Ep17 The 90-Day Family Sacrifice That Could Change Everything (And Why You're Not Wrong for Working That Hard)

Jason Croft  0:00  
Wow, I see that. If I, like you said, I got this result. If I pour the next 90 days into this, this will transform everything. Okay, let me go there. Let me let me see what I'm capable of there.

Joe Blackburn  0:12  
If on the other side of that was way more wealth, way more flexibility, way less stress around finances, wouldn't it be worth the shot? Welcome

Jason Croft  0:25  
to the lion's edge, where top performers sharpen their teeth, hosted by Joe Blackburn, founder of The Lion who is relentlessly dedicated to helping business owners lead multi million dollar teams. And me. Jason Croft, I transform unseen entrepreneurs into industry leaders by developing their market gravity. Each week, we reveal proven strategies and raw insights to help you maximize your business, multiply your wealth and make your family indestructible. Now let's create your edge.

Joe Blackburn  1:02  
Why are people so infatuated with some sort of, like, standard of balance? Is that what it like, I gotta be home in a certain time. I gotta be I can't work. We like, why? What? What, when in the history of the universe. Did that work for someone

Jason Croft  1:26  
well, especially to achieve any kind of beyond average results as well? Maybe it's the pendulum swing. Maybe it's the, you know, it's the swing against hustle and grind and forget everything else. Even though, I don't know, I think even that was like, the marketers just said, oh, let's make that the enemy. And now, you know, swung it the other way. It's like, like, Yeah, especially during seasons and things like that, like, yeah, that's what it takes. It takes an insane amount of focus and drive into one thing over and over again. And you can have little, you know, you can have these moments of, you know, freedom and control, and you you have a little more say in when you work like a maniac, but you still got to go work like a maniac.

Joe Blackburn  2:21  
Well, I we were actually working on something, and it's like, if you only had 90 days to make this work, like, what if you just had 90 days to make this whole like, your business and your life work? That's it. That's all you got. And you go to hell if you don't succeed. I know it sounds crazy, but I I just hear it a lot of like, well, I can't do that, because I got to be home and, you know, I Well, what about Saturdays? Well, I got, you know, this, it just, it's weird to me, and maybe it's my fault. Like, if your exp, if your expectation is to truly be wealthy, I don't think it's completely unrealistic to think you're gonna knock that out, especially maybe not you know, you can earn the right or whatever. I mean, I've I know a lot of people that get to do what they want when they want, but they spent years, years of sacrificing their sometimes their health. And I don't, I don't want to encourage people to get sick. You know, your body will tell you when it's time to take a day or two off, but I just that one's been in my mind a lot, just who, who told you, or who did you believe that this was possible with that type of limiting amount of time of input? And, you know, there's a saying, and I kind of adhere to it. Constraints create resourcefulness, and you are more effective. I mean, if you gave yourself 18 hours, you might expand to that and, I mean, you can't be effective that long. So it's, I'm just trying to figure out what, and it's all social media driven and HR driven because companies are having such a difficult time getting people to come to work or be in the office or like, the enticement is you don't have to do that much, and that's probably more on the corporate side, so I don't spend a lot of time there. I left that for a reason. It just seems like the the rule has become I'm somehow doing something bad if I put more time into what my dream is, I'm somehow it's like hurting my family. There's just this weird like it's an unwritten rule maybe that I if I'm not home or I'm working too much. I'm somehow bad. It's like, it's an idea, like, somehow I'm a bad person, and I'm neglecting my family. And my thought on that is, well, okay, then if you don't do that for a short period of time, even 90 days, then for the perpetuity, you just have more stress. Like, which one's more damaging isn't in my this was my fault. Like, which one, you know, the acute I've got to do this for a certain amount of time to get to a certain place, so that for the rest of the time I don't have to, you know, work 12, 1314, hours a day. So I'm gonna break it. It just in my in my mind, it just elongates the actual stress you're trying to avoid. What people react to are

Jason Croft  5:56  
like always, are the fringes, right? So there's the stories, or the this, or, you know, when someone who is just wired that way, yeah, they destroy their marriage, they destroy their family, because all they do is work and they can't get out of it. But that's also the fringes. That's also, if it wasn't work, it would be something else, because that's how they're wired, you know, like, probably, like, like, with anything, there's a communication aspect to all of this. Of first, like we've talked about before, define this within yourself. Like, okay, this is these are the things that are important to me. These are the goals I have, right in order to make this happen, I've got to spend the next 90 days in crazy town mode. I'm going to communicate that with my family, with the people who are important to me, and then also put those parameters in place for myself to go, Okay, it's, it's day 91 or whatever. You know, I'm out of that season. Don't just fall into like, this is life now, be very purposeful with Hey, this is what I promised you, family. Now, here's where we are, and it's that communication. It's that that balance all the way. And if you've talked about it before, if those goals aren't aligned at the beginning and talked about with the people close to you, well, that's the problem. If they've got this expectation and you're off here trying to achieve this goal, that's where you got to start.

