Focus On This Podcast

188. You Are Who You’re With: Stories of Achievement

Audio

Overview

We’ve all heard the phrase, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” But, how does that apply to goal achievement and productivity?

In this episode, Blake and Verbs share stories of how they changed their environments to achieve their own goals. Blake tells a story from his college days while Verbs tells a much more recent story (that actually connects to a goal that he’s discussed on the podcast before).

If you want to surround yourself with the right people to achieve your goals, then you’ll definitely want to check out the Full Focus Planner Community at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ffpthinktank

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/D4bVVyfUcZ0

Episode Transcript

Verbs Boyer:

All right, Blake, so I know you’re aware of this. I’m sure you heard it maybe multiple times growing up. Has your parents issued a word of advice as far as who you hang out with? There’s this phrase that says, you are the sum total of those who you hang out with. There’s a variety of versions of that phrase, just to encourage you to make sure you’re selecting your mates and your friendships appropriately and with wisdom. Have you ever heard that? And if so, as you’ve grown older, what are some of your thoughts around the validity of that statement?

Blake Stratton:

Yeah, I’ve definitely heard it, and it’s really true, depending, I guess, on how you think of it. I guess the truth is in when you want to achieve something, and that’s what this podcast is really about, it’s about how can I focus on the right things so that I can create the life, the work, the reality that I want to create. When you want to achieve something, your people group, the environment that you’re in, is a huge, huge factor in that.

It’s either going to propel you into that, or it can hold you back or keep you treading water. But environment is huge. I mean, the first thing that came to my mind when we were talking about this was when I was in college. Do you know what I majored in college, Verbs? Have we discussed this?

Verbs Boyer:

I don’t believe we have, but please continue. What was your major in college?

Blake Stratton:

I’m going to give you three guesses.

Verbs Boyer:

Okay. My first guess will be marketing.

Blake Stratton:

Okay, great. Guess wrong.

Verbs Boyer:

Man, second guess would be music. You were a jazz major.

Blake Stratton:

Yes, I was a music major. Can you get closer? You’re very warm right now, because you typically don’t just major hold in music, right? You usually have some…

Nick Jaworski:

Were you a performance major?

Blake Stratton:

Technically, yes. For part of college, yes.

Nick Jaworski:

Are we basing it up? Is that what we were doing?

Blake Stratton:

We were basing it up. I studied bass. Here’s the reason why I wanted to tell this story. I went to this school and I wasn’t planning on majoring in bass. I did want to be a part of the vocal program, believe it or not. Well, I don’t have to tell this whole story. Anyway, they said, “Hey, this is a school of 1,600 people,” this college in a cornfield in Indiana. They’re like, “Hey, we’ll give you a bigger scholarship if you play upright bass,” because I happen to be able to play upright bass. They’re like, “We don’t have an upright bassist in this whole school. We’ll give you a scholarship if you major in bass.” I said, sure.

I was playing and I was taking bass lessons. In my heart of hearts, I had no interest in orchestra or playing orchestral music on the upright bass. I did love music. At that point in my life, it was the funnest, most fulfilling thing I had done. I loved playing bass guitar specifically. I remember I had this music teacher who was an absolutely just phenomenal upright bass player. I mean, he could make just gorgeous music come out of the bass. He was hired part-time just to give me lessons, because they didn’t have a teacher, but he painted houses for a living. I was in this environment where I really wanted to play music.

I was like, man, I wonder if I could do that for a living. I even confided in this bass teacher, “I’d love to play bass guitar, actually.” He’s like, “Come on, man. Bass guitar is a toy.” He had a point. Bass guitar is way easier. I don’t care who you talk to, way easier than upright bass. I was like, yeah. But in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, so here I am. I’m in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana. I’m literally the only person who plays this instrument, and the one person who’s supposed to be my champion into the field that I want to go into is undermining because of his own life experience even the potential for me to do that.

I was like, okay, something has to change. I transferred schools. My sophomore year I went to Nashville, Tennessee where I still reside. And all of a sudden in Nashville, I wasn’t the only bass player on campus, but I was probably the worst bass player on campus because there were dozens of not just bass players who could play upright bass, but bass guitarists. For those who don’t know, I went to a school called Belmont University. The instructors there are old rock legends who wanted to get off the road and like teaching and education. Legitimately, there’s really, really accomplished musicians at the school.

I mean, they didn’t paint houses for a living. They played bass guitar and played rock music. A lot of them still did. We had instructors who would leave for a semester because they were touring with Phil Collins and the like. My level of improvement, if you’re listening, you can guess the amount I improved my freshman year versus the amount I improved that first… I improved more in my sophomore year of college than the previous eight years that I had been playing bass guitar. It was all because of my environment, the people that I surrounded myself with.

