DxT

Small Parts, Big Sums- Why the Little Things Matter (#40)

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To make a wall, you must build it brick by brick. To create anything, you have to start small. And as you add small bits here and there, you eventually end up with something big. This applies to any of your goals, your relationships, and your career.

By focusing on the small parts of your life, and the little things that make it up, you can have exponential increases in your life.

This is a chapter from our book, so if you want a deeper dive, go check out Dead by Tomorrow on Amazon.

Show Notes:

Challenge:

Start with a goal that would take multiple years to achieve, then break it down to monthly, then weekly, and then daily. Use this to help you find the little things, the small parts that help you make it to this big sum (goal) at the end.

You and Me Forever by Francis Chan (Novel)

Book cover via Amazon

https://amzn.to/3j2MwU8

"In his latest book, Francis Chan joins together with his wife Lisa to address the question many couples wonder at the altar: “How do I have a healthy marriage?” Setting aside typical topics on marriage, Francis and Lisa dive into Scripture to understand what it means to have a relationship that satisfies the deepest parts of our souls."


Gestalt Psychology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology

"Gestalt psychology, gestaltism or configurationism is a school of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a theory of perception that was a rejection to the basic principles of Wilhelm Wundt's and Edward Titchener's elementalist and structuralist psychology."

Dead by Tomorrow book!

https://amzn.to/3vL0RIe

Want to read more on this chapter? Check out the book on Amazon!

Study on the Number One Predictor of Divorce

https://medium.com/the-happy-spot/the-number-one-predictor-of-divorce-5c6bb6ece6aa#

"For over 40 years, John and Julie Gottman have studied couples’ interactions with each other and have found that the number one predictor of divorce is contempt for your partner.
Contempt is the kiss of death to a relationship.
It is one of the hardest things to get past once you have reached a feeling of this magnitude toward your partner because it involves a profound sense of dehumanization."

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Quote

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.” 

--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Inaction Quote

"The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake."

--Meister Eckhart





Episode Transcript

Andrew: Hey guys,welcome back to dead by tomorrow. You have Daniel and I, your two most favoritepeople in the world. We're going to be talking about small parts, big sumstoday. It is a chapter out of the book that we published about nine months ago.If if my math is right, which never trust me on math. And to start this episodeoff, I'm going to kind of get on a little soap box of mine.

to me, This chapter is really important because I reallybelieve in the small stuff. I actually, for a while, I've had these littlepaper wallets. They're these tiny things. Easy to lose a wallet set, justbarely pass muster on being able to hold any cards or money. And they're madeout of paper and I can write on them.

So one of the things that I've written on, probably four of thesewallets I've had, or probably the past five or six years, because I lose themthat often is notice the small things. And it's not necessarily because I thinkthe small stuff is more interesting. It's I kind of don't believe in the bigstuff.

big thing. Are only really made out of small parts, all ofthese small parts, the way we do small tasks, the way we treat other people,the way we treat those who we think, no, one's going to notice the actions wetake when we think no one knows what we're doing. These are all the smallthings that lead to much bigger.

Larger parts and those larger parts turn into the big stuff.The great stuff, those things that we believe are what we are remembered for,but it really comes down to is the small parts and it makes these big sums. Sothis chapter is really important to me because of that. This is one of my corebeliefs you could say.

I'm really excited to get into this with Daniel. We'll seewhere this leads us. And if anything's changed over the last probably two yearssince we've probably touched on this chapter, so Daniel, how you doing?

[00:01:56] Daniel: I'm good. I am currently a littlesweaty or than usual, despite like being on the closet. It inevitably alwayshappens, but I was outside. Putting together a fence because my dog has decidedthat he really hates the neighbor dog and he broke out a fence board. And so Ijust need to, to replace a whole section now.

So it's very exciting

[00:02:20] Andrew: Shout out to Jake for getting Danielwho's exercising today.

[00:02:24] Daniel: exercise. Interesting. I've I mean, Iguess I'm sweaty. Does, does that count as exercise?

[00:02:29] Andrew: Yeah, I think if you get sweaty, itcounts as exercise. Now I take that, take that with a grain of salt before Iget caught in some illogical argument, just sitting in the sauna is notnecessarily exercise. Just being outside is not it.