Joe Blackburn  7:32  
Right the way the world was designed, if I'm correct, the seventh day was for rest. Right? So we seven days in a week, so why not for a period of time? Just make that your rest day, and take 90 days and burn it at both ends and see what happens. I I don't know. I just, I don't want to be one of those people that says, What do you call it? Rise and grind. And we've talked about trying hard versus working hard. Trying hard is trying to get other people to do things so much that you appear desperate. That's a try hard. But if you have something that works and you can do it repeatedly, I think people underestimate how fast they can replicate that, and they have a, you know, a guilt or a rule that shuts them off. Why wouldn't you just go as hard as you can, take Sunday off, you know, tuck your kids in at night, kiss them goodbye in the morning, if you can. And and I never, I mean, that's easy to say. That requires another person probably having to shoulder some some of this. So I'm probably talking in circles. But if you can get back your, you know, your partner, or your spouse, or whatever on board, and say, I'm just gonna do this for 90 days, not nine years, just 90 days, I think you can change it all in that period of time. And you know, it's the line. The people in the line work awfully hard. I'm not this is more. I just talk to a lot of people when they get reservations. Well, how much time is this going to take? Well, first of all, you're wasting 50% of your time. I know. So you have more than you're giving yourself credit for. You just aren't focused, and you don't know how to cut the bullshit. I don't know. It's like, why did the Why did the rule all of a sudden become I have to be done at a certain time, and I have to be at a certain place, or I'm the villain. That's what I'm saying.

Jason Croft  9:36  
That's the piece. Is to let some of these things in. There's plenty, from a humanity standpoint, wow, we're better off when we have time together, and our kids are better when they have time with us. Without a doubt, there's there's just letting in some of this that you know, like you say over and over again, you're capable of a lot more than you. Think you are your your kids are good with these moments. If you can be there with them 100% when you're with them, that's that's the biggest thing, and that's that difference. That's that dynamic you're talking about of like, okay, either really poor into these 90 days or be frustrated 365, days because you're not quite there and you're struggling. You've got this constant, acute stress that you're you're mentioning those are those things to just let in. This isn't a prescription of man, it doesn't matter if you're with your family or not. Of course, we're not saying that it those things are critical. But weighing that and communicating with that and putting down like, oh, wow, I see that. If I, like you said, I got this result. If I pour the next 90 days into this, this will transform everything. Okay, let me go there. Let me, let me see what I'm capable of there.

Joe Blackburn  11:02  
Yes, you articulated that way nicer than I did great job. But it so the then the question becomes, if on the other and maybe it's 120 days or two years, I don't know, but if on the other side of that was way more wealth, way more flexibility, way less stress around finances, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be worth the shot? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you do it and everybody leaves you and they hate you, like seriously, that's possible, or they, you know, your kids resent you. I just think he I, and it's hard to sit across from someone and tell them they need to do that because they I can't. I don't know what it's like to go home for them. So I don't want to say, Oh, this is here's a magic wand, and everybody's gonna love you, and because we're always, you know, am I good enough? Will I be loved? Is a constant frame of our minds, and I think that's a tough question, like, Am I still gonna be loved at the at the end of this, or as we go on, because you don't, most people don't wake up wanting to destroy their family. I don't think. I don't know it's, it's I. I want to figure out, can we change the rule that if I'm not there every single time something happens, or at a certain time, I'm not hurting people. I think that's a you know, my My hero is my dad, and he was when I was a little kid. He was the assistant principal, the athletic director and the head basketball coach at Pana High School, and he's a legend. He's the only guy I know that's been a doctor, a president and a CEO. He holds all three titles, and about eight or nine he he went and and left teaching, because we really only did see him on Sunday, really, you know, he's opening the gym, closing the gym, he's at every event he's got, I mean, but I have vivid memories of the fun stuff we did and the ball games and, you know, and he, hell, he lived when I was in high school. He lived in Oregon. He expanded a company that he eventually became the CEO of, and he lived in Oregon during my junior high school. He flew home every weekend to see my football games, and then worked manically when he wasn't there. But I don't have memories of my dad not being there. I don't have I don't sit there and think, Man, I wish my dad was here. I don't that's not, it's so I think there's like a false fear that your kids are gonna calculate what you're doing like, I don't think they can, and then the more stability they have, and the more I mean. You know, he would say, I don't have to be there every time you put a jock on. He'd say that. So you come to all my practices like, parent, I think parents go to practices now, and it again, I get judgmental. It's just, I don't think you have to vilify yourself for a period of sacrifice that will set you up for long term success, thinking everybody's gonna leave me and hate me. That's where and I've I am telling you, I talk to a lot of people who want to be great and want to have and have big dreams. And that one, it's like, well, you know, and even in the line, it's maximize your business, multiply your wealth and make your family indestructible. That doesn't mean make your family indestruct. Comfortable by being there all the time, and it's so it's weird. It's it's like this weirdest. It's like a guilt. I don't know what maybe it's. I don't know it's like this feeling of, if I'm not, I'm I'm bad, and I don't think that's true.

