Behind the Bluff
Uncover best practices to participate in life on your terms. Every week, hosts Jeff Ford and Kendra Till guide listeners with short conversations on trending wellness topics and share interviews with passionate wellness professionals, our private club leaders, and additional subject matter experts offering valuable tips. Each episode conclusion includes Healthy Momentum, five minutes of inspiration to help you reflect and live differently. Subscribe now and discover the keys to living your greatest active lifestyle.
Behind the Bluff
How to Change Your Life with Three Steps | Part 2
In this enlightening episode, we explore the critical step of getting direction in your life, emphasizing the importance of creating a personal map. By establishing actionable values and understanding your motivations, you can navigate daily distractions and align your actions with your goals.
• The staircase of change framework features three steps: being present, getting direction, and taking action
• Awareness of our current situation is vital for achieving personal goals
• Life is full of distractions, making direction essential for navigating challenges
• Creating actionable values to guide decision-making is crucial
• Asking yourself what you want and how your life will change leads to clarity
• Seeking support from trusted individuals can enhance accountability
• The importance of aligning actions with personal values for meaningful living
Are you ready to live an active lifestyle? Welcome to Behind the Bluff, where we believe every moment of your life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. Life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. I'm your host, Jeff Ford, and today I am joined once again with my lovely sidekick, Kendra Till.
Speaker 2:Sidekick. I like it, jeff. Hello everyone and welcome back. Today we are shifting into part two of our three-part podcast series designed to help you create change in your life. So if you didn't happen to catch Jeff and I's first conversation on step one, which is to be present, make sure you go back and give it a listen. So, jeff, before we dive into the second step, is there anything you'd like to remind listeners from the part one of the series?
Speaker 1:Sure, kendra. I think I'd just like to reiterate that slowing down, reflecting and being present with how you've been living is crucial. This isn't the step to skip over. We will get into step three, the hardest step, the following week from this conversation. The first step is the most important step, because when you're driving in a storm and the rain is pounding down on your windshield, you have to understand where you are in the road, you have to create awareness for the circumstances that you're in, and oftentimes in life, we tend to speed up. When we face challenges, we tend to make turns that maybe aren't the most appropriate turns. So by following the guide that we shared last week, you can ensure that you're not going to crash. So, yeah, that would be my final thoughts so that you can be present.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't agree more with you. It was interesting. I had a lot of reflection after we recorded the podcast and I really found that I was taking a lot of the tools and strategies that you provided and action steps within the podcast and made them applicable in life, and it was really helpful. So, thank you. That makes one person.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy to hear that Kendra.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited to dive into this second step. But before we get going, do you want to reshare the three steps of the staircase of change, just so listeners who might have not listened to the first one or maybe can't remember?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, great call. So the three steps to our framework, the staircase of change, are to be present, get direction and take action. I'll add to the be present step that in episode one we dug into your five Fs. We helped you ask some questions about those Fs so that you could gain self-awareness for the get direction step that we're gonna talk about today.
Speaker 2:Love it. Yes, and the five Fs. I loved how you categorized those. They were also very helpful. It's a cool way to like categorize, yeah, just different areas of your life.
Speaker 1:And it's great because the five F's mean different things to different folks, but for all of us we have a connection to each of those F's in a different way.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and in your TED Talk I remember you mentioned that it's easy to get lost when you don't have a map. So easy I've gotten lost many a times without a map. I actually a little side note.
Speaker 1:Did you get lost on the way to work today?
Speaker 2:My husband makes fun of me all the time because I do put on my maps to go to some of the places that I should remember how to get to and it's quite embarrassing, but I just rely on my maps.
Speaker 1:Is this like going to Java burrito on the island or something like somewhere you frequently?
Speaker 2:remember how to get to, okay, and my husband's very good with directions and I'm terrible, so I will admit it, but your husband no longer has any hair. He doesn't. Yeah, yeah, he shaved it. He shaved his head.
Speaker 1:So you've, you don't. You're not good at directions, he doesn't have hair?
Speaker 2:Doesn't have any. So yeah, so do you want to share what you mean by this statement of it's easy to get lost when you don't have a map?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such a reflection on life. Uh, we, we go through these storms as that analogy that we continue to to take into this conversation today, and and we forget that it's imperative to have a map so that when the weather changes, when a season of our life looks differently, we know how to change courses, we know how to take a different road that keeps us on the main road. It's very similar to traffic. When you're in the middle of traffic, you typically don't wanna sit there. One of the big things that I do when I travel is I do tend to keep my GPS on in spots where I know there is a tendency for traffic to back up, because there's always a different route. A lot of the time yes, not all the time in these South Carolina roads, you know 26, 95 is sometimes all you've got.