[00:02:42] Daniel: I was going to say I get prettysweaty, but I'm like watching NBA games or play on Xbox sometimes. Like, youknow, there's a few things that can make me sweat.

[00:02:51] Andrew: Hmm. We'll have to dig into that oneof these days. Cause I don't know, part of me feels like if you're sweating, itmeans your body is working in overtime. And therefore, even if you're not doinganything, maybe it helps, but I don't know. We'll have to get a, get a medicalprofessional to give us some insight.

[00:03:07] Daniel: Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limband say that sweating is not synonymous with exercise.

[00:03:13] Andrew: Fair enough.

[00:03:19] Andrew: So small parts, big sums, Daniel let'sjump into it. What do you think that means? And what does it apply to in yourlife?

[00:03:27] Daniel: Yeah, I think of it and I'm going toprobably butcher this pronunciation. I think it's, it's called like the gestaltmindset, which is the, the sums are greater than the whole something alongthat, you know, I, I probably should Google that right now and then we cancircle back around to it. But if you know what I'm talking about, you know whatI'm talking about, if not then have, have fun doing some Google, but the ideais.

A lot of times in a lot of ways the, like you're saying thelittle, little things, and this is more talking about like personality, but thelittle things that sort of all come together, form something that is greaterthan what those little pieces would sort of be individually. And so that's, Ithink that can apply and a lot of different ways it can be, you know, making.

Little efforts throughout the day to sort of keep the housepicked up as opposed to needing to do, you know, one gigantic spring clean oncea year. If you're doing little things each day, which uh, my wife and I havetried to have this habit of what we call resetting a house where at the end ofthe day, we try to make sure, dishes are done.

The clutter is put away. Um, We'll sweep some floors and dosome stuff like that. And that keeps us from having these just big days wherewe have to clean the house all day. And I think that leads to a cleanerlifestyle where, we're not having to put in as much effort because things don'tget super gross.

We don't have to do super crazy deep cleaning cause italways stays a little bit clean. It's it's the idea of, if you're taking careof things in a small way, Consistently then stuff doesn't get big and bad andscary out of, out of control. So that's where my, my, my, mind goes.

[00:05:11] Andrew: and we talked about this a little bitbook. It's a pretty short chapter because I'm a small guy. Sometimes I like smallstuff. So that's kind of where, my mind goes.

to it as. this idea that you take care of stuff, small partsthat come up in your life, putting away the dishes, you know, you have dinner,take care of those dishes, put them in the dishwasher, clean them, put themaway.

There's leaving dishes in the sink. It's got to account forlike, let's call it a third of divorces out there. You know, money's up there.And then probably after money and infidelity, you probably have leaving dishesin the sink.

[00:05:45] Daniel: I got some real hot takes coming in onthis episode.

[00:05:48] Andrew: You know, it's, it's been a long day.I've been moving all week in saddle now and take the dishes out, butlegitimately a lot of probably relationship stuff that causes problems are dueto some big, you know, oh, he ran off to Europe and had an orgy without me. uh,Which would definitely be a problem in your relationship.

[00:06:07] Daniel: me. So you're saying it'd be okay ifyou, if you took your significant other.

[00:06:10] Andrew: You know what to each their ownDaniel. it's more of a lot of relationships probably don't end from those bigbangs. Oh God, that was a terrible,

but the, the small

[00:06:22] Daniel: to get canceled.

[00:06:23] Andrew: I know, sorry, I guess I'm onsomething today. It's the small stuff though. And the relationships, and thisis small stuff at work that gets you noticed because You're consistently, youknow, you can't point to. You know, Chelsea at the office and say, she crushedthis one individual project and that's what we're going to promote her at.

You. Can't point to why somebody's marriage relationships onthe rocks because of this one big mistake. Now these things do happen. You doan amazing job at one project. Are you doing amazing? Job. And your relationshipwith this, anniversary getaway, or you have these negative something implodeson you at the office, or you make a really bad decision with the orgy andEurope.

These kind of things would, you know, in a relationship, butthey're not very common. Most of the time, the stuff that. Affects ourday-to-day life for these really small things that add up. It's the small waysyou treat people, the small parts of how you take care of your job, how youtake out the trash when no one asks you at the office or at your house.