Jason Croft  15:17  
Like you said, you're not the villain for doing some of these things. And I also think it makes a massive difference to make sure that from day one, your kids feel seen, loved, have that foundation of you're there feeling I think it's, it's a matter of, where are they getting that from? Where are they doing that? And, you know, I was fortunate. I was home a lot, and I see the benefits of just that relationship I have with my boys. That's they're there. They they know their love. They know they're you know by me specifically, you know that there's not that and that that is amazing. And I think if I was gone always and never built that. I think there would be ramifications for me and them from that. But I think that's the thing. It's not this all or nothing. It's letting those pieces in and realizing and again, back to this idea of, there's seasons for this stuff. You know, it's seasons, it's focus, it's this, it's in and out, and then it's talking about it, communicating about it all along the way. That's the biggest thing, rather than just like, well, you're stupid. If you don't understand that, I'm, you know, I gotta work. And then, you know, you slam the door and go, of

Joe Blackburn  16:57  
course not. I've never done that. Well, maybe the question then is, what is balance? What is it I and I think what I'm encountering is the perception of what balance is might be a little off if you have big goals and dreams so that you can have more balance. It's like a it's like go. It's the game of opposites, if I you know, and they help. Clancy Jansen, the legend, one of my old clients. And when you know, great friend of my family, say, and I was starting out in business, said, Joe, you can work half days. That's 12 hours. That's a half day, and I have to find a better way of impressing upon our potential clients and the people that we care about that you are not a bad person if you have to take, like you said, periods of time and really focus and pour into this, and if you're graced with another day or another year or another 10 years, they'll be better. And if you aren't, you'll be remembered for someone that was willing to sacrifice for your family and for the greater good of your community. You're but I think the mindset is, well, I'm a I'm a bad parent and I'm a bad husband or I'm a bad wife, and I don't think that's true at all. So that's all I have on that. It's just been on my you know, I go through seasons of trying to figure out the what's limiting and what's real and what's true. And I'll go back to the original truth. Last time I checked, it was six days of hard work and one day of rest that could be working a, you know, with your family on a Saturday. It's just we've like become enamored with the ease of success, and I just hell if that so let me put this I just pop in my mind if, if technology and AI made all this easy, and success was easy because of information and everything, wouldn't everybody be successful? So what's the missing ingredient? I'm just a batch of rainbows and sunshine, just, you know, and I and I bet Look, just, let me say it like this, I have five children, and I have a wonderful spouse that gets it. I mean, she actually processes what is happening, and we team up and split rides and do all those things, and I still crack six days a week, 70 to 80 hours. I just find the spots to do it and get major focused in prime time. And I'm semi successful, semi so and I'm. Also not very tolerant. So that would lead me to think that if you are as you know, loving as you want to be, you should be better at it than I am, because sometimes I don't even want to go there and talk to people. So hey, do you see what I'm saying? Though? Like, maybe there, yeah. So maybe the solution is strategically setting it up, or getting yourself to a position where, if you have to be somewhere at four o'clock, you were up at four o'clock, my strategy is get it done early, because I know how the day goes. Right, all right. I'm I'm done. You've been awesome as usual. Let's wrap this puppy up and double crosses that you actually edited and put it out there.

Jason Croft  20:46  
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Speaker 1  21:20  
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