Become Your Best Advocate: Do an Inventory and Get Clear on Expectations

The Hidden Cost Of Saying Yes

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When we say yes to everything because it feels good, it's comfortable. What we're we're saying no to is ourselves. And so we gotta learn what is the greater yes. And if you're not saying yes to you, guess what? You're gonna burn yourself out. And when you burn yourself out, guess what? You ain't serving nobody. You may not like what I'm about to tell you, but if you're feeling super stressed, frazzled, and frustrated, it's your fault because you're failing to be your best advocate. And how do I know? Because I sucked at it too for a very, very long time. And that's why we're gonna go over the two things that you can do to be your best advocate. I've been working with over a hundred construction leaders, like ballers, that have serious responsibility out there. And time management is the thing that's a make or break situation in terms of uh how quickly you can grow. The ones that are doing super, super good at is the ones that are okay with putting themselves first and making themselves a priority. Uh, so the two things here's the two things, real quick. One is do an inventory, and number two is get clear. We're gonna talk, I'm gonna give you some more details about that stuff. But for that, if you haven't seen me before, I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and my mission is to leave the construction industry better than I found it. I can't do it alone. I need some help. So if you know anybody that's down for that, send them my way because we're gonna have some fun doing this for the next, I don't know, 15, 10, 20, 30 years. We'll see how long it takes. Let's

The Two Column Inventory

SPEAKER_00 1:46

get into the number one point, which is doing inventory, right? Again, we're talking about how do we become our best advocate so that we can be masters of our time and really design the life that we really want, design a life that brings us fulfillment so that we're not stressed and frazzled and freaking out all the damn time. Want to have a little bit of fun out there, right? Now, I'm not saying just stop doing everything and only think about yourself. Like some people kind of get it twisted. What I'm saying is start putting yourself first. And when I say yourself, I'm talking about your wellness, your personal growth, your health, your personal relationships, all of the things that are super, super important that get deprioritized for all of the other things that we just decide to put ahead of everything else, anyways. So when I talk about inventory, this is what I did. Again, I'm gonna make you a little bit uncomfortable because this is gonna require you to really just think about yourself, think about how you feel, think about what you want to accomplish, think about what you do in a day, in a week, in a month. And the inventory is this very, very simple. There's two columns, okay? One column is what are the things? Write down all the things that you do just because you want to do them, right? Not because of any other thing that it's an obligation or somebody's asked for it or you made a commitment. It's just the things that you do because you want to do them. I'll give you some examples. I just got back from a three-mile run. Nobody cares that I do that. I mean, you know, maybe people like, you know, of course, they want me to be healthy and take care of myself. But if I didn't run them, ain't nothing gonna happen, right? Ain't nobody gonna be mad about it. I do that because I want to do it. This morning I got up and I obsessed about our conversation today, and I did some bullet points, and it's very likely that there ain't gonna be a whole bunch of people watching this, and that's okay. I did it because I want to do it. So, inventory point number one do a little thing, just you know, two columns. Number one is what are the things that you do because you want to, just because you want to. Then here's where the reality is gonna hit you, and I hope you don't hate me for it. Is what are the things that you do because other people want you to do them? Right? And then, like, let's just get clear. When I say other people, I'm talking about your family, your boss, all the folks out there, right? Society, your your friends, your community, whatever it is, the things that you're doing, like out of obligation because of obligation. You said you're gonna do it, or and we're gonna get into step two. Um, is the things you believe people expect you to do? All right. So, going back to the idea of doing an inventory, why is that valuable? Why is it important? And I'm not talking of mental inventory, I'm not talking about you just kind of running the list through your head. I'm talking about you actually writing the things down. Column number one, what are the things you do just because you want to? Column number two, what are the things that you do because other people want you to do them or are expecting you to do them? Whatever helps you, you know, clarify that in your brain. The reason that is powerful is after you sit down and write that list down, you're going to see that the list on the right, the list of the things that you do because of other people's expectations, because of what other people want from you or value from you or rely on you for is bigger than the list that you do just because you want to. And so you'll have like a data point, some hard evidence to go back to and realize like, man, yes, I'm stressed, yes, I'm frustrated and frazzled all the damn time, but it's because I'm over-delivering for everybody else in the world and I'm neglecting myself.