Naturally, I didn’t even have to try or think about having to practice or whatever. That’s a long story, but that was a transformational example of the power of who you surround yourself with.

Verbs Boyer:

I think there’s multiple analogies that we can apply to this statement of the benefits or the transformation that could actually occur when you’re putting yourselves in these environments. But I think something that was key that you mentioned was you decided, hey, this is something that I want to do. In essence, you formulated a goal around being a great bass player. Once that was solidified or at least discovered in your mind, you were able to distinguish the other voices that were going to be an obstacle to you getting there if you continued to stay in that environment. I mean, it’s amazing.

Once you identified the goal or whatever the pursuit might be, then you’re locked into this path, and then you start to make different decisions and you have a template to say, if I’m going to get here, this is where I need to be. These are the types of relationships that I need to pursue, people that are further down that pathway than I am. I need to get around them and do as much as I can to absorb what they’re doing because I want to reach said goal. I think that’s the essence when you talk about musicians, there’s this term called shedding, and that’s where you’re just thrown into the middle of everything.

They’re playing the way they would play. There’s not necessarily like a teaching structure going on, but you’re in the middle of it and you’re absorbing what everybody else is doing and trying to mimic what they’re doing to be able to up your skill, to level up in your skill of being able to play in those environments. But I think that’s key is really formulating what do you want to happen, what goal do you want to set, whether it’s music, whether it’s writing, whatever the goal is, and then what does it take to get into these environments to level up in your skillsets to be able to do those things.

Today, we’re talking about the importance of relationships in our lives as it pertains to goals that we may set for ourselves and what environments we can place ourselves in and the people that we place around us to help achieve those goals. Welcome to another episode of Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet, so you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Verbs sitting here with my good friend, Blake Stratton. Happy Monday to you, Blake.

Blake Stratton:

Happy Monday onto you, Verbs.

Verbs Boyer:

You were playing the bass during the intro there.

Blake Stratton:

I was. I was. Speaking of music, I remember you saying… We connected on music and talking about music I think since the day we met at Full Focus. But since maybe it was last year or this year, I remember you were talking about… It was last year. You were wanting to be working that muscle again. You have a history of writing, creating, performing. What I saw on my social media feed this year was you’d actually formed a partnership essentially.

This is a little moment of maybe some free advertising for that partnership, but that was the first thing that came to mind when we talk about wanting to, hey, I want to bring this part of my heart to life, this desire I have, this goal that I have. I wonder if you could talk about that for a moment, that journey that you had, and then what you’re doing now creatively.

Verbs Boyer:

Yeah. No, that’s a good question. I think, again, the benefits of what we talk about here week after week of what does it look like to walk those things out, to have a goal, to formulate a goal in a life domain of some sort, and then the steps it takes to get there. I think for me it was talking about, hey, I would love to do some writing again, get back into music after years. For those that don’t know, I was a professional recording artist, but the last actual record I recorded was way back in 2007. And then I just been on a undefined hiatus since then. And through the years, the whole way that music is recorded and released is totally different.

I knew that for me, maybe that’s something that I did in the past and I just leave it there, but there was always still just this desire in my heart to want to record and write and get back into that creative process. But one of the things I know that I missed the most is, again, the way with the whole digital revolution and how things are recorded now, there’s less need for people to be inside the studio together writing the song. It takes a lot of scheduling. It takes a lot of ranging of people’s times just to get people in the same room.

But the benefit to that was there’s a different level of energy and inspiration that’s inside the room when you have a bunch of people or a handful of people in the same space at the same time working creatively to accomplish something. At the beginning of last year, I connected with a friend of mine, another artist that I worked with in the past, and we were just having this conversation and said, “Hey, man, what would it be like if we can get in the same room again?” This is post-COVID and shut down and all that. “But what would it be like if we could get in the same room and just listen to some music and see if we can write some stuff together versus emailing ideas and concepts back and forth?”

That’s where it began. But that was the one thing that I knew, if anything could get the wheels going and, like you said, help flex this muscle where I felt like there was some atrophy there, then it would be being able to connect with somebody else in the same space to work creatively. That’s what we did. We spent a few months just trying to get the formula and eventually we said, “Hey, I think what we’re coming out with is worth putting out there to the public. What would that look like?” We set and formulated a goal around releasing a small project and started pursuing that.

But again, it was work to do it being with all the other life domains, being a dad, being a husband, working a full-time job, and the guy that I work with having the same schedule. But the motivation was there and the fact we were doing it as a partnership versus as two solo artists was beneficial to that whole process as well. It helped, one, make it a reality, but then the motivation was there to really see the thing all the way through, because we could have just wrote a song and be like, oh, that was cool, and then the song is still sitting on a hard drive somewhere. But the goal was to actually get it out for other people to hear and experience the music that we were creating.

