Author Archives: Media Pod Smash!

This week, Ryan and I take a trip down memory lane and look at some unheard clips from various years. It’s been a fun adventure so far, and I can’t thank you all enough for the continued support. When we ended the show originally (around 8 years ago now, damn!), I thought that was that, but here we are on the edge of #100, and still firing on all cylinders!

As a special bonus, we’ll be releasing 100 right on this upcoming Friday the 13th along with maybe some more surprises.

Much love,

-Jeremy

In this month’s scripted episode, I take a look at the importance of Habits and Rituals. MUSIC CREDIT: Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio The show is sponsored today by: Seasons of Life Memorials

To read along:

Media Pod Smash Episode #97:

Habits & Rituals

By: Jeremy Jordan

PART 1 – Introduction

When I was in my 20’s, I felt a lot like a frog on PCP. I would hop wildly from lily pad to lily pad. Water would splash up in all directions, other surrounding animals would look on in either disgust or terror; it was chaos. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was a bit aimless. There were lots of things I tried back then, lots of things I wanted to try as well, but nothing ever stuck. I know that many times in my life, I needed to make a change. There were often some days that I felt were rather desperate and hopeless. Sometimes even pointless. And not pointless like “I see no point in living”, more like, starting the day out with grand goals and ambitions, getting to the end of that day, and achieving none of them. It was then that I’d feel as if I had a pointless day. What made matters worse was that I knew that I had nobody to blame but myself for these lack of accomplished goals.

I would eventually come to realize that there was a bit of a formula; a few small changes and a better observation of my habits and rituals. This was the key to getting myself to the place that I dreamed of getting to. The fucked up hopping disoriented frog on PCP lifestyle didn’t have to be mine forever and wouldn’t be. If any of this resonates with you and you feel trapped in a certain lifestyle right now, that doesn’t have to be yours forever either. I really believe that.

PART 2 – Compounding Bad Habits

I graduated in 2009. The more distanced I get from that year, the more it freaks me out. I can remember much of that summer like it was yesterday. I had dreams of making films, I was full of life, energy and passion. I was ready to take on the fucking world. Cut to: winter of 2011. By this point in time, I had a taste of college and still had no idea what I was doing. On the days that I didn’t have classes, I was working at a shitty, soul-sucking, retail job. I’ve often ranted and raved about this job in the past; hell, even as recently as the last scripted episode but I’d like to just dive in once more and attempt to break down what a typical work day was like back then.

I’d wake up to the default ring of my smart phone’s alarm. It would pierce my ears as I would roll over and swipe the snooze button for the second time. I hate getting up early in general, and winter mornings in Wisconsin just amplified that. On some of the most brutal mornings, I’d wait until the last possible minute that I could, and then rush out of bed like the PCP frog. I’d get myself in order the best that I could and hurry out the door. The place that I worked for at the time had a policy about punching in and out. You could punch in a certain amount of minutes early and you had a 15 or so minute window for punching in after your shift began before they considered it late to work. I used the hell out of that policy. The part about being late obviously. I would usually stroll into work with maybe a few minutes to spare. I’d move like a zombie toward the department that I worked in, dreading what I’d find. This was during a time before I became a manager and had all the glitz and glamour. I was just a lowly associate and my job was to show up at 5ish in the morning, unwrap all the stacked up shit on pallets, and bin or stock the shit. I didn’t always work the early shifts during this time, but when I did, I was never prepared for them and they always wore me out. I didn’t know much about habits back then. I just went with the flow and much of my life just happened. After a few tedious hours of unwrapping, stocking, binning, and repeating, I’d take a break. Often times, I’d sit in the break room and fill out an entry in my journal or sit on my phone at the furthest table with my earbuds in. I’d reflect at these times and worry about my future, sometimes the present too. Though, I never let it eat away at me for very long. I’d always just tell myself that it was temporary and this wasn’t going to be my situation long. I know, I know, that’s what they all say. When break was over, I’d return to my department to grind out the rest of my day until lunch time. After lunch, it was more of the same and that was that.