Speaker 2:You're full wheel driving to work, aren't you these days?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, I will be soon and so when you think of why it's so easy to get lost when you don't have a map, equate it to traffic and equate it to the variance in life, the things that come up. I even like to use the example of when I first got to Palmetto Bluff. You're obviously drinking from the fire hose on the first day of work, but on a big 20,000 acre property like this, it's so easy to get lost until you get familiar with the map of this place. So before you think that this is just about driving directions, make this applicable to your life. You have to get comfortable enough with your map to know the different locations that are on your map and the locations that are going to precede the final destination that you have for yourself.
Speaker 1:Like, palmetto Bluff is so beautiful, but it's also extremely confusing at the same time. For at least what a month upon being on this property, like day after day, I equate that very similar to you, the listener, myself included, kendra included learning your map. We get directions for everything else in our day-to-day, for our vacations, for seeing friends. We never seem to have the map that's directly geared towards us. So that's why it's so imperative to have a map, not only because of the challenges traffic patterns but also so that you can get more familiar and almost memorize where you're going which we'll dig into here a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Just always keeps it at the forefront of your mind. I love that. That's really is such a great analogy, Jeff, so I like how you've explained it and it's so easy to remember. You know when you are. You've got that reference of okay, what is my map? You know what is my map of life, Like, what is, where am I going? Yeah, If you feel lost, what do you want?
Speaker 1:And that's going to be one of those key questions that we dig further into. I remember growing up we didn't have cell phones, believe it or not.
Speaker 2:We were the lucky ones yeah.
Speaker 1:Kendra and I. I was only allowed to take my cell phone out in middle school and my parents would not buy text messaging.
Speaker 1:So all my friends, were texting and I would keep my cell phone in a plastic bag for emergencies, but that was it, and the early days of cell phones didn't have GPS. I remember my dad would stop for directions at gas stations if and when we got lost. And that's just another analogy for step two here, getting direction. Sometimes you do have to ask for support. Sometimes you have to stop and phone a friend, and it's so applicable for designing your map and knowing that it is okay to share your map with someone in your life.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Do you remember going on like longer road trips and you'd have to print off that? What was it? Map quest, yeah, yeah, literally a binder full of pages.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's even before uh, later on uh, when you would actually buy maps in like gas stations. So I think the majority of our listeners actually remember those days, which is great.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure, so, okay. So, diving into it a little bit more. So what if? If someone is trying to do when they, when they work towards step number?
Speaker 1:two, like they're working on on step two working on step two, um to get direction.
Speaker 2:So can you explain that a little bit more?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like what they're actually trying to do.
Speaker 2:Yes, correct.
Speaker 1:So what we're all trying to do because we're one in the same working this framework is we are trying to have something that's tangible, that we can rely on and go back to. The goal is To define our destination so that we have something to actually put into our GPS every single day. The biggest comparison here is thinking about the distractions that we all have in our days. Sometimes we show up at work and we have three things that are paramount on our agenda and yet the day just gets into this place of reaction mode. So the map and the purpose of step two is so that you're proactive and not reactive.
Speaker 1:I think we're all victims of distractions and we play that card a lot. When we're not where we think we should be in life, we play victim mode and we say well, you know, work got too busy so I couldn't work on my personal growth or my family needed this, so I prioritize that. Now we're not saying don't prioritize things that pop up that are very important to handle and be a part of, but what we are saying is have a North Star, have something that's always going to be punched into that GPS daily, so that you don't drift too far away when the distractions come because they're going to keep coming no matter who you are.
Speaker 2:That's inevitable, isn't it? That is inevitable, and I'm sure everyone can relate to that, that things happen and but, like you said, it's a matter of keeping that direction and that focus, because when these, you know, when it feels like you are becoming reactive, just being aware of where, that, where you're headed still, and what's important, and having that roadmap.
Speaker 1:And what you may have not gotten to that day because of it, and I think James Clear has done such a great job with his book Atomic Habits and the majority of our listeners are familiar with this book.
Speaker 1:If you're a self development junkie and you haven't read this book, you've been living under a rock most likely he has this analogy and it's really simple and I love it because it's actually not as political as it's going to sound. You have to wake up every day and make a vote for the person that you want to be.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:The person that you see yourself becoming, and so Mr Clear very much established this concept of an identity. Every day, we are working towards that identity, and the only way you can work towards the new identity of yourself is to ensure that you do make those daily small votes. I can even make this analogy and reference point to the work we've done here at Palmetto Bluff with the wellness program.
Speaker 1:We've only been able to enhance it and to make improvements because of those small votes every single day for the vision that we have for the program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And so, listeners, just so you know, I mean, our mission and our vision and our values are something that we repeat regularly, on a weekly basis. I think our team does such a great job of supporting each other with the mission and the vision and the values Even emails exchanging that we said, oh, that's really reflective of our mission and great job on that. Or, if we make decisions, is it reflect? Is it align with what we where we're going?