It's how you do all of these little small things that createthis much larger impact on the people around you. it's really interesting tosee how most people expect. Like, Hey, I'm going to get my money down. When Ihave a million dollars, when I have a million dollars in the bank, I'm going tofigure out how to budget.

I'm going to figure out how to take care of my life. Youknow, as soon as I get past whatever this thing in my relationship, once we getthe kids out of the house, I'm really going to work on my relationship. Now,once I get married, that's when I'm really going to lock down on being. Moreattentive to my significant other, these mindsets that we have waiting forthese big things to happen, or what kill us in the end, because it's the smallparts that we can kind of take care of you know, move the dial on.

[00:08:02] Daniel: And see what I would argue is thatwhen somebody gets promoted or, you know, when there is a divorce or, you know,something like that externally, People always look at the big thing thathappened. And usually that thing happens because of some big event, you know,somebody gets a promotion because they really did a great job owning some sortof big deliverable or project, or, you know, divorce happens because there'ssome infidelity or whatever that might be.

And so you, blame the big event. The big event is it's worthblaming, but I think we, a lot of times ignore all of the small things that. Tothe big event and then we get focused on, okay my marriage is fine because youknow, I'm not sleeping around. So, you know, we're, we're good. I've got a rocksolid marriage because of that.

Or, thinking about if I could just land this one, project atwork, then I would get that promotion. And it's the focus is on the big thing.Cause that's what you see. But then we ignore all of the small things. Thatthat person did to lead up to it. And so in a marriage it's yeah, I'm notsleeping around, so we're good, but you're not paying attention to the factthat maybe you don't have a real conversation with your spouse, ever in, in,there's just not a lot of communication and things do go and set an undone.

You maybe have this little gut feeling like something feelsa little off, but it feels a little off. I guess it's fine. And you ignore ituntil over time. Those small things lead to a feeling of resentment or a lackof fulfillment. And then somebody does go in like seek out something outside ofthe marriage and then that they give it happens.

Then there is the divorce or being trusted to take care ofall the little things at work in consistently doing that. And then that givesyou your foot in the door to get that big project. And then when you get it toactually do it well and get that promotion.

[00:09:49] Andrew: That is. Exactly how I believe itworks. It's something you said there, the resentment with divorces, there was areally cool article. I read one time They talked about the single factor thatthey could trace that caused divorce. And this was wild because what they didwas they took something like 30 or 50 or more newly married couples and theysat them down in a dining room and.

Just recorded them. And then they recorded them for a while.I think it was like a week or something or month. I don't know. But they recordedthese couples having interactions and all these different things. And then theytracked these couples for like 50 years. something. This is an a, you're not assmart as you think.

You're I, I'm pretty sure one of those books, obviously I'mnot remembering all of this perfectly, but the relevant information I do know.So what they found out was with like 95% accuracy, they could predict whetheror not a couple would get divorced and. They didn't need that 15 or 20 years ofrecordings and tracking to find out.

They said that they could figure it out within like thefirst day of looking in on this couple. And what it was is if somebody wasdisdainful and condescending to the other person, basically resentful to themabout something they did. That was what caused divorce like 90. It was a 95%accuracy rate and we'll link to it in the show notes.

So y'all can look at the study yourself and look at it andfollow it through. But what that says is it's not these big major things thatcause 95% of these divorces. It was the little ways we treated other people andhow we felt about them. It's really scary, honestly, because in my mind weshould all be, you know, recording our first day with a significant other at,before you get married and be like, Hey, did you see that little, a side-eyedisdain thing?

And they'd be like, yeah, we saw that. And then you go, oh,I guess we're not getting married then because we have a 95% chance of gettingdivorced. I'm probably sure that 5% where the people who are just. Unbelievablystrong-willed and pigheaded about divorce. And I'm like, it doesn't matter ifshe murders me.

That will be the only way we're not married anymore. SoDaniel, I'm looking at you. I know that's how you,

[00:11:56] Daniel: Definitely not. The thing is thatresentment, that disdain, that dismissive mindset, whatever that sort of isthat's going to happen in nearly any close relationship. It's certainly goingto happen in a marriage, no matter how good your marriage is, no matter howstrong it is, no matter how beautiful you both are.