Around this era was when I started down the nicotine gum road. I may not have known a lot about habits yet, but I would soon be finding out about the consequences of bad ones super quickly. Back in episode 90, I detailed how bad things got with nicotine gum. A simple pharmacy purchase became a multi year spiral. This was one of the many examples of a compounding bad habit that I was dealing with. Lots of poor lifestyle choices became deeply habitual through much of my early 20’s. Had I just taken a few simple steps in another direction, I maybe could’ve cleaned some things up sooner and not have had such shitty workdays. Sure the job may have still sucked, but I’m sure my overall well being could’ve drastically improved. There’s no sense dwelling on the past though. It’s just important that you eventually do get to the solution somehow. It would take me a few years but I did eventually have my aha moment regarding bad habits.

One weekend in January of 2019, I attended a surprise party in the middle of nowhere up north, WI. This was a couple months before deciding to quit nicotine gum once and for all, and changing the course of my life forever. I was drawn into the idea of attending by the allure of good friends in attendance and gambling. After realizing that the gambling wouldn’t be coming until much later in the evening, and much of the day would actually be hanging out with the extended family of the friend, I immediately went for the drinks. Lots of them. To make a long story short, the weather got really nasty around the time that the party started wrapping up. After a long discussion in the kitchen, we went gambling anyway.

It was an extremely anxious drive but another part of my brain was excited as fuck to go gambling. When we arrived, I shot toward a machine and spent the rest of the night drinking cocktails and losing money. The drive home was pretty low energy as the driver concentrated on the snowy, narrow road in front of us. The snow had not let up at all and home was still a ways away. I stared out the window most of the trip, thinking about how this day had really not gone as planned. I was trashed, dejected, and ready to just go home. After finally arriving back to the house, I let out a large sigh of relief but knew I wasn’t out of the woods quite yet.

I set up some bedding in the basement and had a chat with my friend Ryan for a bit. I was too anxious to sleep. I paced around the basement while all of the rowdy party goers completed the process of becoming rowdy and passed out throughout various locations in the house. I had a war going on in my mind. Upon what was probably around the 100th pace, I made a decision to drive home. It was around 4 in the morning and still snowing. Things got dicey on that journey. I dodged a lot of bullets and stretched what should’ve been a 3ish hour drive into closer to a 5ish hour drive.

Upon finally pulling into my driveway that morning, I dragged my bag and myself into my bedroom. I felt how I imagine a meth head would feel as I collapsed into bed. After sleeping away the rest of the morning, and most of the afternoon. I would stand up and stare at myself in the mirror that day, ashamed of who I had become. The years of bad habits had caught up with me and I was at a pretty low, low. I needed to make some changes, and this needed to happened quick.

PART 3 – The Battle For Good Habits

A couple months after the January snow storm incident, I finally decided to make a change. I made the first major positive step towards good habit building and bad habit dropping as I’d decide to quite nicotine gum. I chronicled much of that story in episode 90, so I won’t retread. However, what I didn’t do was dive into much of the how.

Like I said, I never thought much about habits until my bad ones started to spiral. I made several attempts to start new and better ones back in some of those miserable days, but I didn’t know what I was doing. Plus, my heart really wasn’t in it. When things started to take a positive turn, I still didn’t know what I was doing but this time, I had a lot more heart. I had great reasons for change and was determined to make it happen by any means necessary.

The first thing that I did was put up a large wall calendar and a sign that read “consistency is the tunnel to greatness”. This was a quote that I had heard very early on in a motivational speeches compilation that really stuck with me. On top of the calendar I wrote myself an inspirational message and marked the day that I decided I was going to quit nicotine. In the remaining boxes, I filled in whatever important agendas and activities I could think of and was off to the races. I’m a pretty visual person, so seeing future endeavors and past achievements on the large daily wall calendar really helped. I was skeptical of the idea at first, that just a large sheet with some squares would help propel me, but I’d never actually tried before, so it was worth a shot.

