I’ve Been Putting the Wrong People First [Raw Session]

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what people actually mean when they say, "Put yourself first."

For the longest time, I never liked the phrase.

I still don't like the phrase technically, because it does sound selfish.

It sounds like you're ignoring people.

It sounds like deciding that your needs matter more than everyone else around you.

But the more I look at it and think about it and see it in my life, I don't think that's what it really means anymore.

I think putting yourself first is really about having priorities and being willing to live by those priorities and rules that you put for your life.

Because if you say yes to everything, if you try to keep everyone else happy and keep the situation feeling comfortable for everyone in it, eventually you stop making decisions based on what matters to you and what matters to the people around you, your family, your closest people.

You start making decisions based on avoiding disappointing someone else. Disappointing someone who's not even part of your immediate family or your closest inner circle.

And I think I've done that more than I realized.

01:23 — Saying Yes Is Easy

One of the focuses in the book that I've been working on and trying my best to get out is be willing to say no.

Not because saying no is powerful, but because saying yes is way too easy.

Someone asks. Someone needs something. Someone has expectations.

You don't even stop to think. You just say yes.

It's almost like an automatic response that we're all trained to, depending on how you were raised and where you grew up and what you were taught.

Saying yes and not letting other people down becomes the normal default.

Because the uncomfortable part isn't saying no.

The uncomfortable part is watching someone be disappointed.

And that's why you say yes.

Because you don't want to see that disappointment on someone's face. You don't want to let someone else down.

Most of us would rather inconvenience ourselves for months, years, go into financial problems, make our closest people be disappointed, than make a stranger disappointed or feel uncomfortable.

We'd rather do that than sit through thirty seconds of awkwardness.

And I started realizing that's completely backwards when you look at it from the other point of view.

02:46 — Choosing My Wife First

Here's something. I do have some small examples of this, and one is a recent one that happened earlier this summer.

I have a friend who was coming to town and wanted to just stop by. He didn't even want to stay at our house. He just wanted to stop by and see my home, because I've known this guy for a long time and he's never been to where I live.

So he wanted to see my surroundings.

He's a friend that lets me stay with him when I go visit his area.

Normally, someone coming to the house isn't a big deal, but my wife's never seen this person, never talked to him, and she gets uncomfortable around strangers really.

And she doesn't enjoy having people over because she always feels uncomfortable.

So immediately I felt stuck.

I was thinking about disappointing my friend.

I was thinking about making things awkward.

I was trying to figure out how to make everybody happy.

Then I realized, basically what it was, was I wasn't going to say no to him and I wasn't going to let my wife know he was coming.

So how do I navigate this awkward situation?

And then I realized I was solving the wrong problem.

Who comes first?

And for me, that's an easy one in that situation.

Once I put it in that perspective, the one person I have to make sure is happy is my wife.

That doesn't mean I don't care about my friend.

It doesn't mean I don't want him to see my home and see where I live. He lets me stay at his place. I get to go see where he lives.

It means if those two priorities are in conflict, I should already know, and I do already know, which one always wins.

And the funny part is, as soon as I accepted that, the stress on me disappeared. The stress on my wife disappeared.

My friend made fun of it a little bit, but he understood. I could tell he understood.

And in the end, we found a way.

As soon as that stress and discomfort disappeared, my wife was more open because she didn't feel obligated. So once that was taken away, it became a much more friendly, easygoing situation.

So he came over. He got to meet my wife for the first time.

It's funny because I have friends from a lot of different places because I traveled a lot during my work. So I have all these friends across North America, really.

And my wife has heard of all of them, but she's probably never met 90% of them.

She's heard of them. They've seen her. They've been in the room when I've talked to my wife. They've been in videos, like FaceTime, where my wife has seen them and said hello.

But only from a digital social aspect like that. Never in person or shake-a-hand type thing.

But back to it. Now she got to meet one of my friends, and he got to come see my house and say hi to my wife.

And it worked out pretty good.

Because as soon as I understood where to put my priority, once it becomes a simple yes or no based off your priorities, your rules, and your guidelines, you take all that discomfort and thought process out of it.