When you first get married, how beautiful your kids are,like, whatever. Those moments will definitely happen. I haven't read thatstudy, but I would be willing to bet a lot of money that when there is thatsort of resentment and that disdain within, you know, tone conversation, it'sthe folks that don't call it out and they don't talk about it.

And they don't say Hey. I the way that you said that, like,that really hurt, like what's going on there, what's happening and diving intosome of those sort of root issues and just letting things go on.

[00:12:50] Andrew: Oh, dude, that is a hundred percent. Ican agree with that because I think what happens is a lot of people don't thinkthose small parts matter. You know, Hey, my husband or wife, or my friend, or,you know, whoever it is, it could be any relationship in any situation. Ifyou're not willing to have those conversations about the small stuff, which canbe frustrating to a lot of people like you know, why are you making such a bigdeal out of this small thing I said, or the small thing I did like get overyourself.

I don't want to talk about it. that's the only way to getpast. And if someone's not willing to talk to you about it, that's a wholedifferent problem, but we've got to take the first step and be like, Hey. Thiswas probably not appropriate or, I noticed this thing, we need to talk aboutthis.

We need to communicate to get past what could become amountain down the road right now. You're right. It's enough and nothing thing,which means it's easy to fix when it becomes that mountain. Good luck.

[00:13:40] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:47] Andrew: So Daniel, in the chapter that wewrote about. One of the lines we talked about was this is called personal lifesteroids. And part of that was. In relation to the chasing optimization, whichis actually probably the last episode we did in terms of a podcast. And I don'tknow where they fall inside the book, but they really go hand in hand togetherthat chasing optimization mindset and that small parts, big songs there, it'skind of like a rectangle on a square.

Like one is the other, whatever. We won't go too deep intothat analogy because then I'm going to get confused and triples Lloyds aregoing to show up

[00:14:19] Daniel: Yeah, that's

still math.

[00:14:20] Andrew: Yeah.

Everybody's going to be mad. So. When you're chasingoptimization. Part of what we're talking about and doing is the small parts,big sums mindset.

doing the little stuff like you talked about, about takingcare of the house, doing all these small things, that up to big stuff. One ofmy favorite ones that we talked about was just getting everything done. It'snot even just cleaning it's Hey, you got that new TV. Go ahead and unbox it,put it together, take out the trash. Start and finish the small tasks and don'tlet them build up because this is something at least that a lot of people in myfamily. So, sorry guys, if I'm calling you out on this, but a lot of people inmy family struggle with, they let all these little things build up and theybuild up and they build up.

And then the next thing you know, it's been a few years,they haven't actually accomplished a lot of these. Basics that they said theywere going to, and now their house is a wreck. Their life is kind of a wreck.They're busy, which I know we talked with Joan Henri thoughts about how much Ihate that word.

You know, these people are busy and they're too busy to takecare of all these little things in their lives. That could have marginalimprovements and over time have just exponential improvements on their lives.So with that said with my rambling rant there, what other kind of stuff do yousee that maybe not in your relationship, but maybe at work or in your personalgoals, like at the gym or Frisbee, what do you do on the small parts that helpsyou get ahead of the world at large?

[00:15:46] Daniel: I don't remember for sure if it's inthis chapter or another chapter, but we definitely talked about the differencebetween sort of planning and action or action and motion. recently justfinished up a book. it's sort of a, I guess, a marriage book is written by thisguy named Francis Chan.

It's more so just kind of a a book about approaching life,but it's called you and me forever. Approaches like, Hey, if you're a, ifyou're a Christian and you believe in eternity, then that should have someimpacts on how you approach your marriage approach, raising your kids and allthese types of things and, and something that he, he talked about in the bookthat I think whether you're on board with the whole Christianity thing orwhether you're not something that he said that I think.

Really meaningful as, as he's talking about these differentideas, these sort of different concepts he really harps on the idea of, Hey, dosomething like at the end of each chapter, there's a section that says, dosomething. And I think a lot of Christians in particular, really love to go tochurch and hear sermons to read the latest book by, Francis Chan or.

Whoever, but to listen to the podcast, to do all of thesethings and to just kind of fill up with this sort of head knowledge and thensort of have this mindset of, okay when I get the opportunity, I'm going toknow the right thing to say, I'm going to know the right thing to do.

