growNman
growNman
166 Effort Over Distraction
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Ever notice how comfort dresses up like progress? We dig into the quiet ways distraction becomes a family heirloom—habits we inherit, beliefs we never question, and money myths that promise freedom while draining focus. The through line is effort: not grind for grind’s sake, but consistent, intentional work that compounds into mastery and opens doors you didn’t know existed.
We trace how cycles start at home, from religion and identity to daily routines that teach kids what to copy. You’ll hear a frank look at shortcuts and the blind spots they create, why comfort kills momentum, and how real mastery attracts opportunity in a market that hunts for value. We also break down a practical framework you can use today: sharpen communication through tone, cadence, questions, and active listening; choose sustainable movement that protects long-term health; adopt nutrition strategies like keto, Mediterranean eating, or intermittent fasting to rebuild energy and self-trust; and build emotional intelligence so you respond with clarity instead of reacting from old triggers.
There’s a personal layer too—stories about gambling, drinking, and the moment you realize “normal” is not the same as useful. We talk about protecting your future body, modeling better choices for your kids, and creating a daily routine that turns growth from a hope into a habit. If you’ve been feeling stuck between what you want and what your habits allow, this is your blueprint for changing the trajectory of your life and your family’s future.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a push, and leave a review to help more people find it. Then tell us: what distraction are you cutting first?
Doe and welcome back to I'm Growin Man. Shaman John D in the building. Um today's episode is let me see where I am. All right. Today's episode is me just sharing some of my thoughts on how we can get lost in distractions. Now, the things that I'm going to tell you about, I truly believe there's nobody. I don't there are probably gonna be skeptical people, but at the end of the day, you're gonna be skeptical of yourself if you have anything that you should disagree with what I'm trying to give you. Now when you're when you're first born, you can't control your parents and whether your parents are have money or don't have money, that doesn't even matter. It's all about how much information the parent has about parenting, the actual act. And what I've noticed, depending on where your families are, the generation you grew up in, every generation is supposed to get more unless you're caught in the cycle. Now, if you're one of the fortunate ones that was able to beat the cycle, and you know, and I do want you to know, those who are still in the cycle can still learn from this information I'm gonna give you too. But I'm saying, in order for a generation of kids to learn, I think it well, before it sets in, I think it's like two generations. And that could be something that I just heard. But regardless, to actual see change, actual change, it takes more than the work of just one person. Like it has to be bought in by the family. So when you look at your parents with the information that they have, they give you certain habits that they have, whether it's their diet, their religion, and I know I don't want anybody to get upset on how I use religion, but religion, if you can step out of your perspective, religion just separates people. So depending on where you are born or who you're born to, you're going to get this information that says, this is the right information, right? And it tells you that you're a specific type of person because you believe in this, and those who don't believe in it are less than or whatever it is. But at the end of the day, it's separating you. Now, I do want you to know there are some beautiful passages or ideas that it wants to push for its own people, but we need something to push for everybody, right? So if you can get out of the idea that these things that I'm naming are just distractions from you working on yourself. I think everybody who's born has a journey. I think everybody can agree with that. Whether it's a perspective is a tough journey, or I wish I would have had what they had, or whatever it is, but it creates this person you become. Now, depending on who your parents are and what part of the generation you are in your family, it could be really, really tough. And I'm gonna tell you, regardless of how good you think you are as parents, there's no book on this. All you can do is a better job than you think your parents did, right? Because you won't be able to see the results of your parenting until they have kids. And then you can reflect, like, okay, I can see why they did this, I can see they improve. So when I say it was two generations, it's like, what did I do to change or to help it as a family? But we're so caught in distractions. And if you're not thinking that far down the line, depending on where you are in your life, it could get tougher as you get older. You can want to live life more, but it could still get tougher because you're gonna be like, dang, I should have done this when I was this age, or I should have done that more. And all you can do is just reflect. Like, and and the the best part of this, wherever you are in life, it's not to soak and be like, man, woulda, coulda, shoulda. It's about being able to communicate effectively on how to create the change for the younger generation. Because we are a creature of habits, and depending on who your parents are, that's what could happen. So believe what you want, whether it's Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, um, uh, Hinduism, anything that allows