Because it becomes, I'm following my rules.

Answer one. Answer two. Answer three.

And when they all add up, then that's the winner.

There's no analytical part about it.

So that made it really good.

That one came up because I had one friend who said, we were out watching a game, and my friend got to meet some of my coworkers. It came up about coming to my house.

And one friend said, "Why won't you let him over?"

I said, "Because I'd rather my wife be happy. I'd rather disappoint my friend and keep my wife happy than make my friend happy and have my wife mad at me."

When you put it in perspective, it's just, who are the most important people in your life?

And I'd rather make those people happy and comfortable.

07:18 — Knowing My Edges

Here's another one that came up.

It's pretty close around the same group of friends because they live far away, and every year I go there.

A few videos ago, I've talked about not drinking anymore and how that affects my life, why I do it, and things that have come out of it that make life a little bit better. A lot better, actually.

But every year I do take a trip with those friends. I go visit them because there's a big music festival. We do a lot of barbecues, backyard pools, go to the beach.

And we do a lot of hanging out because there's a lot of friends in that area. I spent many years working there.

Some are old coworkers. Some are friends I met along the way.

But there's always drinking involved.

So since I stopped drinking, I've been looking at that trip totally different.

My friends would absolutely respect my decision, and they've already told me that. They'd never put pressure on me.

One of them even said they're willing to pay for my trip, pay for all my expenses, just to make sure I come and I'm part of the annual trip basically.

And that means a lot to me.

This isn't about bad friends.

It's about knowing myself.

There's a chapter in the book about knowing your edges, and this is what that revolves around.

I know what the environment that I'll be putting myself in is. I know how fresh I am off not drinking, and how easily drinking becomes part of that fun time basically.

I know the habits that are connected and how slips can happen easily.

And I know my edges. So once a slip happens, I know how quickly it slides and gets progressively worse.

Then it's a restart, which I know I can do, and I've done it many times, but I just don't want to go there again.

And knowing that I don't want to do it again, I know I want to protect myself.

That means I have to say no, as much as it disappoints, as much as people are willing to go out of their way to make me not feel that way.

I just don't want to put myself in the situation. I don't want to put them in the situation.

It's not that I would become some kind of monster. It's not that.

I just set goals. I set priorities. And I want to stick to them.

So I think next year is going to be a different story.

Even this year, I went to a few parties, barbecues, did the camping thing. I haven't gone to a concert. I've been to work events. We've gone out boating, things like that.

So obviously, I don't have the problem of saying no to everything. I don't have the problem of staying away.

I'd just rather limit my exposure, which is really me saying no.

And I have to feel okay with that because I put myself first, then I put my family first, then I put my friends first.

So in this situation, it's me, then my family, and my friends have to get a no, which is uncomfortable and disappointing.

But they're all fine with it.

10:41 — Working From Home

Another example in this, putting family first, is my working condition.

I do work from home. I do have an office I can go to, but I work remotely and my wife works from home.

For years, I've always gone to a friend's house, a coworker's house. Even when we weren't coworkers, I still went to his home.

And that's where I work.

I have an office there. I have my computer, monitors set up, my own desk. I have my snacks there.

It's more or less to have company in the same area so we can work off each other with coding and business decisions and testing and things like that.

But lately I started asking myself, why am I spending so much of my week somewhere besides my home?

Why am I spending time away from my wife and my kids?

Because my kids work from home or do school, so they're always here. My wife's always here.

So there's spontaneous walks, spontaneous lunches, going in the pool, errands around the house, making supper.

There's all kinds of things that I could easily add to our life as a family just by being present, being here.

Removing that commute time to there and back home. Removing being away and only talking through text or messages to see what the plan is.

Or missing a walk because I wasn't here when the perfect time happened.

So I know my friend is possibly taking this a little bit personally.

I think because he's so used to it. It's been such an ingrained thing for over a decade.

And now all of a sudden, I've kind of abruptly stopped it.

Usually in the summertime I do anyway, because in summer we do have the pool. It's beautiful here. I get to go for runs, go for bike rides.