And I'm just going to kind of wait for the opportunity. I'mgoing to wait until. You know, I hear God's voice telling me to go and likeadopt a child or to go, and I don't know, do whatever it is. And Francis histhing is like, Hey, you need to be doing something like don't, don't sit andwait for a divine intervention.

Don't sit there and like continue to just accumulateknowledge that you're never putting into service. And action. And so just go inand do something and trust that that's going to lead to meaningful results andthere can be course correction that will, will sort of happen, but what are youwaiting for?

Right. And whether, again, it's in marriage, whether it's inyour faith walk, whether it's just being in the office and trying to figure outwhat you want to do with your career, the idea. Just take some action isincredibly valuable and trying to go and say, all right what is action I can betaking right now today?

That's super meaningful. And it's not that you have to getevery single thing completed on your list. It's not that you have to accomplisheverything, but it's like, are you making any progress? Are you doing anything?The information that you've gained, the resources that you're pulling in,that's something that has really stuck with me that I, I try to apply in a lotof different ways.

It's just looking at the day and saying, all right, where where'sthe way that I can do something today.

[00:18:33] Andrew: That is beautifully said. I love theconcept because I just heard this quote the other day. And I have no idea whereit was. I think it was in a movie, but they said that The cost of inaction isalmost always more expensive than the cost of action. And a lot of people thinkabout the risks of doing something oh, that's that could backfire this way.

Or people might think this thing about me, you know, I havethis image to obtain which I'm about to slap some people for worrying abouttheir image that they have. No, I can't watch that movie. That's a nerd movieand I don't do those kinds of things. I digress. The idea that taking actionsare risky, that should always be your first choice because not taking action isnot something we normally talk about as a society, but not taking action isfar, far more risky and more dangerous for you than taking any kind of action.

And especially when we're talking about the small stuff,being kind and doing something good for somebody in your life. That's notrisky, not doing it is. And you're right. Maybe you'll be embarrassed. maybeit's somebody you knew you just met and you showing that, interest in them thatgoes beyond friendship.

Maybe you're gonna get shot down. that would hurt. And itdoes hurt. We've all been there. The risk of losing out on that relationshipbecause you're scared of rejection is it's laughable in a logical sense. Likeit just doesn't even make sense. And yet it happens day in and day out for tonsand tons of people.

Same with your relationship being kind of having thoseconversations, whether they be really good. Hey, I think you're amazing and Ilove you or. Less comfortable. Hey, that thing you said was hurtful andindicate some resentment. Maybe these are all difficult, but you know, if youthink you're going to get divorced, because you tried to have a hardconversation with someone, or they're going to break up with you, like, itdoesn't sound like a healthy relationship.

If that's all it takes.

[00:20:21] Daniel: Yeah. I think with relationships, alot of times I'll try to look and see, is, the action or inaction I'mconsidering? Is it motivated by fear? Is it motivated by love? And those areusually good sort of gut checks. And if it's like if it's completely motivatedby being afraid of something.

But I recognize if I did this thing, that that would be amore loving action to take. That's usually a driving force for me. And when itcomes to inaction, I, I think another thing that I try to think about it. Okay.If I go into this situation and I do take action, and even if it's the worstcase scenario, do I still get a benefit?

Like, do I get a learning experience? Do I at least get toleave a situation? Not having to deal with a, what if? And like, what's the worstthat happens versus what's the worst that happens is if I don't take action andthere are some situations. the negative risk of taking action outweighs therisk of inaction, right?

Like we can think of those scenarios. You all can definitelythink of those scenarios, but I would argue that a lot of times negative forjust not taking any action, it's, it's worse. It's worse.

[00:21:36] Andrew: Yeah, it's almost like there'sexceptions to the rule and we, we all can spot those exceptions, but most peoplesay, Hey, that exception is the new rule because, cliff jumping for no reason,there's some risk with that. You and I would probably still do it because itsounds fun.

But admittedly, in terms of the reward versus. You know,risk, not the best choice but in our day-to-day lives, those kinds of things,those kinds of decisions that are truly, Hey, maybe you shouldn't take actionon this. Maybe we shouldn't do the thing. It's so rare. Like it doesn't happenon a day-to-day basis.

