The Impact of Distractions!

[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, hello family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to another episode of the Eugene Hamilton podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, grow squad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so glad to reconnect with you this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope that you've been doing well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope between your family or thriving.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that you, in fact, are laying hold of all those things that you've dreamed about.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've prayed about and that you deserve and desire today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to just dig right into our topic for today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go ahead and pray and get moving forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, we thank you for this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for yesterday, looking forward to tomorrow, but we thank you for this moment where we can just breathe a little bit, breathe in, breathe out and just have dialogue.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray that you would guide us, give us hearts to grasp what you have to say to us, give us listening ears to hear, and move our feet toward those things you have in store for us in your name.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's important, especially as we are in moving toward the fourth quarter.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we have the end of the third quarter, moving toward the fourth quarter of 2025.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many of you know by now that distractions are real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, not real as in you thought they were fake, but distractions, let me say it this way, have you ever, I mean not with me, snap your fingers if you're listening on audio, whatever it is, right, have you ever had a distraction in your life, you knew it was a distraction, but you thought it was no big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, yeah, yeah, you knew the thing or the person or the habit or even the hobby.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's funny because I talk to people all the time who think that distractions are are only negative things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, I don't drink or I don't smoke or I don't go out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad you don't have that's your decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't either, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are choices.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've made two in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't drink.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't smoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't go out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those things are cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: But oftentimes, we go to the extreme when it comes to distractions, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What if you just have a habit of scrolling through your phone, like, what they call it, doom scrolling, distraction?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what seemed like it's innocent, what seems like it just is a way to pass by a few moments.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, have you ever been doing something like Doom scrolling, or like watching your favorite show, or like playing video games?
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's funny because I had someone ten more than the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was speaking to an audience of all adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone was over 35 years of age.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I made reference to video games that this guy came up to me later.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he laughed at what laughed at me because I almost apologized for making the reference to video games with the room full of adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, man, you'd be surprised about 7% of us in this room.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all play video games.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we understood exactly your analogy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We understood the illustration and we knew where you were coming from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check it out, distractions.
[SPEAKER_00]: come in all shapes, sizes, forms, colors, distractions, or real, and sometimes your distraction can seem like a non-distraction until it becomes one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever been driving down the road?
[SPEAKER_00]: and then distracted for just a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of a sudden you heard those ridges hitting your tires.
[SPEAKER_00]: All it takes is for a split second, a distraction will take you off your target.
[SPEAKER_00]: a distraction will take you off a check it out and you know I talk a lot about this fitness weight loss kind of thing that I've been yo-yoing with for the past few years and I am a living testimony.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're heard somebody say you can't outwork a bad diet, I'm the poster child for doing my best to try to, you know, I'm thinking to myself that's a myth, not as real.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can work as hard as you want to the gym, but if your diet doesn't match what you're doing in the gym is difficult to overcome that challenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: But however, have you ever had something maybe in your life that you were supposed to remove?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't use diet as an example, it could be anything, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you like, I don't want to give up these chocolate chip cookies, so I don't eat five, but I eat one a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's still like you're trying to get rid of that stubborn.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those love handles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Destraction had the potential to get you off course if you don't get a handle on
[SPEAKER_00]: And the three major distractions are main distractions I want to kind of give you a bit of insight on the kind of help both of myself and you try to get a better handle on and the three common distractions I want to attack head on number one is digital overload.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, have you ever, the power of social media is so powerful, I should say, that you could find yourself being going on a rabbit hole of sorts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And before you know it, you've wasted away a work day, you've wasted time and one of the things that is meant I am still working on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: because my son will call me out, he'll call my wife out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows if the phone is distracting us and we're just saying, aha, yeah, go ahead and we're being distracted by something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the times, it's distracted by her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it could be, it may not be doom scrolling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be the fact that your phone is now a computer, so your email is on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have text messages on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you have work stuff on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have your note section on your phone, even now.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I prepare for a pocket episode, it first goes into the note section on my iPhone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we use our phones for everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I say digital overload, although I'm coming, it seems like I'm attacking or highlighting as a better way to say it, highlighting social media, phones in general, whatever section on the phone that you don't want to ever app.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Grab your attention and keep it there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to know, and I want you to understand, I just say, it's a better
[SPEAKER_00]: It's high time for you and I to address the issue and put boundaries up for ourselves or else digital overload will be our Achilles heel.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to learn how
[SPEAKER_00]: to exercise discipline when it comes to those things that we have access to digitally, not even your register phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Netflix.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: All these streaming services, who knew all of Peacock?
[SPEAKER_00]: All of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't put boundaries up for ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we don't put time limits up for ourselves, right now, it's funny because I thought it was, I don't wanna say, it wasn't the best idea for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought initially when my wife decided to use the tiger on the phone to help my son get in line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, your voice is enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he tells you to do something, he should do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But did I realize it recognized?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, sometimes like you and like me, we need reinforcements.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if we're somewhere, let's say we're in an indoor playground somewhere and it's time to go, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got five minutes left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if he hears the timer go off, he's like, oh, boom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, time to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: No argument.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes for you, sometimes for me, we've got to put timers up for ourselves, even as grown adults.
