Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
January 30th 2022, it’s 6:30am as I’m recording this, it says Sunday morning here in California. Happy Sunday morning to you. Welcome or welcome back to Success with Srini. I woke up at 4;30 this morning with an intention to get this podcast recorded early. This is one of my first acts of the day almost. If not the first act, but it is one of the first acts.
4:30 In the morning, I wake up, and I’m done with my first act of the day, which is to put myself in a meditative state, which I did. And then something happened, something happened. I made a colossal mistake of checking my phone. One mistake, and the next thing I see, and the only thing I see on the phone, in fact, it flashed, it was far away from me. But it flashed that Nadal lost two sets in the Australian Open. And the next thing I do is I open the phone. And I’m watching the game 45 minutes into the game. And here I am, right I have a busy schedule for the morning. I wake up everyday in the morning, right around 4:30am. My first act is to is to get a few things done. But the biggest responsibility I have is to get this podcast done. And then I have some personal stuff that I need to take care in the home. And then I need to take care of some stuff outside of the home. So I have a busy schedule every day. Today, this morning, too, I have a very busy schedule, I need to be out by eight o’clock with a friend of mine, we have to go to Stockton, till about noon or so and then I come back have series of meeting throughout the day. So I have tremendous amount of responsibilities. And I cannot be waking up and spending 45 minutes watching a game. It’s important but not important to me at a level at which I’m responsible to life.
So what I thought, I’m going to drive a point how distractions are destroying our lives on today’s podcast. I remember I was born, well, I remember the biggest distraction from my childhood. I was born at a time when there was no running water, there was no refrigerator and there was no TV. TV came in when I was probably in fifth or sixth grade. And when it came in, we used to spend like, you know, four or five hours every night watching TV literally like it used to come at like 6 pm till about like nine or 10pm in the night, or 11pm. And I used to spend all evenings watching TV most of the times, and I dropped my grades in school because of watching TV. It was a huge distraction then. Imagine what our children are dealing with and this generation is dealing with. And look what happened to me this morning. Distractions.
There’s one thing that we talk about in peak performance, which is, every time you’re done with an activity, or every time that you’re doing an activity, you ask a question, Who am I becoming as a result of doing this? Or who did I become as a result of doing this? Every time you’re exercising, you’re biking, swimming, you’re with a friend, you’re having a conversation, you’re at work, you just completed a deliverable, whatever. Whatever you do, every time after an act, you ask a question, Who did I become doing this? Who did I become or who am I becoming? By watching this game 45 minutes gone, I need to get this podcast done, I need to publish the podcast and I need to get ready and I need to get going. I can run a master class on distractions.
If you want to become successful, you got to complete that which you started.
As I was experiencing this. I remembered a quote from Henry Ford, a saying from Henry Ford. He said if you want to become successful, you got to complete that which you started. And this is a lesson given to us by our parents very early in our lives. Henry Ford was working on a car, on a model that somehow along the way he felt is not going to cut it. So he started thinking of a second model, which was much superior. And as he was focusing on a second model, he started realize the first model which was already in in a design phase about to go into production was not something he should focus on because logical right the second thing is better than the first thing why should you do the first thing.
But something happened, and he kept on working on the first thing, he ran the first model through production. And as he was doing, he was putting his time on the first one, despite of knowing that it may not be as good as the second one, he learned more about the second one without even attempting the second one. Incredible. Maybe the second one might have come out to be a better model, maybe the third one might have come out with a better model. But then the success of all the subsequent models is activated to one act, which is the first model, which despite of knowing that it’s going to be inferior, he kept on working at it.
So the message here is if you start something, complete it. We need to take ourselves seriously, that’s the point. You started this year 2022, with some resolution, some goals, you have them in your mind, complete them, don’t drop them. We are 30 days in into this year, tomorrow’s the last day and after that January 2022, is gone for good from our lives not going to come back. Time is an incredible construct, which we created. But at the same time. You know, if you don’t use it the right way, then there are big consequences along the way. So complete whatever you started, stay away from distractions as much as you can. Even though I do self improvement, and I talk about that, and I do the chores and I do seminars, workshops, all this this podcast, still I’m a victim. You see, I still I get distracted. It’s a constant and continuous fight. There is no winning at this there is no it’s not like I Oh, I’ve gotten to this ultimate state of perfection and this is it, there isn’t. It’s a lie if somebody says that, so there is a fight and there are going to be distractions and and there will be obstacles along the way. But this awareness within which that we need to stay on track, get the first thing done before we go and do the second thing is a very important lesson that we need to give to ourselves. It requires discipline to keep our attention on one thing at a time.
That’s the message for this morning. I hope today’s podcast is helpful. If it is then please write a review. Please rate the podcast, share it you have a question for me. Text me 888-818-0404 that’s the direct line into this podcast. That’s the direct line into my show. And I’ll be back here tomorrow morning, early morning with a podcast of the day. Wherever you are, be safe.