In the same room that I had my calendar and quote sign, I also had a blue exercise mat rolled out onto the floor. The mat was a previous purchase from many years back when I had brief flashes of ambition. It was safe to say I wouldn’t need to purchase a new one, as this one had no wear and tear whatsoever.

The first few days of dropping my nicotine habit sucked horribly. I would get set of by small things and never seemed to be able to get comfortable. I learned quickly that the best thing to do right away was to start up a new habit to replace the old. So, on day one, I got to working out on my mat. It was a very crude version of what one may consider working out, but damn it, I was doing it. I started my workouts by doing routines that I found from an online source. I then moved on to using index cards to keep it interesting. Once I got a feel for what I liked to do and what the average session should consist of, I started committing to workout days via my wall calendar.

As you are reading this, you may be thinking to yourself, “easy for you to say. Forming good habits isn’t that simple, Mr. Internet Self-Hep guy”. I would say to you, it absolutely is that simple. Change starts with a decision and one small step in the right direction. As many experts will say, it’s simple but not easy. From my entire childhood into my 20’s, I was an nonathletic, lazy, piece of shit. If I can drop nasty habits and get fit, so can you! You don’t get off the hook that easy. I won’t let that happen. We can do whatever we want to do. It just won’t be easy, and that’s okay.

With each new day, things got easier and I missed nicotine less and less. Another thing that really seemed to help me, was daily goals to complete, along with whatever agendas were on the calendar. The goals were never that crazy and always doable; especially early on. My typical lists would have things like, “Do laundry” or “Clean up the studio”. Not only did it keep my brain occupied, it gave me little wins. The little wins were huge because they lead to boosts in my confidence, and eventually into bigger, more ambitious goals.

As time continues on, it’s still a battle to maintain these habits. Some mornings can be quite a struggle. Though, now that the habits have had time to grow and form, activities like running are well, habitual. Even when it’s not always so comfortable to get after it, my brain knows exactly what to do and never usually lets me down. I knew the struggles it took to get to this point and the good feelings that come with doing the not so easy things. I’ve come too far to ever stop or regress now.

I shared a few tips earlier that helped me in forming good habits, but if I had one to provide in helping to maintain them for the long haul, I’d have to point to the act of rituals.

PART 4 – Rituals

From around the time that I was in middle school and into high school, I would often find myself hiding away in the basement. It was cool in the hot months, there were two TVs with the latest gaming systems, and the best seats available for vegging out in. It was my happy place; my zen. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was also one of my rituals.

Rituals are extremely helpful in maintaining positive habits and getting yourself into a good frame of mind. Many people involved in the world of self-development and many athletes continually stress the importance of rituals. A good ritual can also turn into a good habit over time, which in turn, helps your other habits continue smoothly. It’s habitception!

I view rituals as a way to reflect on the days events and make sure I’m staying on the right course. One of my favorite rituals is ending my evenings in the hot tub and just chilling out with my thoughts. Many people use mornings and coffee for a ritual. That’s a great ritual too, but it doesn’t have to be limited to the time of day or any activity. You can make it yours and have it be something special to you. If nothing else, it’ll help with balance by giving you some time away from a world this is often times very fast paced and demanding.

PART 5 – The Wrap Up

Today’s inspirational person of the month is Twyanna Williams. At age 65, she received her high school diploma. Not only that, but she was named valedictorian. She was quoted as saying that she was ecstatic and excited to learn of the honor. She went on to say, “I hope I inspire people that are my age and older that’s dropped out of school to go back. It’s not that bad.” Twyanna is definitely an inspiration. She is living proof that it is never too late to go back and do the things you want to do. It’s not too late to rectify certain situations and make things right. With some effort and a positive attitude, anything is possible. I love stories and people like this. When you feel the urge to quit, look for inspiration like this; it may provide a boost and help you keep on pushing through.