you to beg be a better person, you can believe in it. But I'm just letting you know there's a part of you that's okay with the separation of people. And depending on where you're born, how do you know you didn't get the shorter end of the stick? You know, if God made us all, why is your stick better than mine? Or why is my stick better than yours? So I'm allowing you guys, and I know that sounded like I was taking a shot, and I'm not, because I practice a little bit of everybody's uh uh writings. Because anything that can make me a better person, I want it in my life. So I do want you to know that the things that's going to make me a better person, I want I want it all. I'm here for it. But I want everybody to know in order to truly enjoy your walk in life, we have to teach our kids effort. Even when it gets tough, we have to teach them how to respond to it and how to go back and work on it harder so that they can get over the hump. Once they figure that process out, they can apply that to any and everything in their life. If you don't teach them effort, they're gonna find comfortability. And comfortability looks like what somebody else has, not knowing what it takes to get there or to stay there. And if they don't put in the effort to get there, they're going to start to use excuses on I don't have this because I grew up like this, my parents didn't know this, we didn't have the money to do this. But there's somebody that had it worse than you that made it out. And like I said before, the only way this works is if you believe you deserve it. You don't have it because you haven't put in the effort. That's all I can agree say or agree to uh across my years and experience. Just listening. If you talk to anybody, there is no there are no circumstances that prevented somebody from getting what they think they're supposed to get. They didn't put the work in. Now I'll tell you this if you take shortcuts to get to where you think you want to get, there are going to be lessons that you're gonna miss that's gonna be very difficult for you to stay where you think you're supposed to be. Or you may not get to where you think you're supposed to get because of those shortcuts. Because lessons, if you can, if you don't know them, you're gonna have a blind spot to them. So you're going to have to put in a level of effort that requires every day and a dedication that you just say, I'm gonna do it for the rest of my life. Now, when I say that, I'll depending on where you are in life. If you're not a professional athlete, I don't think you should be in a gym training like one. If your job does not require you to do that, I don't I don't think you should do it because you only have one body. And once it breaks down, the quality of life goes down no matter how much money you got. I promise. There are professional athletes that would trade a lot of their money just to not be in pain at a young age, younger than me. I'm 47. I've heard people my age talk about their body, and there's people way younger. So I'm just saying, if you're not a professional athlete, it's not going to change the trajectory of your family. If it's more of a selfish thing that's yours, it's hurting you. And time will tell, but I'm just going by, I'm just giving you my analysis. I'm I'm halfway to 100, close, close to halfway to being 100. So this information that I have can't be that wrong if I'm getting it from research scientists and information from people who are living the life. So I'm just sharing the information. I'm not saying it's completely right, but I'm saying that your effort and what you do is going to change your future. Now, your future doesn't matter if you're not putting in the work today. The longer you take on creating a routine that shows your effort towards something, you're gonna complain about a lot of things. And these these episodes, this this whole idea is to just share with anybody who's who wants a better life. Like everybody always is, you know, the distraction is money. It makes it seem like if I get this money, but if you master yourself, other things are open up. And then you can become really good in something that you want to do. The problem is that we invest so much time in something and we think we have to stay there because we've invested so much time in it. But you don't like it. This is give you a couple of options. You're right there and you don't like it because you haven't put in the effort to completely master that area. Because if you were cold at your area, somebody above you would have been like, Well, this person still there. We need to get them to teach these other people. And you can say, you know, you don't want to do that or whatnot, but I'm showing you that if you learn to master whatever area you're in, you won't stay there. People aren't gonna come get you unless you say, nah, I'm cool. I want to stay here. But I'm telling you, comfortability, it kills effort. Like you can you can ask anybody in a like in a in a career for 20 plus years, they never mastered it. Because if they mastered it, somebody would have came and got them. Because we live in a capitalistic society. If I'm up, I'm at the top. I'm just saying, if if we live in a capitalistic society and I'm in the top, this is my business, and I see somebody cold down there, why do I want him to stay there when I can convince him to show other people to do what he's doing? And that's what I think the journey of life is, your effort. We have not, we found comfortability. These vocabulary words, they are very powerful. And if you don't create a routine, you'll get caught in them. Because so many people talk about it and they make it seem like it's okay. And you could see somebody that you admire, and you could take it the wrong way and limit who you were supposed to