And the few ones that are, are almost always there thatthought that you're, you're you reacting emotionally to something it's almostalways a high level of emotion. That you're responding to something that iswhen the bad idea that you shouldn't do comes apart. And you're almost moreinclined to do those than the right choices we're talking about.

If you want to be a jerk to somebody that's usuallyemotionally based and it's not the right decision, it's, it's when your bodysays, ah, that sounds uncomfortable. That sounds like I'm scared of doing thatkind of thing. Those are usually the ones that you need to say yes to. And thethings that you're like.

I'm going to do this and I don't care what the consequencesare. Those are usually the ones you're like, Hey, maybe this is an exception tothe action rule. And maybe it's not going to be a part of a big sum. It's notgoing to be, added on to this whole equation. That makes me a better person.I'm just about to be mean to somebody I'm not to make just a bad decision.

Almost always because you're feeling emotional in some wayor another.

[00:23:09] Daniel: Yeah. And I I'd bring that up. Back tothe idea of the small parts, big songs, is that taking that perspective anddoing that self-reflection, it's worth doing, even in the little decisions, thelittle day-to-day moments that the time at work where, you know, somebody's notputting a promotion opportunity in front of you, or they're not putting a giantproject in front of you, but it's a.

Hey, could you take 30 minutes to hop on the call with meand talk through this situation when they're asking you that at 4 45 and you'relike I don't want to stay past five, but you know, if you don't have somethingelse going on and that would really help somebody. And that's a small part,like being somebody that has built up that reputation through those repeatedsmall actions.

Does lead to those bigger gains and it's, it's worthconsidering, because as we've said over and over again, and, and truly like Ilooked up the dish stall definition, and this is right. It's the little thingsthat we do, the little aspects of our character, our reputation, ourpersonality, like those those pieces do all organize together to createsomething more than.

Those little actions. And so like, I'm not going to say Andrewis a great guy, because one time, I was running with him and I had to tie myshoe and he stopped and he waited for me. Like, I'm not going to define ourentire dynamic because of that. If there are lots of little things where it'slike, yeah, Andrew will do that.

And Andrew will, you know, cover for me. If I forgot mycard, like he'll grab my coffee for me. Like, he always takes the time to, ifhe's coming through town to reach out and like meet up and hang out, like theseare all small things that you're intentionally doing that do play into thisoverall perception of the type of person, the

type

of friend.

[00:24:54] Andrew: Exactly. at first I was like, wow,Daniel really struggled to think of something kind of did there, but you, you,you made me warm up there at the end. So thank you.

[00:25:02] Daniel: I had to start small.

[00:25:04] Andrew: I get it. But, but those are, they'reintentional choices, right? Maybe it's inconvenient to cover your friend'scoffee bill. Any of that kind of stuff, maybe you're going to go out of yourway if you're visiting a city and these are real life situations, Daniel wasnot making stuff up.

These are things that have actually happened. I, we we'vedone these kinds of things. And then. Putting other people first, maybe that'swhat we should call this up since then put other people first. Cause it'sreally cool. And that actually reminds me, I, we all know the golden rule,right? Do unto others, what you would want done to yourself.

I'm listening, reading, however you want to call it. Thisbook called the traders blade. It's a series and I'm in the second book andthey had this mind blowing concept where they showed oh, I completely butcheredthat. Let me retry this again. It's not the trader's blade. That is actuallywhat I'm listening to. I've I think I've finished like three or four books thislast week between moving and driving and a couple of trips, I'm blowing throughbooks. So forgive me. We'll see if this makes it in the final episode. So.

[00:26:00] Daniel: Okay.

[00:26:00] Andrew: I was listening to the Bob at firstbooks. That's what it was. And the fourth book just came out heaven's river andI was listening to that and I'm not going to give anything else away, butbasically there's two different cultures going on and they're like, Hey, youknow what?

The golden rule and the guy's like, of course I know thegolden rule do too do unto others as you would want done to yourself. Andthey're like, no, that's the silver rule. That doesn't take into. What you thinkabout other people like other people's opinions of how they would want to betreated? What you're doing is saying, this is how I want to be treated.

Therefore, this is how somebody else would want to betreated. What you should actually do is how would this person want to betreated. So that's what they called the golden rule. And this is a fictionbook. It's in space, there's aliens, there's artificial intelligences. I thinkearth has been blown up or something.

