Stop Settling for Mediocrity and DISCOVER Your True Potential!

0:06Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, please do me a favor, give us a rating and review however you listen to us. Reason why is because the more positive ratings and reviews that we get, the more that Spotify and Apple Podcasts and all of the other platforms present this podcast on the front page to show to people who have never listened to it before, which allows us to impact more people's lives. So if you do that, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it.

0:35Today, we're gonna be talking about the power of quitting and giving up. And, you know, this might surprise you today is I'm going to talk about giving up and quitting because, you know, you might think, oh, I like creating episodes about not giving up and always keep going and giving up can be seen as like a sign of failure. And it can if you're if it's towards something, if you're like trying to if you give up on like the life that you want to create, if you give up on bringing out your full potential in the world. Well, yes, I could see that being a failure, but sometimes giving up and quitting something is the most courageous decision that you can make.

1:15It really is. And this ties perfectly with the last episode that I just did on the commitment principle of how we have to act in accordance with who we think we are or our belief systems. But I'm all about following through. I'm all about working your ass off. I'm all about creating the life that you want. But sometimes the best thing that you can do for yourself and for your future is to give up on something that you've been holding onto for way too long. And sometimes we just continue to keep doing something because we've just been doing it for so long. Or we just continue to stay with somebody because we've been with them for so long.

1:52Or we continue to be friends with somebody because we've been friends with them for so long. And sometimes it's very valuable to know that maybe what you've been doing is you've been trying to breathe life into something that died a long time ago. And you're just trying so hard to make this thing work that died two years ago. And so sometimes it is good to turn the page on a friendship, on a relationship, on a job, on a career, on a business that's been failing for so long, on that mindset that's holding you back, on a belief system about yourself, about the world. Everything has a lifespan and few things are supposed to last forever.

2:43Some are. I'm not saying kill everything in your life, but maybe there are a couple of things that should be taken out behind the barn and shot that you've been holding onto for way too long. So some things are meant to last forever, but many things are not meant to last forever. Many things do have a lifespan. And so you might actually be using energy, enforcing energy into something that no longer serves you. And you might be bringing all of the energy to a relationship and the person just isn't bringing any of it. Or you might be putting all of your energy into making sure that you stay this career even though it's so hard to get yourself to drive to work every single day.

3:23Just because it's familiar doesn't mean that it's fulfilling. And you have to realize that. Sometimes we see, and I've seen it for a long time in my life, we see giving up as a sign of weakness. But it can also really be a big sign of strength. One of the biggest skills that you can learn is to understand when something is over and understand when something has run its course in your life. And it's not just about like quitting and being a failure and looking down on yourself and having guilt and shame around not having the same energy for your career or for your relationship or for your friendship.

4:01It's not all about quitting. It's about understanding that something is at the end of its life. And so you've really got to ask yourself and go through your life and be like, is this thing that's all consuming of me and using so much of my energy, is it adding value to my life? Or am I just holding onto it out of fear or out of habit? Like, is it really still adding value or I'm just holding onto it because of just habit or fear? A lot of times I see people stick with something or someone just because there's some form of history. And it goes into this psychological phenomenon that's called the sunken cost fallacy.

4:43And basically, the sunken cost fallacy is when people continue to invest their time or money or effort into something just because they already put a lot into it, even if it's no longer worth it. Like, I'll give you a simple example. We'll take emotion out of it. But if you look at investing, I have invested in many companies and I've seen some companies that I'm like, yeah, this one didn't work after a couple of years. And I see other people who invested into it with me. They're like, no, let's put more money into it. Let's put more money into it. I'm like, this is literally the definition of the sunken cost fallacy is we invested into a business.

5:20This business has failed. It's on its way down. I'm not trying to attach myself to a sinking ship. and you know eight to nine investments should go south and one or two should succeed and so the sunken cost fallacy can be in investments but it can also be in relationships it could be in careers it could be in everything in your life which is like i've put so much time and so much energy into this thing that i can't let it die and people feel stuck because they they don't want to cut their losses and just figure out a way to move on. So like, for instance, let's take an easy one. Let's take your job, right?

5:57Let's say you went to school for accounting. And I hear something like this all of the time where it's like, Hey Rob, I went to school for accounting. I've been doing this for 10 years and I'm not really a fan of my job. I don't hate it. I just don't really love it. And I'm just not feeling in love with this job. And I feel like I'm being called into going into another direction. And you feel this nudge or this call towards something different. But the sunken cost fallacy or the fact that you went to school for four years and you got an education in it. And so you have like four years of education and then you have 10 years of work.