Lastly, let’s take a look at last month’s homework. How did it shake out for you? Personally, I had some moments early in my week where mindset came into play right away. One Monday started out a bit rough. Morning came very quickly after a fun and full weekend, and energy levels were in the gutter. As my day continued, I found that things didn’t improve much. The work day was long and though I did find my levels of energy starting to make a low climb out of the musty basement, I felt a lack of zest.

By the end of the work day, I wanted nothing more than to fall face first onto a large, comfy cloud of bedding and pass out, but I pushed through. Lucky for me, I have habits already ingrained but it was still a push. As I finally made it to my house at the end of the day, I shifted my mindset. I reminded myself of the good feelings that would arrive after I just put my head down and went through the motions. Most of the time when I’m feeling “dead tired”, it is usually a fat lie.

The mind will often tell us many big fat lies. Nothing that you and I aren’t capable of overcoming; that I believe. If you struggled with the concept of mindset or just struggled in general this past month, hang in there! It’s a constant practice and it’s not always going to work perfectly.

So this month, the homework is going to be a little more complex than the first assignment. Since the main idea of today’s show was Habits and Rituals, I think you know what is coming next. We are going to pick out one bad habit, drop that sucker, and replace it with a new one. It can be pretty insignificant to start if you’d like. We are going to dive in and take this thing on, together. It may take a little reflecting on what potential changes are needed. When you’ve thought about it, move on with me to the next steps.

Personally, one of the habits I am currently struggling with is my nighttime habits. I’ve got a bit of a bed time appetite and there’s some other elements that I could us a little less of or that could be dropped altogether. Your habit could be completely different from mine but we’ll tackle this together, in the same way.

First, mark a calendar, phone app, or notebook on the day you start your habit breaking journey. This is the start of the momentum. Next, dive in but don’t get too extreme with it. Life change is exciting, but you can start small and still get to those massive results. For instance, for me, maybe I’ll cut off my food intake one hour earlier than before and see how it goes. Then maybe I’ll move onto other things slowly too, like cutting off my smartphone and tech usage at a certain things. As for replacement habits, maybe I can choose to read a book instead of what I would normally do before bed.

If your goal is to get in shape, maybe your small goal for the day could just be to get into the habit of walking around the block once or replacing driving to the store with walking to the store if that’s possible for you. If your first goal was a success, take it up a notch. Keep asking yourself, “is what I’m doing, getting me closer to my destination?”.

Start your day with a reflection on the day before and track how your progress is going. There may be a few hiccups along the way but that’s okay! You are human; everything isn’t always going to come together perfectly right away. But if you can keep persisting in the face of what ever life throws at you, you may just end up shocking yourself. What starts as a small step, becomes another, and then many more until one day you look back and can’t even believe the person you have become. Change was possible for me as it is for us all. You got this. See you next month.

Media Pod Smash off!

Thanks for the continuing support! We are inching very close to 100 and I can’t wait to share the episode with you. It has been coming along very well. Lots of laughs and some great games. In the meantime, stay tuned for some other surprises and episodes along the way.

-Jeremy

In this month’s scripted episode, I take a look at the importance of a great mindset. MUSIC CREDIT: Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio The show is sponsored today by: Seasons of Life Memorials

Here is the writing if you’d like to read along:

Media Pod Smash Episode #93:

The Power of a Powerful Mindset

Most motivational speakers get a bad rap. It seems that most people think that the information that is being recited is basic and not very meaty. I’ll admit, I used to be rather cynical about these folks too. When you hear about people attempting to do a coal walk and busting their shit, or the likes of a Joel Osteen in his mega, multi-million dollar palace, saying things like, “Just believe in yourself! You can do it!”. Easy for you to say, asshole! I completely get it. These messages can easily be seen as a band-aid over a massive open gash of problems. If you are dealing with something rather deep, it doesn’t always feel encouraging to have some wealthy man or woman screaming at you to just do it and stay positive.