become. And I truly believe as soon as we're born, we're there's all kinds of distractions. Like I said, whether it's religion, money, um, socioeconomic background. Being rich or poor, it's a distraction, wherever you are. You just hope that your parents can give you enough information for you to be able to do it by yourself when they're no longer around. That's what you're praying for. You're like, please, God, give me the wisdom as I go on this journey to make the best decisions so that I can reap the benefits and the fruits of my labor. The labor is your effort. I promise. Like, I can't even believe this many years have gone by with me practicing this routine. Being back in education, I was I was in this training yesterday, and it was pretty dope because it was like people wanted me to respond. They they they thought I gave good insight. And that's what I want my students to get. I want them to say, like, dang, I want Mr. Lewis to talk more. Because this is not arrogance, okay? I've done a lot of things in my life. And my job in my head is to give them everything I can. If my students knew what I wanted them to have and they knew how to receive it, why wouldn't they take it? It'll change their family. So my goal is to master the craft of communication so that the students understand what they could be for their family. So think about that. If you were code in your area, whatever it is, somebody's gonna come find you. And once somebody comes find you, they're gonna try to make money off you, right? See, this is the the benefits of being a master of your craft. You can decide if you want it or not. But if you don't have money and you're compromised, you'll sell yourself for something that you created. But once you master something, nobody can take that from you. They'll always need it. And then you can only do the things that you'll only do it for the things that you want. You know, uh, I asked my wife, I said, how much money would it cost for somebody to buy blue esquad.com? She's like, what do you mean? Like all the the episodes? I was like, yeah. She said, I don't know, that's not mine, that's yours. And I was like, How much is how much you think would be a price? She said, I don't know, I can't, I can't come up with that for you. I said, good, because I want you to know this. There isn't a price. The information that I have is free. Like, this information can improve people's quality of life and change the trajectory of their family for generations to come if they just believed in themselves. If you believe in yourself, you'll change the effort in your everyday life and watch the doors open. We have to remove the distractions, though. I'll tell you this: most people don't know what distractions are. People think that like certain things are supposed to be in their life and they accept it. I'll give you an example. I grew up in a household where my father gambled every once in a while. Uh, well, he did lottery and he would bet on games, like with his friends, uh, drink. I never saw him do drugs, but he was a a recovering addict uh in my young age, you know. So I never saw him, I saw him do it when maybe when I was really little, like in three or four, but after that I didn't see him do it anymore. But I'm and I'm in this environment, right? And I don't want to seem like it's unsafe or anything. It's not an unsafe environment outside of him being abusive, but there's not like people doing drugs where I live, that at least that I know of. You know what I'm saying? I do know people sell drugs, but I don't know what it looked like. So I wasn't in that environment at all. So I'm I'm in this with these habits of my father. So I automatically adopted them. As I grew up, I I I started drinking regularly after I turned 21 for sure. No. Yeah, it was definitely after 21. But in my mind, it was okay because I was like, that's that's my it's it runs in my family. My mother and father drink, and I use that as an excuse. I gamble regularly. Uh at one point I wanted to be a professional poker player because I thought it would be fun doing something like making money, but I didn't realize how good you had to be in that. Because it's a lot, it's very time consuming. You know, watching it on TV, you see just uh uh everything in like an hour or two. It's just really long. You had gotta have a different type of patience. And I'm impressed, like even while thinking about it now, like I can play, but I don't have the time and I don't want to put the effort in becoming that good. It sits down for so long. You know, I I I gotta be moving around a little more than that. That's the reason why I love podcasting, because I can just do a couple of episodes and you know, and I have the rest of my time. So after at some point, I'm going to get paid for my time. So I I grew up in an environment where I adopted these habits. And in my head, I thought that was just a part of my life. Like going out, I felt like if I as long as I ate dinner every night, I could go out as long as I didn't stay out late. I came home at an hour where my wife is not looking for me. Like in my head, I'm creating these ideas. But now, mind you, there is no part of no routine that I'm working on myself. Like, this is just my day-to-day. Like, I go to work, come home, I pick up the kids, come home, maybe help homework, play around with the kids, eat dinner, then probably go out and play poker or something like that. And then, or game, you know, like football is really big, basketball. So my weeks was just doing this without any routine of working on myself. How am I supposed to improve in life if I'm not even working on myself? I didn't know that I wasn't doing it, but I didn't realize me gambling, drinking, uh, staying out. This is money that's coming away from the