If I have a break between meetings and work, I can just hop on my bike and go out. Or like I said, my wife and I can go to the park and go for a walk.

So I'd rather be here for the spontaneous moments to create memories and life and connection than be at a desk in my friend's home away from my family and the people.

So it's uncomfortable, but I have to put myself first and my family first in that situation.

Because it's just the way I look at how much time's left. How many summers we have.

And there's another part where I talk about this.

I don't want to miss those opportunities just because of me putting the wrong people first.

13:29 — Stay Calm and Solve the Right Problem

This comes back to another time recently this summer.

Stay calm, solve problems. That's in the book.

I realized it applies here too, because the problem usually isn't that someone asks something of you.

The problem is that you immediately take responsibility for their feelings.

You start trying to fix everything.

And I do have an actual example with my kid for this.

You start trying to make every outcome perfect.

Not just the outcome for the people closest to yourself. You're trying to make the outcome perfect for everyone involved.

Instead, you need to stop and ask, what's actually happening here?

Who's responsible?

What belongs to me and my family?

What doesn't?

Once you answer those questions, the decision usually becomes extremely clear and stress is removed.

14:22 — Family First in a Panic

Like I said, my kid recently took a big trip helping their partner or friend move from one part of the U.S. to another part.

Along the trip, we became aware that there was no place to stay.

The apartment or condo or whatever they were planning on living in once they moved there was not real. It was sort of a fake scam thing.

So now they're traveling in the middle of packing up a life in one city, state, to move completely across the continent to another state and city where there's no destination at the moment.

There is no place to park and unload.

So once that happened, I get a call of panic, and the mind automatically goes everywhere at once.

You start thinking about what's going to happen. What are we going to do?

And you start thinking about the friend, about the situation, what's going wrong and what can go wrong.

Who should have planned better?

There's a lot of blame that happens.

But my first thought, once I heard it, I was driving and I was told about this, I stopped and I said, this is okay.

Is our kid okay?

Is our family okay?

That's my first priority.

Is there any issue with my child?

Is everything going to be fine?

And everything's fine, yes.

They're driving. They have hotels already booked along the way. They have Airbnbs along the way once they get to the final destination.

And it's not because everyone else doesn't matter in this situation.

It's because in that moment, I need to know where the center is.

Where are the things that I put closest to my life?

What situation are they being put in?

And is that controllable? Is that safe? Is it comfortable? Is it what we need?

If we need a hotel, we'll get a hotel.

If we need an Airbnb, I'll look it up.

And that's the first thing I did.

I looked up Airbnbs. I looked up hotels to see what was available and what I could get.

And once I had that under control, it was fine.

I even said, well, we could change flights.

I looked up changing flights, what the cost would be, what was available.

All that's fine.

So once that was clear, now we can breathe.

We can get a hotel. We can get an Airbnb. We can even change the flight.

Sure, that leaves the other friend in a bad situation, but my family, my people, are first and taken care of.

Now we can take time. Now we can look at helping the overall situation because we know we're safe and we're fine.

So we can look at places to live, different contacts to deal with. We can weed through the apartment options. We can figure out a solution.

But the order mattered here.

Family first did not mean no one else gets help.

It meant we stopped pretending every concern had the same weight.

And I think that's the part I'm starting to understand.

Putting yourself first, or putting your family first, is not always about walking away from people.

Sometimes it's about getting the priorities straight enough that you can help without losing the plot.

17:32 — Trusting the Bigger Feeling

I think part of this is age.

I look at life a little different now than I used to.

Not in a dramatic way. Just in a more honest way with myself.

With age, obviously there are only so many summers.

There's only so many winters. Only so many trips we can take.

There's only so many certain years where I'm going to be able to do the physical activities I want to do, like go paddle boarding, kayaking, hiking, any kind of thing that's strenuous.

Once you reach a certain age, obviously a lot of those mobility and risk-taking things are not part of your life anymore.

And you have to stop saying, I'll go next year.

Because before next year starts, it becomes less guaranteed than it used to feel.