When I worked in retail, I had a few managers who were some real ass clowns. My colleagues and I, would often be hounded by these people to make sure that our shelves were full and looking beautiful. A request that was not unreasonable. The only problem was, most of the times, our shelves were only empty because of something called a warehouse out. For those of you fortunate people who have never had to do a job like this and don’t know what that means, allow me to explain. It means that even the warehouse where we get our shit from, doesn’t have the item. Now I am realizing that the name warehouse out pretty much explains it and I’ve wasted my time; it definitely feels great to fill up the first page though. Anyway, these ass clown managers didn’t care about warehouse outs. Even when it was labeled as an out, as indicated by the world’s smallest label, they didn’t care. We were always just told that we had to fill it up anyway. Of course, that meant that later we’d eventually be asked “Why are you guys putting product in the wrong places?”. I don’t blame all the managers for this; I’m sure many were just trying to get by, and following the instructions of some even bigger chuckle-heads above them.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I also had to deal with customers. I could write a whole separate episode about customers; I’d call it something like: “Stupid Questions and Assholes”, but I digress. I realize that this is supposed to be about positive topics and we will get there! The point that I was trying to make was that this was not a very conducive environment for positivity and good vibes. As cynical as I was though, I did listen to some motivational audios throughout this time. It was a nice boost at times but other times, I’d have some of those thoughts mentioned previously. Luckily for me, during those times that I wasn’t buying into the audio encouragement, I had other sources of inspiration that I could turn to.

In Episode 90, I had sung the praises of my great support system of friends; one of these friends is a guy named Garrett. On one of my worst managerial days in retail, I found myself feeling stuck at a crossroads. I don’t remember much about what happened that day but I definitely remember it being quite a cluster fuck of anxiety and stress for myself and no doubt whoever crossed my path that day. I also remember getting to the end of that day and thinking to myself, “I know exactly who to call for a boost” and sure enough, I was right.

Garrett and I grew up in the same area and had similar aspirations; we both believed in the power of a dream and had many creative interests. Despite a small gap of time in our friendship early on (which later became an ongoing inside joke), these things never wavered. In fact, these things would only grow stronger as we started hanging back out again. Back in our early 20’s Garrett and I tried our hand at various creative projects. He and I always shared a similar sense of humor and many other general commonalities. It mainly started with goofy short films but then eventually morphed into actually attempting to make our endeavors into a business. At the time, he was into photography and I was into video. Peanut butter and jelly baby! We got ourselves a few weddings and even a prom before both moving on to new things, but I’ll always remember those times. Garrett was the kind of person who always impressed me with his can-do attitude and ability to jump right into things that he found to be exciting. He had a fantastic mindset. Instead of letting fears get in the way of cool moments or even potentially cool moments, his positive mindset acknowledged those fears and went for it anyway.

Even when we weren’t doing creative things, his mindset could still empower me and give me some hope. You may find this hard to believe, but I wasn’t always the cool and collected guy that I am sitting behind this screen today. On some nights out in the city while we were going on our drinking extravaganzas, I’d find myself having some rather anxious moments. I’m not crazy about the city in general, there was plenty of booze coursing through my body, and I found socializing to be a bit more challenging sometimes back then. If you factor in all of those elements and probably considered a few more, it was no shock that I ended up in these anxious situations. he’d gently remind me that it was all good. In the midst of these situations, Garrett would usually turn to me and say something like, “The world is a stage”. I always knew that I could turn toward my pal during these moments and the more I observed what the power of a powerful mindset could accomplish for him, the more it made me want to think of ways I could achieve that state of thinking as well.

By the end of my retail days, I was starting to understand the world of positivity much better. I was listening to more and more speeches, reading more books, and things stuck with me much longer. I realized that many of the motivational people that I used to criticize, didn’t just start out rich and successful. They were regular people, just like me. I’m sure that many of them actually applied the things that they were speaking about in their own lives too.

On October 31st, 2003, a woman named Bethany Hamilton went out for a morning surf; a hobby that she absolutely loved. Perhaps you’ve heard of Bethany or at least know where this is going. In the middle of her surf session, she was attacked by a Tiger shark and lost her left arm. She could’ve quit right there and nobody would have blamed her at all, but she had a powerful mindset. She said, “fuck you shark!” (alright, probably not) and she returned to surfing only a month after the ordeal. The power of her mind, along with will and determination, brought her back stronger than ever. Once she relearned one handed surfing, she even started competing again. Thankfully, you may never have to deal with a shark attack in your own life, but bad times and tragedy will undoubtedly come a knocking and you too can utilize a great mindset.

Currently, I believe in the power of a powerful mindset more than ever before. I, however, am not fucking delusional. I know that it’s not a shield that suddenly protects you from all of the negativity and general horrors of the world. It is not a magic power but it might help in making some significant positive changes in your life.

Back in the early days of cleaning up some of my bad habits, the first three days to be specific, I had some pretty horrendous moments. Moments where I definitely could’ve tapped out at any given second. Sweat would pour out of me for no good reason, rage would bubble and brew, and I just generally felt uncomfortable. These feelings were exacerbated by the fact that time seemed to stretch longer than TB12 in the off season. I truly believe that my mindset was a key component in eventually making it past the very important, 72 hour milestone. Whenever I would have thoughts of giving up, I would try to remember mindset and think instead of all the people who were supporting me and cheering me on. I know it sounds like simple “rah-rah” bullshit, but a simple shift in perspective can do some pretty amazing things.

A shift in perspective can take you from “not today, I don’t have the energy” to “I’ve got to do this today because I don’t know how many more today’s I’m going to get”. A change in mindset can take you places that you never thought possible. Of course, like anything else, it must be practiced constantly. I still slip quite often. Even just earlier in the writing when I was shitting on my old job. Was it necessary? Well, actually, maybe some things are okay to shit upon every once in a while; metaphorically speaking of course.

For each of these scripted episodes, I’m also going to include a segment called “Inspiring person of the month”. Inspiration can be found in a variety of unique places and everyday people are a fantastic source. Technically we did already cover one; Bethany Hamilton is a perfect example, but this month’s inspiring person is you! Within you is the ability to change the lives of all the people you meet. You have the power to change your world and turn bad habits into great ones; all it takes is the proper mindset and a single step. I didn’t used to think these things about myself. Heck, I didn’t even think I was qualified to be writing stuff like this, but a shift in my mindset told me that other folks out there appreciate normal, authentic, people. I may not be a Tony Robbins or a Joel Osteen, but that’s alright. I’m me. An average guy who changed some things with the power of mindset and a single step. As mentioned in my last written episode, comparisons can be a dangerous thing. Don’t ever feel like you aren’t qualified if there’s something you want to take a stab at. Everyone has to start somewhere, and if you touch even one person, won’t it have been worth it? I’d be willing to bet that you are more qualified than you think. Plus, if you really aren’t all that experienced yet, you still put yourself out there, while the other person didn’t. Pretty huge already! Though I suppose I’m going on a bit of tangent here and maybe I’m just reassuring myself at this point, but still. Even if you aren’t trying to create something for public consumption or have fears of feeling like an impostor, the power of mindset can be used for simple everyday things too. I know that I’m not where I want to be quite yet, and I’ve still got a long road ahead, but something tells me that I’ll be more than okay moving forward.

So how do we wrap this sucker up? With a little bit of homework. I know that actually doing things can be a pain in the ass but I’ll be right with you for this. I will participate in the homework as well and share my follow-up on next month’s episode. Reading and listening are great but action is incredible. This week, think about a situation recently where a change in mindset could have made a difference. It could be very small. Maybe a missed opportunity or a bad day that maybe didn’t have to be so bad. After that, see if you can stay as present as possible during the upcoming week and see if you can use the power of a positive mindset in certain tough situations that arise. You may think this is a little nuts but you may just surprise yourself if you really give it a solid try. It’s a constant effort and some days are just going to suck regardless, however, at the end of the day, you can always reflect and be proud of the fact that you are trying everyday. Your powerful mindset is a work in progress being powered by an incredibly powerful person.

Media Pod Smash off!

-Jeremy