Speaker 1:I'm so glad that you brought up the word alignment, because that's the purpose of the map. Everyone wants to live in alignment and that's what we're trying to do here in step two is to align our lives in the direction that we want to go. And, if I may, let's go back to that example that you shared about the PB Wellness vision and mission. It's a parallel with how I'll say we, but I believe you will want to create in your life so you function in an efficient and effective way. So, for example, uh, our, our vision is that everyone deserves to feel connected and actively participate in life. On their terms, to kendra's point, everything we do and the decisions we make I love that you said decisions, such a crucial word are moving us in the direction of the vision.
Speaker 1:A vision isn't something that you're necessarily ever gonna catch. A vision is how you believe the world can be different and, in your personal sense, how you believe your life can be different. The second piece is the mission, that's more the day-to-day. What do we want? How do we want people to feel too? So, in our case of PB Wellness, our mission is to enhance the club member experience by executing unparalleled wellness programming. So what we want out of our time every single day is to make sure members are improving their experience and they're feeling the enhancements, year after year, that we are consciously, as a team, effectively driving towards a better place to live, a better place to thrive.
Speaker 1:So you can obviously tell Kendra, I got a bit passionate about about your um great parallel there, uh, and I think it's just such an excellent example of great teams, great company cultures are very similar to when someone in their personal life is connected to their vision, their mission, their values, and they have a map for it every day so that they don't lose sight of them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because it easily just carries over and you want that to be. You know it's such a good thing to walk into an organization or a business that has that culture, and it's funny. I was thinking too. I remember in our last episode you talked about being consistent but not perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, imperfectly consistent.
Speaker 2:Imperfectly consistent. So I don't know. It just makes me reflect too, of you have this purpose and you've got this mission and this vision and every day it's still you're consistently working towards that. It might not be every day, it's still you're consistently working towards that. It might not be perfect. Every day you might get it wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might go against your values, right? Something that pinged in my brain earlier is we have emails about it. We have texts. Yeah, when you're dialed in and you know your map and when you have a map with a group of people, it's super cool. Everyone holds each other accountable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think this is why it's so hard with someone's personal map is most of the time we don't have accountability around it.
Speaker 2:It's just you yourself and I.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's something to think about is, as you've reflected on your five Fs, share those with someone in your life. Once you design your map, you get direction. Today, you get clarity for where you want to go. Share that with someone who can give you some perspective, because what I've found personally is the more I share with people that I trust, the more likely I am to have confidence that I'm moving in the right direction. It might not be happening right away, but I'm getting there and that's what we want for everyone listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. So before we dive into the action steps, you mentioned values, and values can be different for different people. So can you elaborate a little bit more on values and what it means, even for you particularly?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and we can even use our team values as well to reference this. I think that values are a fuzzy area of self-care.
Speaker 2:if you will. That's a good way to describe it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I also listen to a lot of podcasts and I've heard people talk about values, and oftentimes the biggest thing is that people just don't have them. They don't have very clear values that are like, in fact, memorized, even if our team stumbles a little bit on the vision and mission.
Speaker 1:They know their values. So, to give you a reference point, from a team perspective, we've got three values Always be humble, crush the expectations and develop positive relationships. Values go back to the word that you used, kendra alignment. We want to operate and live in a way that is aligned with our values, and when we're maybe taking the wrong road, the best question to ask yourself is am I living aligned with my values? Am I abiding by them? I mentioned a quote that I personally always try to strive for, and it's actually one of my values is that honesty brings clarity, and we have to be so honest with ourselves, especially if we do something that breaks our values. For me personally, I have three values that I stay true to, and I'll go into helping this be a little more digestible in a second, but giving a few more examples here. My three values are role model, optimism, effort is essential and honesty. No matter what, most of the time when people go online and they search core values, there's only one word. It might be honesty.
Speaker 1:It might be growth, it might be kindness. What we've done with our team and what I do with myself is I make them action related. So let's take honesty, no matter what. It's very humbling when you think you've done something wrong and you need to be honest about it, when the back end of your value is honesty, no matter what. So I love there to be actions related to your values.
Speaker 1:In my case, effort is essential. I always go back to the question did I try hard enough? Did I put the effort in to get the desired result? So, from my perspective, values can be what they are. They can be summed up in three ways.
Speaker 1:Values, number one. They help create alignment with how you want to operate, how you want to live, how you want to go about your actions, which will be our third step on the staircase. Secondly, values are what you also believe. They're the deep down purpose behind everything, how you want to live. And then, finally, what I would say is values are how you want to be known. When people show up at your funeral, I don't mean that to be dark, but what I mean is when my loved ones, people in my life, who I've created relationships, show up at my gravesite. I want them to honestly say no point intended, that Jeff was an honest person. Jeff put in effort every single day. A word that a lot of people hopefully relate to me is driven and I want people to show up and say that I was an optimistic guy. I am a positive guy, because who wants to be around someone who's so negative?
Speaker 1:I know this is true.
Speaker 2:This is true.
Speaker 1:So just to recap values, three things You've got number one, alignment. Number two, they're what you believe, and number three, they're your identity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and honestly, jeff, I don't want to ever show up at your funeral or see your grave site, but I will say that the words optimistic, honest and kind and just an extreme amount of effort into things, so I can see where you live by your values. And what's interesting also is I'll be quite honest myself is I don't have actionable values, I have the one word values.
Speaker 2:And so it's making me reflect on. I probably need to go back and refine those a little more, and so I don't know if listeners can also relate to that as well. But it's, it makes it.
Speaker 1:It just makes sense how you do it that way and why you do it that way, and I haven't heard too many people out there describe you know, setting your values in this way. It's it's something that works for me. You could obviously go online, print out the 200 word list. Highlight the first 15 values that you connect with. I think it means more when you put a little spin on them like effort yeah. Effort is essential. Oh wow, it's like wow, effort's essential.
Speaker 2:I better better and, like you said, honesty, no matter what. Wow it's like wow, effort's essential. I better put some effort in and, like you said, honesty, no matter what you know, it really gives it it gives it more context in situations and you have to swallow the pill.
Speaker 1:Yes, you do, when you look at your values, depending on the situation.
Speaker 2:So, no, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. It was really powerful. So now diving into some of these action steps how can someone get direction in their life today?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's, let's put a bow on this conversation so that you can create change at home. Everyone, um, I've I've referenced the Ted talk a few times in the first episode, so referencing it once again here uh, if you Get Direction, you can get these questions again, two questions that anyone can ask themselves today to start creating their map. So the first question is what do you want? And the second question is how will your life be different? Will your life be different? The want is the destination that you want to get to the outcome and how your life will be different. That is how you're going to feel when you get to that destination. It's getting connected to the motivation behind the picture that you are personally after, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So would you say that you know the destination is kind of like the mission 100% In a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just to keep going on the personal route here. My mission in life is to serve God, my family, my team and inspire people to take action. Wow, so weird. Take action is one of the three steps of change. It's ironic right? Folks inspire people to take action. Wow, so weird. Take action is one of the three steps of change.
Speaker 2:It's ironic, right folks?
Speaker 1:Very, very ironic yeah yeah, and vision is the feeling. Vision is how the world's going to be different, how your life's going to be different, and so, in my case, my vision is to live the life that I'm meant to live.
Speaker 2:Love that. So to get direction, we need to ask ourselves two questions what we want and how we want our life to be different. That's really cool. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:And if you need help we're here. Those are big questions. You definitely want to. With the what do you want question, think about from those five Fs, which F is lower on the rating scale, that one to five rating scale and then put the want into your mission, because the want and the mission, the vision, these can change, but if you put it in there, then it's on your map. You're going to start working towards it.
Speaker 2:Always be there at the forefront. I like it Well, jeff, thanks so much for taking us through this second step on the staircase of change. I know I gained a lot of insight and just really appreciated just you explaining everything, and I'm really looking forward to the third part of this series, which will be next week. So, listeners, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:Make sure you hang around to gain some healthy momentum for the rest of your week famous baseball player, yogi Berra, who was part of 21 world series, once said if you don't know where you are going, you might end up somewhere else. His wisdom highlights exactly why we all need a map for our lives the importance of step number two. If you think about it, it's ironic really. We plan what we're going to do at work, what we're going to buy at the grocery store and what we're going to do on the weekends, but we don't always make a plan for our lives. We don't have direction. So let me ask you do you have a plan? And, if not, will today's conversation help you get direction? Will you actually take action and develop a plan? Answer those questions we shared, maybe.
Speaker 1:When I go to sleep at night, I close the door, turn off the lights, put on my eye mask and the room goes dark. My breathing slows and my body starts to move into the first stage of sleep non-REM. I'm one of those sleepers that if a burglar came into the house and wanted to scoop me up, steal me, it'd be no problem at all. I am a deep sleeper. I'm almost asking to be taken. What's all this sleep talk about?
Speaker 1:Well, too many of us are sleeping through life. We are living life blindfolded and our time is getting stolen from us and, oddly enough, we're surprised shocked when we don't end up where we thought and especially where we thought we should be. As you heard earlier, one of my values is that effort is essential, so for this week, I want to encourage you to apply it. Put the effort into your plan, hold your plan close, reference it and don't ever be scared to adjust it. The time is now to stop sleeping for your life. That is a wrap on this week's episode of Behind the Bluff. We hope you enjoyed part two. Step two get direction on the staircase of change and we look forward to finishing off this series with you next week, week where you will learn how to take action. Until then, remember to actively participate in life on your terms. Thanks everyone, Thank you.