6:38I have 14 years into this, Rob. I'm 40 years old now. I can't change. And I look at people and I've had people literally come to me at events that I've spoken at and be like, I'm 40 years old, I've been doing this. I want to change, but I've just been doing this for 14 years. I can't, I can't just give up on something I've been putting 14 years into it. And if I give up right now, aren't I a failure? And it's like, if you're 40 and you have, if you have, you identified that there's something that you're not in love with anymore, or maybe you were never in love with it. You just did it because you thought you were supposed to.

7:08If you're lucky enough to retire at 65, most people, according to statistics, won't retire at 65 now because they don't have enough money saved, if you're lucky enough to retire at 65, you're going to be doing this for another 25 years. So you're telling me that you want to keep on doing something that you're done with mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and you want to do something for another 25 years that you're done with just because you've been doing it for 14? Like that, when you actually say it out loud, doesn't make any sense. And we will be right back. And now back to the show.

7:47And that's what it's, it requires us to, all right, I want to make a change. And that feeling of I need to make a change inherently brings up fear because most people fear change. Like, you know, okay, if I just stay in this job and I stay doing this thing, I'll be okay. And I'll make this amount of money and I'll have two vacations a year and I'll be able to pay the bills. But I really am getting pulled towards this thing, but I don't know if that thing is so scary. I don't know what's on the other side of that. Sometimes it is time to turn the page and appreciate that those 14 years, you did a lot.

8:20You had so many accomplishments. You've learned a lot. There's a lot that you can take from those 14 years and put into the next 25. So instead of thinking about the past, which is what most people do in this situation, consider the future. Like what could those 25 years look like if you pursued something that truly excites you? Like maybe you become a successful accountant doing something that you don't fully love. Well, what could you accomplish if you did something that you actually really love? Like where could your life be? Maybe the first, you know, 40 years of your life and, you know, 14 years of a career was doing something that you thought you were supposed to do based off of your parents and society and a younger version of yourself that built this idea.

9:05And so that's what you did from, you know, 26 to 40. What could you do now? You have 40 years of experience in life, 40 years of knowledge, 14 years of business acumen and all of it. What could the next 25 years look like if you stepped into the highest version of your potential? That could be amazing. So instead of looking at what you've lost, if you make a change, how much you could gain from making the change. And sometimes it is time to turn the page. Appreciate the skills, appreciate the lessons, appreciate the experience from your role and give yourself permission to move on. It's not a failure.

9:46It's an evolution. And that's a really important thing to understand is it's not failure in this case. It's evolution. You're evolving. It's a key reframe to think about. It's like, I'm evolving. This is, that's the old version of me. I'm stepping into a new version of me where I'm gonna do something that's fulfilling. Because what if you do become quote unquote successful as accountant and you have, you know, you build a huge accountancy firm and you work your ass off, you make millions of dollars and you're just like 15 years from now, you're like, I'm not fulfilled. What is, is that success?

10:20Like Tony Robbins always says, success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. So many people get to quote unquote success, financial success, whatever it might be, achievements. People can see that you're cool and you've awesome and you've done these things, but inside you feel like you haven't done anything. That feels like a failure to me. So it's like, what do you define as success? You know, another example is a relationship. Please understand this before I dive into it. I am not in the business of breaking up marriages or long-term relationships. If you are happy and in a loving marriage or relationship that brings out the best in you and you bring out the best in them, then you have found one of the rarest things in this entire world.

11:02And this next part is not for you. But for those of you guys, let me tell you something that I do hear a lot about. You know, they say something like, well, Rob, I've been married for 12 years and we've tried to make it work. We've seen marriage counselors and we've tried for years to make it work and we've tried and we've tried and we've tried, but it's just not there anymore. There's no spark and we're just kind of staying together for the kids. Like I've heard this many times, sadly, we're staying together for the kids. And the way that I bring it up to people and just a question that I ask is like, okay, well, I get that.

11:40I completely, completely understand that's gotta be really, really tough. But if you're in a relationship and there's no love in the relationship and your children are learning what a relationship should look like from you, are they learning the type of relationship that you want them to have later on in life? Like, do you want your marriage to be an example of perfect love for them? Do you want them to be your relationship to be like what love could be and what a relationship could be? So is it better for them to see their mother and their father in a relationship where there's no connection and there's no love and you're just kind of coexisting?

12:16Or is it better for, yeah, maybe things get hard for a little while, but maybe somebody does get into a divorce and then the mother gets into a relationship that's a loving relationship and the father gets into a relationship that is a loving relationship. Is that better to see? And I don't know. I don't have the answer for it. Probably it would be my answer, but this is for each relationship is unique. Will it be an easy road if you do decide to break up the relationship? No. Could it be beneficial for you in the long run and for your children to see a loving relationship in the long run, it could.

