay, what's this house gonna look like? Then you start building. You got a great foundation. You got a great blueprint. You got something that you can really baseline your build off of. It always makes the build easier as opposed to, you know what? I just wanna start building. So you start getting out on site. You don't have a set of blueprints. You just start building. This is what, and then one wall's a little bit off. Then the next wall's a little bit off. Then you get up to the roof and everything's off. Yes, it was more fun to build, but you gotta put the work in first. This goes down a lot of different roads. I can tell you back at the very beginning when I started the business, there was a lot of things that I did before. I should have done the, there's times where I was saying to myself, man, I just wanna move into this bigger building, but I restricted myself. I can't do that yet. If I do that, I'm gonna put my overhead way more than it needs to be. And then I'm gonna be working for something, not just myself and my family making money, but I'm gonna be paying myself towards this other item. Now, yes, there is times where that makes sense to do, but at the same time, don't put the cart before the horse. Make sure we're taking care of the items right now that we have to ask ourselves. And again, I'm gonna challenge us again, just like I did in the last couple episodes, but we're coming towards the new year here. I mean, gosh, we're right there. So what a better time than right now to look at this and say, okay, at the start of the new year here in 2026, what are the things that I can do now that's gonna set me up for the rest of the year, for the next four or five years? There are things that we have to start doing now. Am I living currently at the big end of the funnel or am I living at the small end of the funnel? Am I putting the big rocks in currently or am I having all the fun and I'm pouring the water in right away? That's the easy step. That's always the easy things to do is to have the fun and always go back to it. And it always comes down to the things that we're doing when nobody else is watching. Isn't it crazy how it always comes back to that? What are the disciplinary things? What are the things that we're doing that aren't the fun things, but are the things that are gonna set us up for success later in life? Those are the things that we need to focus on. In 2026, the encouragement I have to everybody is when nobody's watching, do the things that are gonna set you up to live life at the larger end of the funnel later. Because if you do that now, if you really compress it, you really do those things right off the bat, I mean, a year or two always seems like a lot, but look back on your life at what happened in a three or four year time. And I know I can think back and think, man, I just did that a few years ago. It's like, no, that was actually six years ago. The future always seems a lot further away than the past does. It always seems like, man, I can't wait two years to do this. But at the same time, when you get to that two year mark, you're always like, man, I wish I would've done that three years ago. Things always look further away than they really are. Things are a lot closer than you think. Do those things now. Start taking the baby steps to start implementing the things here in 2026 that you wanna do to be more successful. Because as you slowly start to take away those, the funnel in life is gonna get a little bit bigger and bigger and bigger. That's the challenge for everybody in 2026. Take something from today, apply it to your everyday life. And if you were able to, please hit the like, hit the subscribe button. I love doing this. Can't wait till next week's episode. And until next time, stay sharp and stay resilient.