Reality Check And Boundary Clues

SPEAKER_00 5:45

It's just a reality check. Like, I think you know it, like conceptually, but for real, for real, if you write these things down, not only do you have evidence, like it's real now, you can count it, but then you can go back and start looking at all the points and really start thinking like, do I really need to do this? Is this in the what like is this contributing to my path? This is what I did. I had a big list. I said, okay, all of these things, why the hell am I doing them? I don't enjoy them. Like, yes, I feel obligated. Yes, I told somebody I was gonna do it. Yes, I failed to say no, but I'm not having a good time. Specific example, friend calls, says, Hey, I got this thing, we got to meet up. Are you available? And I'm like, uh, not really, because I know that one friend, what that means is is he wants me to do a lot of work to help him do something while he's not doing the work. Right? And so instead of saying, like, nope, I I'm not interested in doing that, or I can help you, but I will only do these two things, I say yes, because it feels good. I want to be a friend, and then I'm kind of pissy about it, right? I'm a little salty about it. I'm gonna go do it for this fool, and I know that fool ain't gonna follow through. He's starting another thing that's gonna die, and here I am spinning my wheels. But because I failed to say no, guess what? I've committed and I'm gonna follow through on my commitment. And then I'm gonna be salty, and then I'm gonna spend my energy when I could have been an advocate for myself by saying, Yeah, that's not on my list, that's not on my path. I could help you in this way, and this is the extent of what I'm going to do. You got to carry the bag and take it all the way forward, right? Like it took a long time for me to kind of build that kind of clarity. But again, back to the question of how to become your best advocate, right? Most of us are not good at taking care of ourselves because we overgift, we give our time, our energy, and focus to other people that don't necessarily value it as much as you should be valuing yourself. You take care of people, but you take care of people way better than you take care of yourself. And so the idea here is how do we flip that? Where do we start to do that? Number one, we've already talked about it, is do an inventory. What are the things that you do because just because you want to do them? And what are the things that you do because other people want you to do them? Oh, my sister, Maya, what's up, Maya? Maya says, I'm just realizing that I've gotten so much better with boundaries over the years, making me run this inventory. Oh, fan has helped me see that. Okay, Maya, thank you for bringing that to the conversation. Because the other value, it's another value point, right? Simple, super generic, Jesse style inventory. What are the things I'm doing because I want to? What are the things I'm doing because other people expect me to? That's your baseline, that's where you are today. And as you start making little baby steps, like Maya said, start putting some boundaries in, start valuing yourself a little bit more, honoring yourself, you can go back to that original list and say, Hey, looky, looky, I'm making some progress. And and it's a super powerful point. So I'm very grateful to you, Maya, for bringing that because you're an overachiever. I know you are, you're like a class A solid baller, make it happener. And so when we're assessing ourselves in terms of how we perform and how we accomplish things, we think past fail. I'm excellent or I'm not. But the reality is the progress is the magic, and we don't really stop very often to look at how far we've come. And so, Maya, again, thank you for bringing that point, right? Boundaries is not an easy thing, it's an extremely difficult thing, it's an amorphous thing, and so this little um uh inventory is gonna help us kind of start maybe defining where we should have some boundaries, and then you're gonna make some progress, and then you get to celebrate, like Maya did. Thank you, Maya. We also have the infamous fantastic sister, Miss Linda. She says, Oh, Scorpio levels of salty here when I do that, matter at myself than them. Girl, I Linda, I know, like that's the thing, right? When I wrote down my list, my little inventory, and I'm looking at the things, all the things that I'm doing for other people, like for real. It was just them. I'm just gonna write this stuff down. Like, oh, my list was like five or six. This was back back in the day. And then I wrote down the other list, and I'm like, that's gonna be that fool's always asking for crap. And she, you know what? I put myself out to jump through hoops to give her that thing that she asked for, like the day she wanted it, and then she sat on it for two weeks and then asked me for it again. Like, all kinds of saltiness comes out, and that's the point, not necessarily to be um to be salty and pissed off about it, but to start getting clear and identifying who are the people that really, really value your time, right? Because I'm not saying this idea of being a selfish servant is not about telling everybody to piss off and I'm only gonna do for me and what I want. It's I it helps us identify who are the people that pour into us, who are the people that let us speak into their lives and actually take action so that we can build that coalition, right? Like that group of people that we can go forward and transform the world together. When you make that list, it starts becoming real clear who them fools that they ain't like they ain't for real, they ain't got it, they're scrubs, and you got to put some boundaries in place for them. But some of them are like ballers, OG ballers, and you need to bring them in closer. Again, that's super simple inventory can help you accomplish a couple things. So, just in case you're wondering, column on the left is what are the things you do because you want to do column on the right, or what are the things that you do because of external expectations, maybe maybe a little bit of commitment making there. Um, so that takes us to point number two in terms of where do you start? Like, if you want to be a better advocate for yourself, you want to start getting gooder at time management, how the hell do you start? I'm gonna tell you right now, you got to put yourself first, you got to build the skills to make yourself a priority and honor yourself. But that's kind of big and fuzzy. Like, what the hell does that actually mean? Well, we just talked about step number one and we're gonna talk about step number two. Before

Comments, Progress, And Tools Offer

SPEAKER_00 12:15

that, though, if you got questions, drop your questions in the comments. I'm happy to answer, I'll do my best to answer them. I'm not saying that I'm gonna be able to answer every single one of them. If you think I'm full of it, drop that in the comments too, because guess what? You'll give me impressions. And if you want some other tools that will help you like build the system so that you can put yourself first, start investing in yourself so that you can become the promise you're intended to be. Drop double D in the comments, and I'll get you a link so that you can get all of the tools, the templates, uh, to help you make that happen. Uh, so, anyways, drop double D in the comments and we'll go from there. Oh, look, yeah, we got Mr. John. John says, Thank you. You are welcome, John. Um, all right, Mia's got another comment, she says, and we can be happier about the things we say yes to. Amen, sister. Uh, and shout out to Wally because he same sentiment he dropped in the comments earlier was that's the key, right? Saying when we say yes to everything because it feels good, it's comfortable. What we're we're saying no to is ourselves, and so we gotta learn what is the greater yes. And if you're not saying yes to you, guess what? You're gonna burn yourself out. And when you burn yourself out, guess what? You ain't serving nobody. And so uh again, Maya goes on to say, even if the me saying yes in that moment can often be a different me, ooh, from the one who meets the actual moment, sister. I know exactly what you're talking about, right? When I say yes right then and there, I 100% believe and want to do it, and then reality happens. Like, oh shit, I got 12 other things that I need to do. Uh, that's a different me. That may not be what you're talking about, but that's what came to mind. Um, okay, we got some advice coming in from Linda. Linda says, Jesse, how do we do it? Linda says, burn it, burn it all. Sometimes, you know, I I've done that, but that that takes a lot more time and effort to bring it up. But if you're there, hell, burn it, start over. That's an easier place to start. Okay, so now we're gonna get into the second thing you can do to start being a better advocate for

Get Clear On Who Governs You

SPEAKER_00 14:34

you. Now, I want to be clear like these two things that we're talking about are like super, super just introspective, foundational to help you start evaluating or really taking an honest look at your own behaviors, your own actions that you're just doing like by default. That's all that like this is gonna bring you some awareness. There's a lot of steps and things that you can do, and like I said earlier, drop double D in the comments. I'll give you some tools to make that happen. But these are the things that really, really help you start saying, Oh, okay, now I see why. Let's start talking about how. So the second thing is get clear. Get clear about what? Get clear about whose expectations are governing your life. Right? Go to the inventory again. When I did this thing, I've got what do I do because I want to, what do I do because other people want me to? What I like really, really had to have an honest conversation with myself about was man, uh, there's these I was telling myself that I have to do these things because, because of my family, because of my boss, because of my significant other, because, because, because. And so, really, for me, when I really started looking at it, I'm like, okay, these are everybody else's expectations. Like, one, two, they never really said it. I just kind of interpreted their behavior or assumed that's what they wanted me to do. And so I would do all of these things that I really wasn't um, well, just say on fire about. I was just doing it so that they won't be mad, right? So they won't be disappointed. And I just kept doing more and more and more and more. And what did I do less of? I did less of taking care of myself, and so what like again, super clear. I was like, oh man, I'm letting everybody else's expectations or my assumptions of what their expectations are dictate my life, and that ain't okay. And I said, Huh, I can actually, why am I not living to my expectations? Like, I'm not, I was at the time, I wasn't super happy. I wasn't, I know I wasn't fulfilled, I was pretty miserable, I wasn't taking care of myself. There was a lot of things going on. Like those of you that have been here before, I was all up in my addiction. I was working all the freaking time, partying the rest of the time. Maybe I slept, I didn't eat well, I was in bad shape, I was falling apart because I was so busy living up to everybody else's expectations, or again, my assumptions of what their expectations were. And so the real hard question I had to look at was well, what the hell do I expect from myself? Like, what do I want? I never had that conversation. I'm gonna get back to the answer and give you a more specific example because it helped me get clear. It wasn't easy, it wasn't comfortable, but it was freaking massively important. So, back to this idea of getting clear about whose expectations are governing my

Career Paths Versus Real Fulfillment

SPEAKER_00 17:48

life. And more specifically, and I'm putting this out there so that hopefully you can kind of connect some dots to this because you may be in the same situation. I was uh back in the day, y'all know I was a plumber, uh, went from plumber to foreman to superintendent, blah, blah, blah. And the company had me on a career path. And the career path that they wanted me to go to is back in the day, is to be a project manager and then to you know continue down that path. Like, no, I don't want to be a project manager, but I was going to night school to take classes to get my degree, some kind of weird degree, uh, associate's degree in construction business management, because project manager was the thing, right? It's what you should do, and that's what people said I had the aptitude to do. And so I was doing these things that I didn't really like. But it made sense, like practically, or for like conventional thinking, it made sense because I would make more money and I would have a fancy title, right? And I would, you know, whatever, be super awesome. But for me, for like for me, for real, for real, I did not have any interest in doing that job. I never wanted to be in that job, but there were other expectations that were saying, hey, you should do this because, and so I let their expectations supersede my expectations, the desire, and the things that I wanted to do. So that was a simple example, right? Another example, they had another, like, okay, my next step was to be like a corporate asset instead of a business unit asset, which meant I was gonna have to move and you know do a different kind of work that was gonna take me away from the field. And that was like between those two things, one was like around my third and fourth year of apprenticeship, and this was um a few years later. I got clear. I was like, you know what? I don't want to be a corporate asset because that takes me away, takes me too far away from the field. I like working with people, like I like being in the middle of it, like with our internal customers. I don't care about the external customers. We got 90% of our resources catering to the external customer, and we're neglecting our internal customers. And so I got super clear what I want to do, what I the skills and all the things that are gonna bring me the most fulfillment that I enjoy actually doing is serving my internal customers, training and development and this sort of thing. Um, and so when I started defining my own expectations, all of a sudden it became very easy uh about what I'm going being clear about what I'm gonna say no to, right? Like, okay, awesome promotion. I'm gonna have national visibility and national impact, and I'm gonna be, you know, jetting around with super highly influential people. But guess what? I didn't want to do that kind of work, I wanted to be closer to the people, and so you know, on one hand, you might look at it and say, Well, yeah, but you could have been doing, you know, making more money or whatever. Sure, you you're that's true, and I was okay with not, I was more interested in having the impact that I think I'm designed to have and working with the type of people that I prefer to work with, and so by getting clear and identifying these expectations that were external, that I don't have to live up to them, and more uh precisely, in terms of what you may be going through, you may be living to fill in other people's expectations and neglecting yourself, and that's where the friction, right? That's where the friction and it like the internal friction comes from because it's dissatisfying, and we're hoping someday, you know, when I get the next promotion and I get the next title and I get the next sexy project, then I'm gonna feel good. And it never happened for me until I got clear about whose expectations I was going to live up to. And guess who they are? They are mine, baby, all mine all the time. Now, I'll give another example because my brother, Mr. Aaron

Health, Family, Work Growth Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Erwin, sorry, Mr. Erwin Ferez asked. Question before the live started. What about how to distinguish between our health and family time versus our professional development? Because that's a good question. That's pretty deep, right? Both can be seen as advocating for myself. Amen. Now, I'm I'm probably not gonna give the super clear the silver bullet answer, but here's the thing. And it ties directly to whose expectations are we living up to? Uh, because yes, right, profit like professional development can can be a form of you advocating for yourself. And of course, taking care of your family and your health and wellness can and probably is a way of advocating for yourself. Now, for the way I look at them, the way I differentiate that goes all the way back to the expectations, right? The inventory, who am I doing it for? Am I doing it because just because I want to, or am I doing it because other people want me to? Then whose expectations? And so I kind of come from the flip side of things in terms of like again the question, how do you differentiate? This is how I differentiate. I decided I got super clear, and this was you know, it's been a few years now. I got super clear that I don't have any yearning need, um, or like burning desire to be in a romantic relationship. And for some people, and I'll just say this though, I had a lot of guilt for a long time about not really wanting to be in a like I like you know, don't get me wrong, I like all the like the benefits of it, but I don't like the friction that I feel, the internal conflict that I have when I'm in a relationship, in a romantic relationship, because you know what? I get so much out of the work that I do that it I just want to obsess and swim and do that all the time, and so what that means is then I show up like my whoever romantic interest only gets a little bit of my time, and that's not cool, that's not okay, right? But I was like, you know what, in order to be normal, but based on other people's expectations, I should be in a relationship. Plus, you know, I'm I'm pretty damn fine, right? I'm a catch. So you know, I gotta do it. But again, I got clear about my expectations, and you know what? The amount of conflict and and distress that I was experiencing trying to do both was not worth it. It was stealing joy from my life, and so I decided guess what? I'm just not gonna be, I'm not gonna fiddle around, I'm not gonna date, I'm not gonna be in a romantic relationship because I get so much more fulfillment from other things. And I have to be okay with people saying, like, what the hell's wrong with you? You're a weirdo or whatever it is, right? I just had to let go of that, and so coming back to Mr. Erwin's question, the way I distinguish goes of like between professional development, health, and family is exactly that. Am I living up to my own expectations or am I living up to other people's expectations? Right now, I'm not saying like here's another thing to think about, especially for like young folks. If you're young and early in your career, or let me say this a different way, if your lifestyle is not solely supported by you, meaning if somebody else is paying your bills, any of your bills, guess what? You kind of have to fulfill some of their expectations. You don't get a pass. Now, if you're independent and self-self self-sufficient and handling your own game, then you totally get to decide, like, hell no, I ain't fulfilling your expectations. I'm gonna feel fulfill my own, like straight up. But when you're in the position, when you're on your own two feet, you're sustaining and supporting yourself, and nobody is financially uh carrying you, you get to look at the thing and say, you know what? I do want to be in a relationship. This is super important to me. Professional development, yeah, I want to build some new skills, but are you building those skills in a direction in a path that you like in your bones want to have, right? That you believe are going to add value to the world going forward. Or are you building your professional, these professional skills, the professional development to meet some you know, CDQ checklist thing so that somebody can you know bless you and promote you? That's not a bad thing. But for me, that's kind of it's a thin line, but that's the line between distinguishing of whether professional development is advocating for myself or not, right? If I'm doing it because, like, hell, I don't like now, I do live streams all the damn time. Um, I can set up my website, I can do all kinds of fancy stuff. I had to build those skills, and the reason I decided to build those skills was because I needed to, because I wanted to, you know, do my little business so that I can serve people in the manner that I believe I'm best designed to serve. And so I had to build those skills to achieve this because I wanted to. There was a period in time, like I said earlier, when I was taking night classes on dumb shit that I had no interest in because it was gonna check some box so that I could potentially be promoted to a role that I had no interest in being in, but it was gonna make me more money. So, in that case, back in the day day, I was doing professional development, but it was not me advocating for myself, it was me, you know, playing the role, doing the monkey dance for other people. So hopefully that hopefully I answered your question, or maybe I just muddied it up. Let me know in the comments. Uh oh, we got another comment. We got

Invest In Internal Clients Or Lose Them

SPEAKER_00 27:57

my brother Tocayo Jesus Trevinho, who I got to have a conversation, who's gonna be making waves out there in the world. Y'all just wait. He says, Good morning, Jesse. So true. Love what you said about 90% catering to external clients, but meanwhile neglecting their internal clients. Yeah, baby. Jesus, appreciate you, man. Um, I want to also be super clear like there are some freaking phenomenal decision makers out there in the construction industry that are 100% committed to investing and delivering for their internal clients. Those people are my kind of people. They're not the majority yet, but I'm just gonna give everybody else a warning. If you ain't, if you're still over investing in your external client and neglecting your internal clients, your employees, guess what? You, all of those employees, they're a flight risk. They will be leaving and going to these other folks, to my friends, the people that I work with, where they get appreciated, where they're valued, and where they get invested in. And so you can either just complain about people leaving and not being loyal, or you can get off your rear and start investing in who you got. Anyways, that's Jesus' fault. He's the one that triggered that. Yeah, and my see, Maya knows Maya Maya's all over the country. She's a big-time executive director. She says those people are the ones who will win the future workforce. They're winning now, and they're just gonna win more, Maya. You know it, I know it, and I'm here for it. All right, folks, thanks again for jumping in. That was the whole point. And if you're just coming in the live or watching the replay, super quick summary. The two things that I'm gonna suggest, or maybe for you to consider so that you become so that you can become a better advocate for yourself is one, do an inventory. Number two, get clear. Do an inventory. What do you mean? Do an inventory on the things that you do because you want to do them or because other people want you to do them. Look at the list, evaluate, do some thinking on it. Second step, whose expectations are governing your life? If the majority of them are outside of you, meaning not yours, you got some work to do. There's an opportunity there for you to start evaluating that and defining your own personal expectations. Special star caveat, right? If you are dependent on other people, meaning somebody else is paying your bills, you do not like, guess what? You have to live up to some of those expectations. So maybe first step for you is to get independent. And for the rest of you, you know, I love you. Be cool, be kind to yourself, and we'll talk at you next time. Peace. Chicken banana. Before

Subscribe, Newsletter, Free Book Download

SPEAKER_00 30:47

you go, I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. Your time and attention mean a ton. And it's because of listeners like you that this podcast even exists. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the Learnins and Missteps podcast so you never miss an episode and you get extra credit if you share it with your friends. Also, if you want even more insights on leadership, personal growth, communication, you know, all those fancy magical things, you can sign up for my newsletter on LinkedIn because I got a newsletter that goes out every single Monday. All the resources I share there are designed to help you put yourself first so that you can leave this world better than you found it. There's also a digital copy of my book, Becoming the Promise You're Intended to Be. And it's sitting there waiting for you on my website. All you gotta do is do the click and do the download and you get the free PDF. And if you want even more bonus points, share that PDF with somebody you know or the family of somebody you know that is currently struggling with self-destructive behavior. That would be the ultimate gift for me. While you're there, do some exploring of the trainings, workshops, and services that are designed to enhance your performance at home and at work. Just click the link in the show notes to check it out. Thanks again for listening. Take care of yourself, and I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.