Blake Stratton:

Yeah, it’s a powerful thing when you aren’t trying to go it alone. The more out there or the bigger your goal is, I think that much more do you need to be intentional about surrounding yourself with the right people. It sounds like this was an organic connection that you have with this other artist. But I would say for those listening who feel like, oh, I’ve heard this message before, but there’s no one around who wants to do X, Y, Z thing, or I’ve been in this community for forever and all my friends I’ve had since high school and those are so meaningful to me. It’s not that you have to, I think, ditch people that you care about or something like that.

Verbs Boyer:

Right.

Blake Stratton:

But when I think about what has transformed my life, a lot of the times those communities, I mentioned my story of changing colleges, most of the time it has required a payment of money, a payment of moving. I’ve moved a few times in my life, and each of them was based on the community. I mean, there’s another example. I moved from Nashville right after I graduated to California, again, for a community that I wanted to be a part of because I wanted to grow at a specific thing. Another example is I can remember paying to be…

And I’ve done this a number of times, whenever I’ve wanted to learn something new in business, I tend to pay to be a part of a community of people that have normalized that behavior, who have normalized that skillset, that, hey, I want to be the newbie in the group. I don’t want to be the one that’s always having to lead. I think the reason that’s so important is because reaching a goal is hard enough, right? Like you said, managing all the different life domains and then trying to do something else, it’s hard enough, and it could be really, really daunting. And if you have to be the one making all the decisions or leading so much or overcoming resistance again and again and again, man, it’s an uphill battle.

I think that’s part of the value of being with people who have normalized that or paying to be a part of a program or a group or a community or something where the grooves are already set in motion, that’s why people… I mean, not to bring it back to music, but that’s why people move to Nashville. It’s like people go, “Oh, well, there’s so much competition in Nashville.” It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. In Nashville, it’s normal to be an artist that works. That’s the power. That’s why people move here.

Verbs Boyer:

Even what you just said, even if there is competition, you can view that in a positive way as, okay, if there’s this level of competition and the standard of an artist is this, are there any skills that I possess that I can level up a little bit by, like you said, if it’s seeking out a mastermind or some community that’ll help me increase my skillset so I can become a competitor in that type of market.

Because again, it’ll all draw you to seeking out a community, whether it’s organic, whether it’s something that you want to learn to where there’s a tuition or maybe a sacrifice attached to it. Does it help you get closer to the goal that you’re really trying to attain? And if so, count the cost of what that looks like and figure out if that’s something that’s doable for you to engage it in that way.

Nick Jaworski:

We’re all musicians here. I’m popping in. I just have to sit here and I’m loving what’s happening. We’re all musicians. I was just thinking about, oh, people pushing you forward. Somebody recently told me that the Beatles were overrated, and I love The Beatles. My newborn son has a name related to The Beatles in a way. I sat with that and I went, is that true? Are The Beatles overrated? And then I picked up Magical Mystery Tour, it’s on vinyl on my shelf. The back side of Magical Mystery Tour has like, Hello Goodbye, All you need is love. It has just five defining songs of a generation just on the B side of an album.

You go, okay, what’s happening here? You think about what are the odds that Paul McCartney and John Lennon just happened to be two of the best songwriters in the world? They just ran into each other and they went, great, let’s make great… We’re always going to take our songs and be great at it. It happens to be that they met young. Without each other, it’s very clear that they would never have been able to create just this soundtrack of the ’60s in so many people’s lives.

It’s only because they were there. For sure. And then George Harrison, watching this happen, ends up maybe being the best songwriter of all of them. Maybe. It’s very fun to think about just how important it is to put yourself next to greatness or even people who aspire to be great and see what happens. The Beatles are not overrated, by the way.

Blake Stratton:

No, it is interesting that you went with the name Yellow Submarine. I think that was a bold choice, but memorable.

Verbs Boyer:

Here are some food for thought for you today. Take some time. Think of someone you’re inspired by. Maybe it’s some ones who’ve you’ve been encouraged by in the past who are doing something similar to what you want to accomplish. Think of how you might be able to connect with them today.

Blake Stratton:

You can reach Verbs at verbs@fullfocus.co/.

Verbs Boyer:

On all platforms.

Blake Stratton:

If you want to make more connections with people that are going after their goals, using tools that we talk about every week here on the podcast, search for the Full Focus Planner Group on Facebook. It’s free to join, free to be a part of. It’s an inspiring group of high achievers just like yourself.

Verbs Boyer:

Thanks for joining us on Focus on This.

Blake Stratton:

This is the most productive podcast on the internet. Share it with your friends and don’t forget to join the Full Focus Planner community on Facebook.

Verbs Boyer:

We’ll be back next Monday with another great episode. But until then, stay focused.

Blake Stratton:

Stay focused.

Nick Jaworski:

Your guys’ faces, that was very funny.