[SPEAKER_00]: And say, hey, after this time, no more.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got 20 minutes to, you can only watch one TV show and now get back to tackling your goals.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've only got whatever amount of time you got if then get back to doing what you supposed to do in order to reach those desired aspirations digital overload as a common distraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the next common distraction is check this out and I heard a profound.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was Ryan Clark from the pivot podcast and of course ESPN analysts and former Pittsburgh Stealer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was mentioning, in fact, I know exactly where it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talked about the fact that, and that this is the second point I'll put three up, but number two, I want to talk a little bit about perfectionism.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes perfectionism can be a distraction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I like the way that Ryan kind of put out this idea of, man, how did he say it?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, don't allow
[SPEAKER_00]: perfectionism to be your new way to procrastinate and I may be paraphrasing that I may be a little off with how I'm saying it but as I'm trying to marry that with my idea I understood me it was so powerful that sometimes people would delay doing something because they're waiting for the perfect moment or to get it perfect and so now they're using the fact that oh I don't have it all together so I can't do it yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're using perfectionism to delay getting started because they're actually scared to get going.
[SPEAKER_00]: They actually have enough of whatever they need to get going.
[SPEAKER_00]: They actually have enough of what they need to get started.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because they don't really want to start because they really are afraid of failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will use over and over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have, it's not all perfect yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they use that as a new way of procrastinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't let perfectionism be a distraction for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm in the process of, you know, I think I told you, maybe last episode of writing another book, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, another book, the first book, just if you're just joining me, just tuning in, just finding out who I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: My first book was a children's book, or is a children's book called Go Grow Glow, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and one of the things about that book, I kind of just sat on it for months.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, because perfectionism, the book had caught me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I sent them myself always not perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm using this not perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not ready yet to delay getting it ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm using these excuses.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I actually, I'm not so much a free, but I didn't want to put in the extra work or the extra money or the extra time or whatever, I didn't want to pay the editor, whatever the case of my, I don't remember exactly what it was at first, but I kept using these excuses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was all centered around, but the funny part is if you open that book right now,
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some things in there that are still aren't perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's published.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been out almost a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's September, I think it came out last November, November of 2024.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it did come out in the 2020 for, because I celebrated a little bit when I went home to see my family for Thanksgiving, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the book was already out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, every time I speak with you or to you, it's around something that's either happened to me or is happening to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I've already gone through it, or I'm currently going through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just in four transpires.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I've know what it means to delay doing something and using perfectionism as my excuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do I get around that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was the great Napoleon Hill who said, do it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does the soon as I feel the nurse to go ahead and handle my business to press send or whatever the case might be, do it now?
[SPEAKER_00]: That will promise you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a lot of times procrastination happens because we allow ourselves to push news.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not just talking about your alarm clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: We press snooze on writing a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: We press snooze on sending an email.
[SPEAKER_00]: We press snooze on, replying to that text message.
[SPEAKER_00]: We press snooze on actually going to the person that we've wrong and asking for forgiveness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you delaying it?
[SPEAKER_00]: It only makes it worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: We press snooze on, I love being up in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: We press snooze on, making sure that we show up as fathers, as husbands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing about it is, I got a buddy of mine, who, I don't know, for some reason he's convinced himself that if he presses snooze, once those five, eight minutes past, the problem is going to disappear.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's still right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can delay it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But once that alarm goes off again, the issue, the challenge, the hurdle, the assignment, the
[SPEAKER_00]: So the way that I work around and work with this disease of perfectionism as it were just do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then lastly, another common distraction that so many people, including myself, have
[SPEAKER_00]: choosing the people that we take advice from wisely, choosing the people that we share our ideas with, choosing them.
[SPEAKER_00]: wisely understanding, and I think many people forget that our circles really influence us, not just our behavior, but they influence our thought processes, they influence our vision, our ability to forecast and
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, have you ever been around someone who everything that you bring up?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a negative response to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a while, you find yourself either holding back, telling down or holding back on your dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: You find yourself, in many cases, in a situation where and I get it, well if you surround yourself with people, who don't believe like you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is funny because I was just having a conversation of the day and of course there was an extreme, you know, I hear people outside get rid of negative people, get rid of some people called me losers, get rid of people in your life and I understand that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for some reason, I know that, I mean, if you have a family, I still go on my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't, they're not high as some of them don't dream the same way that I dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you got focused as cousins and folks that you maybe go to a union, I don't know, maybe sometimes in your life you go around people who don't have the same vision as you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean you cut them off.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying, when you're trying to fulfill a dream, when you're trying to climb, when you're trying to ensure that you're doing everything that you can to elevate in life, you've got to ensure you have the right amount of people or the right people around you, I should say, that will help you balance that thing out and move forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here it is, and I wrap up this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: distractions, whether it's apparent, whether you see it out the gate, distractions, impact every area of your life, and it's up to you to address them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Distractions don't disappear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Distractions don't evaporate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Distractions don't hide in the corner, you've got to tackle those distractions.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to put up boundaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to ensure that you're doing everything that you can to tackle those distractions head on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Move forward and do exactly what you need to do to ensure that the distractions,
[SPEAKER_00]: don't view off the road and get you off course.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is gross quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that you understand the importance.
[SPEAKER_00]: of ensuring that you read yourself of those distractions in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that today, in fact, share this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that I've said something today that will help you take inventory of your surroundings, of your mindset, of how you handle the digital space, take inventory of how you're moving about in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ensure
[SPEAKER_00]: that you understand that the impact of distractions is serious, but it's up to you to turn that thing around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, go ahead, don't forget to subscribe, don't forget to share.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is somebody right now and had his distracted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sit and turn right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody, you know that's distracted in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's supposed to be doing something, but they're over here doing something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally send this message out to them and I promise you it'll bless them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're in their efforts to turn that thing around and move forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not seeing next week, I hope that throughout the time between now and next week, I hope that you're going, that you're growing, and that you're glowing, praying for you, and I'll connect with you soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care, peace.