Every year takes one out of the bucket.

I just took a trip back home, and honestly, part of me didn't want to go.

I like being home, especially in the summertime.

The weather here is great. There are beaches. I have my pool.

I love my routine of running outdoors and biking, and I knew where I was going, I wasn't going to get that.

But there was part of me that looked at the trip and thought, do I really want to leave right now?

But then there was that other part that asked a better question.

How many more chances am I going to have to go home?

How many more times am I going to get back there?

How many summers are going to line up where I can spend a week or two with friends and family with no obligations or pressures, have a place to stay, everyone's there, everyone's healthy?

And when I looked at it that way, the answer felt different.

But it also felt easy.

Missing some good weather at home matters, but it doesn't matter as much as the memories and making other people who want to see me.

My mother really wanted to spend time with me.

My nephews are getting older, and I had a chance to see all of them play their favorite sports, play together, hang out with them.

And I got to hang out with my friends and their kids.

So the weather didn't matter as much as seeing people.

And it didn't matter as much as choosing something I knew would probably mean more in the long run.

I think I trust that gut feeling more than I used to now.

Not every gut feeling.

Some gut feelings are just fear.

Some are just avoidance.

Some are just wanting comfort right away, ignoring the uncomfortable, being scared of it.

But this was a gut feeling to go home.

I knew I had to do it.

Not because I felt that something was going to happen or go wrong, but the timing. I knew that the timing was right.

I knew that I hadn't been home in such a long time, or hadn't seen these people in such a long time, that it was going to mean just as much to them as it was to me.

And that's a feeling that says this matters.

So I paid attention to it, and I did it.

And it was an amazing time.

So don't let a short-term flinch make decisions for you, because I think that happens more than people realize.

We avoid being uncomfortable for a few minutes or days, and then we miss something that could have stayed with us for years.

We say no because the logistics feel annoying.

We stay home because leaving feels uncomfortable, inconvenient.

We avoid the conversation because it feels awkward.

We keep the routine because changing it doesn't feel right.

But really, sometimes you've got to shake it up.

And sometimes comfortable is good.

Sometimes staying home is the right choice.

But sometimes the flinch that's telling you not to do it is just the first layer.

Because you feel like it's uncomfortable, you just automatically say no.

Which is the opposite. You say no to yourself, you say yes to others.

It's pretty funny how it works out.

And when we let that first layer control everything, we can end up building a life that's technically comfortable, but quietly smaller than it needs to be.

And that's what I'm trying to pay more attention to now.

Not just what feels easy today, but what I'll be glad I chose later.

22:02 — Closing

I'm still learning all this.

I'm still playing with it.

Obviously I'm getting older, so I'm trying to say yes to more things, or try more things, and ignore that little voice that's telling me not to, and trust the gut that says, "Go for it."

I don't think putting yourself first means being selfish anymore.

I think it means being honest about the life you're trying to build.

For me, that means my health, sobriety, marriage, family.

Those things have moved higher than they used to be.

That doesn't mean I care less about my friends or how they feel.

I'm not ignoring anyone or putting things to the side.

It doesn't mean I'm trying to push those people away or any people away.

It just means I finally have a better order in my mind.

I'm prioritizing things a little different to make my life set up in a better way.

And it helps me make my decisions easier and clearer.

Some people are going to be disappointed with that, and that's okay.

Because if your friends or the people around you are disappointed, that's a good thing in a way because it means they care and they want to spend time with you and they enjoy your company.

But it also means hopefully they respect it.

And once they understand what you're doing, then they know that you're putting your priorities first. You're putting your family first, yourself first.

And they're not excluded from that.

It's just that there are times when you and your family are higher on the list.

Because disappointing someone isn't always the same thing as doing something wrong.

Sometimes it's simply the cost of building a life that's actually aligned with what matters most to you, and making sure you make a lasting life further in the future.

Your family is the one that's going to be with you the longest.

My wife is going to be the one that's with me pretty much forever.

Same with my kids.

So I need to make sure that my priorities are put in line with that and them.

Thanks for watching.

Bye.