This is completely fictional, but this is why I lovefiction. They took a concepts that we have. Strongly follow and they actuallyexpanded on it. They're like, Hey, you should not just treat other people howyou should want to be treated. You should actually treat people how they wantto be treated.

And it's such a small shift and I have loved it honestly.And there, there might be people who disagree with me because the golden ruleis the golden rule and how dare anybody change it. And that's a littleclose-minded in my opinion, but again, to each their own, if you want to gotake your spouse to Europe, have at it. I think it's cool. And that's how youshould be doing these small parts, big sums kind of things. It's not, you know,I want somebody else to buy my coffee, but it's a, Hey, if I am struggling,it'd be kind. If somebody helps me out and on the same concept you have thatperson that's really prideful and maybe they can't afford coffee, or they don'twant to see you or whatever it is.

And it's inconvenient for them. Maybe you don't buy themthat coffee, maybe just because you want someone to do that for you doesn'tmean you should do it to somebody else. So being able to put people first iskind of the heart of all of this, do the things that have a good, positiveimpact. Even if it's the smallest thing, take out that trash that is cloggingup y'all's break room, makes the janitor's life better.

Might make everybody else's life better. Just these littlethings that you don't have to be rewarded for really great. You don't have toget the compliments from Daniel where you're like, oh, Daniel likes me better.Daniel thinks I'm a great guy. That's not the goal. That shouldn't be the goalof any of this.

The goal should be self-improvement, which is everything inthis leaving a good legacy behind. Hopefully people think kindly of you, but ifnobody ever appreciates what you did, you should still do it because it makesthe world a better place. And that is the end of my sermon today. Excuse me,for my soap box.

I will get off of it now. Comments Daniel. Hi dad. I'veruined the golden rule possibly based on a scifi book.

[00:28:28] Daniel: I mean, I would argue that that's themindset behind the golden rule is turning your focus outwards. However, howeveryou want to word it. It's all about the sort of context behind it. So I'm not

offended.

[00:28:42] Andrew: okay. Dang it one of these days.

[00:28:52] Daniel: So I'm going to do a challenge for usas episode eight. The episode is focused around our small parts, big sumschapter. And admittedly, we kind of took things in a pretty relationshipfocused direction. I'm okay with, I think is super important. And so for ourchallenge, you, you can apply that to relationship.

Absolutely. Or you can apply it more so to something like askill building, which is also part of the focus in the chapter itself. But whatI would love you to do this week, this month, whenever it's some point in time,honestly do it right now. If you have a chance is write out one or two. Biggoals that you have and start pretty big.

It can be something like getting a promotion at work. Itcould be something like, you know, really making some major strides forward ina relationship with a significant other with a parent, with a sibling, it couldbe any sort of thing. It could be just accumulating a bunch of money startsuper big.

And then. Continue to just pair that goal down. So if you'restarting out, this should probably be something that would take multiple yearsto achieve, then write out what you want to accomplish within the next year,and then break it out by, you know, monthly things you can be doing towards it,and then break it out by each day.

What is something that you could do every single day thatmoves you further toward that goal? And then that kind of gets at, again, ouridea behind the small parts, big songs is doing these little things on aregular basis really matter. And that's the only way that you actually make itto this big goal that you've got at the end.

So try it out, get as granular as you can. Again, startsuper big and then get super small and then just challenge yourself to do thosedaily things to really follow through with it. As you get to the end of a monthas you get to the end of a year, hopefully you'll be able to look back andreally see some crazy growth, some crazy progress that maybe you wouldn't have,if you didn't intentionally break those things out.

[00:30:59] Andrew: That is an excellent challenge,Daniel. Thank you. I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, To everybodylistening. Thank you for joining us for this short episode from dead bytomorrow. We really appreciate you guys sticking out with us and we hope thisepisode helped you out. I'm going to close us out with a quote from one of myfavorite.

I guess quotes, we'll just call it one of my favorite quotesin general, that happens to relate to this.

It has long been anAxiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. Andthat quote is from sir Arthur Conan, Doyle, your writer of Sherlock Holmes,which I absolutely love. Thanks again for listening. And we look forward toconnecting with you.