12:50But in the long run, it could provide a better example of what a loving relationship could look like. And so it's like, that's something that you should think about where it's like, if you're staying together just for the kids, is that like a logistical thing at this point? Or is it like, well, what do your, your children are going to act in accordance with what they see. They're learning from you on how to be a human. They're learning from you on how to be in a relationship on how to, how to act with your spouse. And so what do you want them to learn? That's something to really think about. And moving on from something doesn't mean that it was a failure.

13:23I keep bringing this up. You know, I remember seeing a interview one time with a guy and he said, you know, he was, he had just gotten a divorce and he said, but that he said, you know, the guy who was interviewing him was like, what do you think of divorce? He's like, well, he's like, most people would say that divorce is a failure, but I never saw my relationship as a failure. He's like, I learned a ton in our relationship. She learned a ton and we're still good friends, but the relationship just ran its course. And so I don't see that as a failure. I see something that evolved as much as it could.

13:51And then it was just time for both of us to turn the page. And so it worked out the way it was supposed to work out. And so with everything in life, you learn and you grow and some things you're going to continue to stay with and some things you just might want to move on from. Everything in life is a lesson, but did you get the lesson that you needed? Another example of something that you should probably try to start to think about and maybe turn the page on is your personality, your mindset, what you think about yourself. Going back to the last episode where it's just like, oh yeah, well this is who I've always been.

14:21That's what we tend to stick with and that's BS. You are an infinitely complex being that is constantly evolving all the time. Don't try to stay the way that you've always been. Allow yourself to evolve. If you're stagnant, you're not growing. Stagnation leads to decay. And when I think of stagnant, I always think of like the visual that always comes to my head because I'm such a visual person is like a pond that's got mold on it and mosquitoes and it's like gross. I don't want to think of my life as like a stagnant pond. And one of my very first mentors used to always say you're either green and growing or you're brown and dying.

14:59And so like when you think of your life, do you want it to feel like it's green and growing or do you want to feel like it's brown and dying? And so you just have to start thinking about like, what do you want to continue into your future and what do you want to leave in the past? You have to stop settling for stuff that's not good enough. You've got to demand greatness from yourself in your life. Don't get stuck in who you were yesterday. You should be constantly evolving and learning and challenging yourself and challenging your beliefs. Growing is a continuous process. Nothing stays the same in this universe.

15:30So why are you trying to hold on to being the same as you were yesterday? And I want you to realize that when you start making decisions, you start looking at your life. I always live, and this is my own personal way that I live. So, you know, if you want to take, you can, if not, no big deal. And mine is this, if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. If you look at something and you're like, okay, this, this job, is it a hell yes? And if it's not, well, then it's a hell no. And this mantra like cuts through the noise. If you're not fully excited and energized and aligned with something or someone, then maybe you should consider what the next step should be in it.

16:07Settling for like good enough is a slow killer of your dreams and your joy. Like, I don't, I don't think there's anybody gets the end of their life and is like, well, I'm glad that it was just pretty good. Like, I'm sure they'd be like, damn, I wish I would have done more. You know, I wish I would have made a change. I wish I would have changed when I had the chance. And so you have to stop settling for these things. You have to demand this greatness from yourself. You owe it to yourself to pursue the things that truly light you up inside. Life is too short to just be doing something because you've been doing in the past.

16:37You want to be doing something that excites you. And don't fear the unknown. Fear staying the same. Fear staying stuck. Fear not bringing your potential out to the world because that, I don't know, the unknown is way less scary to me than getting to the end of my life and wishing that I would have done more or seeing that I would have had, I had so much opportunity, so much potential, I didn't bring it out to the world. Look, I would rather work my ass off. I would rather make a change. I would rather get uncomfortable. I'd rather step into the unknown way more than I would like to get to the end of my life and regret.

17:08That scares the shit out of me. That's what I don't want to do. And so once again, not everything needs to be taken out behind the bar and shot, but there are probably a few things in your life and my life and all of our lives that we should start to look at and say, hey, maybe I should make a change on this thing. If you do that, that will allow you to constantly keep evolving and changing and becoming the best version of yourself. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. I love when I see tons of you guys sharing it.

17:40I always see all the times that I'm tagged. And so I reached out to a lot of you guys and say thank you as well when you do it. So I greatly, greatly appreciate it when you share this episode and every episode that we have. And if you want to learn more of how you can work with me, myself, and some of the extra things that we have over here to help you learn and grow, go to mindsetmentor.com. Once again, mindsetmentor.com. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission, make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.