household, right? But I'm thinking I got enough money to sustain that life because that's the life I'm supposed to live, as well as balance the life of me being a family man, a husband, and, you know, all of these things, right? But I didn't realize that it was just a distraction for me really working on becoming a better father and a husband. Because as we get older, you know, our kids are the products of us. And when I realized that my kids could possibly adopt my bad habits, I try to remove them because I don't want them I don't want them to go through the the journey I went through with bad habits. So like of course we've introduced them to we drink you know um and we have delicious foods and that that's one of the worst habits too think about that uh if you don't teach your kids uh the value of food they could easily become addicted to it at an early age but that's another episode but I wanted to get back your effort is going to change how you move through life like if you learn from an early age that there's an effort past finish there's an effort past 100% there's an effort called consistency. You're working on a routine because after you become so good in something you you develop the amount of time that separates you from people who say they do it versus people who are complete masters at their craft when they can recognize oh I I know where this person is. I remember I was there. But if you haven't mastered anything you wouldn't know that and that's the reason why we're distracted by these other things. So hopefully the information that I come up with I can help people who are just looking for a better quality of life that you don't require any help. It's just you now your effort should dedicate your I'm a I'm I'm gonna leave in the next couple of minutes because I want y'all to know in communication they say adults only have a 26 minute attention span to remain focused. And I try to stay within 26 minutes because I don't want to waste your time and I want to make sure the information I'm giving you is valuable enough for you to come back. I don't ask you guys to subscribe because if it's good enough, you'll come back. I don't want to attract anybody who don't want to be here. So you have to put your effort in working on something every single day and I and I'm gonna promote this communication the amount of activity you do on one day diet and emotional intelligence. If you work on these things every single day from a young age you're gonna be cold at the mastery of self and communication that includes tone, cadence, body language, facial expressions, pausing silence, listening, asking questions, paraphrasing, repeating the question or what you think you heard to get clarity so that you don't assume and you could possibly hear something that that you couldn't hear without doing all of these things. That's communication you have to do this every single day because if you don't how do you get better in it if you don't just because you talk to somebody every day don't mean your communication's improving. You guys talk the same way but you have to work on that activity. You have to walk eight to 10,000 steps a day do some calisthenics get your heart flowing you do not have to go to the gym but if you want to go spend some money and go to the gym go for it. And remember what I said if you're a professional athlete we understand why you got to do that. But if you're not a professional athlete and you do not make money you do not need to tear your body up to stay in shape. Please keep that in mind because as you get older your body will break down and you do not want to get up sometimes in the morning because your body hurts. And I want to prevent that part because that that is real. Talk to anybody who's older about how their body aches and they got to get warmed up before you know they can actually move around. I don't want that to happen to you. Diet diet is very important. So there's three things I've been talking about I haven't actually talked about it. I do highly recommend the keto diet the keto diet was marvelous. I saw so many results I do recommend the Mediterranean diet because that is one of the things that kind of then practice and the the studies show that it's pretty healthy. And I do believe in intermittent fasting if you could do 186 at least do 12 uh no no no 168 16 hours of no eating eight hours pick an eight hour period together and you want to get it down to 20 and four so that means 20 hours of no eating and then four hours you can eat anything you want the problem is that it's going to shrink your appetite your your diet because it's only so much you can eat in four hours. You know and at some point you'll be able to burn the the the the fat that you have stored that you can't get rid of because you keep replenishing your body with the wrong foods. Now if you worked and did the research on your diet your self-esteem will change. Last but not least emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence if we can learn to control our emotions because most of the times we overreact because we don't have enough information. If we knew why they were acting that way it wouldn't bother us. But for some reason we're being triggered because we have not unlayered or had enough therapy to figure out why we act the way that we do but once we figure out why we act the way that we do we'll understand why other people act the way that they do and you'll have a different grace toleration to be able to deal with people and everything will come together so much more peacefully and you will enjoy life because you will understand the quality of life. Y'all make today better than yesterday don't worry about anything you can't control G A T A get after that action or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose