[00:00] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You’re going to get two incredible things from today’s episode. Number one, you’re going to get a glimpse inside of my coaching program and hear directly from the individuals who are being transformed from that program. And number two, you’re going to get insights on how to create your own custom 30 day challenge that has the routines and habits.

[00:22] Jim Harshaw Jr.: It’s in it that you need to execute upon to achieve your goals and show up as the best version of yourself. Right? Here we go. Welcome to another episode of success through failure, the show for successful people, and for those who want to become successful, the only show that reveals the true nature of success, this is your host.

[00:44] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Jim Harsha, Jr. And today I’m bringing you a unique episode, like I’ve never brought you before. And it’s a good thing. I’m bringing you this episode. Like I’ve never brought you before, because this is one of the final episodes of success through failure. Now that’s not to say that the podcast is ending.

[01:01] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I’m rebranding. It’s going to be a brand new. Podcast starting in January of 2024, huge change for me, not all that big of a change for you. I’m still going to be bringing you amazing guests. I’m going to be bringing you amazing solo episodes about a lot of the same type of stuff. Around goal setting and focus and consistency and, and how to find success despite, and because of failure, that’s still going to be a theme, but really it’s going to be a pivot that is going to be even better for you.

[01:34] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And I’ll be frank, it’s not going to be for everyone. There are going to be some folks who are listeners who are like, this is no longer for me, but it’s going to be almost all of you. Most of you are going to say, oh man, this is absolutely for. Me, so stay tuned that’s coming up. It’s going to be an exciting new launch.

[01:51] Jim Harshaw Jr.: It’s launching in January. I cannot wait to bring you this new rebranded version of my podcast. Okay. What is unique about this episode? This episode is unique in that I’m bringing you interviews with clients of mine, coaching clients, people who are in my reveal your path coaching program. And what we do every October is a challenge, an October challenge.

[02:20] Jim Harshaw Jr.: We call it on the path, October, JP kind of came up with that name. One time we were talking about it about a year ago on the path, October and the, on the path, October is this. What is the path that you need to follow the habits, the routines, the challenge that you need to put in front of yourself so that you can achieve your goals and move towards your vision for your life.

[02:44] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Now, here’s the deal. There are plenty of challenges out there. There’s whole 30, there’s 75 hard, there’s Exodus 90, and probably a bunch more out there that I don’t know of that are created for the masses. They’re not created custom for you or custom for me. That’s what on the path October is. And so what I’m going to give you is the, uh, the tools for you to be able to create your own challenge that’s custom for you, because some of those challenges that are out there, maybe they’re not relevant for you, but you know exactly what you need to do in order to achieve your goals in order to set yourself up for a great day, a productive day for feeling good, you know, physically and mentally and, and otherwise in your life, you know, The things, the habits, the routines that you need to do.

[03:32] Jim Harshaw Jr.: That’s what this is about. So I’m going to share with you different examples of pathfinders who created their challenge and they executed. And these are folks who went 30 for 30. We had a handful of them and several of them were up for coming on the podcast and sharing their story about. What their challenge was, what they created, what were the items in their challenge might be meditation or journaling or drinking a gallon of water or working out or reading the Bible or whatever it might be.

[04:00] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Everyone’s story that I’m bringing you is a little bit different, actually a lot different. And the challenges that they did were different as well. And so I’m asking them to not only share what their challenge was, but what they learned from it and what they would tell you as you try to create your own.

[04:17] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Challenge. So what can you learn from this in terms of not just what do I do? What are the habits and routines I should do, but also how do I find consistency? How do I follow through and make sure I do these things daily day in and day out? Quick interruption. Hey, if you like what you’re hearing, be sure to get the notes, quotes, and links in the action plan from this episode.

[04:41] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Just go to jim harshaw jr. com slash action. That’s jim harshaw jr. com slash action to get your free copy of the action plan. Now back to the show. All right. So I’m going to bring you my first pathfinder and why do we call them pathfinders pathfinders are in my program called reveal your path. And the first one is Craig Fullen.

[05:03] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Craig is a longtime pathfinder. As far as the pathfinders who I’m bringing you here today, he is the longest. He’s been with us for probably about five years or so. He’s got a background in performance coaching for athletes, mental performance coaching, and he’s also certified as a coach. In reveal your path.

[05:21] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So he actually coaches other clients. He coaches Pathfinders of mine, and he’s an absolutely phenomenal human being as a person and professionally. He’s absolutely incredible at what he does. He also has a background in business as a business attorney. So super smart guy, super insightful, lifelong learner, just a great addition to our community of Pathfinder.

[05:43] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So here we go. This is my short interview with Craig Fullen as he tells us about his. 30 day challenge. So Craig, you crushed the challenge. Tell us about the challenge that you designed. What were the things that you chose for your challenge and why did you choose them? Sure.

[06:01] Craig Fullen: So I actually did four things.

[06:03] Craig Fullen: So one was I had to get up before 6 AM every morning. That was just something that I needed to do to make sure that. I got productive in my day, as I know that the best part of my day is the morning and I got to be very productive in that time. And so getting up early just gives me an advantage there.

[06:20] Craig Fullen: The second thing I did was 10 minutes of yoga or stretching per day, and that was kind of the minimum effective dose. And so a lot of times I went beyond that, but I want to make sure I did it and kind of set myself up for success by just having that 10 minute threshold. Third thing I did was cold exposure.

[06:37] Craig Fullen: Every day, which could have been at least 3 minutes in a cold plunge or 2 minutes of a cold shower, but having the ability to do either or provide me some flexibility if I wasn’t home or something like that. So if I was on the road, I could still do it. And then the 4th thing I did was the whole 30 diet.

[06:54] Craig Fullen: And just wanted to, I thought all these things kind of combined to make me productive and healthy for

[06:59] Jim Harshaw Jr.: the month. What is the whole 30 diet for those who don’t know? Yeah.

[07:02] Craig Fullen: So the whole 30 diet basically is you’re really pretty much eating natural foods. So you’re eating basically meat. So it could be fish, chicken, even red meats.

[07:13] Craig Fullen: If you’re eating organic, you can then eat basically all the fruits and vegetables you want, but you just avoid any type of grains and dairy except for eggs. So, and you avoid peanuts, but there are a lot of other nuts and other things like that you can have. So you’re avoiding any type of added sugar.

[07:29] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So nothing really crazy here.

[07:31] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Nothing extreme. What do you think you chose these things?

[07:34] Craig Fullen: Number one, I knew that they were going to just make me a better person and get me healthier. And there are things that I really wanted to see how far I could push myself in terms of getting healthy. And so kind of combining all those, all these things, I think were very complimentary and they all had different aspects of kind of being

[07:53] Jim Harshaw Jr.: healthy.

[07:54] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So what benefits did you see? What benefits did you feel or experience whether early on or by the end of the month? Yeah. Well,

[08:01] Craig Fullen: the interesting thing was I, I want to kind of point out that I did have to work a little bit backwards. Once I decided on these goals, one of the ones that was really concerning to me was the whole 30 diet.

[08:11] Craig Fullen: And I knew that I’d be cutting a lot of things out of my diet and that was going to be tough. And so one of the things I cut out about a week before. In preparation for going on the 30 day challenge was caffeine. And so I kind of rolled into the 30 day challenge, you know, on caffeine, caffeine deprivation.

[08:30] Craig Fullen: And, uh, but once I got past that and got used to eating whole natural foods, after a couple of weeks, I felt pretty good. And then also just the cold exposure, you know, gives you, you know, a little bit burst of energy, as I think, you know, and, you know, just getting up earlier, I felt like I was, you know, really starting my day.

[08:48] Craig Fullen: On track and overall, it just felt like I was, was really kind of maximizing some of my potential.

[08:55] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So by the end of the month, did you see any changes, feel any changes? What, what felt different or better?

[09:01] Craig Fullen: Definitely was thinking more clearly. I probably had my most productive month in terms of work. There were a lot of things that I was.

[09:06] Craig Fullen: Some big projects I was working on that were kind of a challenging to in terms of finding solutions to. And I, I think I had my most creative month ever in terms of, I think about that third week of the challenge. I just felt like I was clicking on all cylinders with just a lot more clarity. And just, uh, energy and ability to get things

[09:26] Jim Harshaw Jr.: done.

[09:27] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So for the listener, who’s thinking to themselves, maybe I want to create my own challenge, what advice do you have? Like what worked for you? What did not work for you? What advice would you give somebody else who’s thinking about creating their own challenge? Well, the

[09:40] Craig Fullen: first thing you need to do is just start and decide to do it.

[09:42] Craig Fullen: And the one thing I need to point out is I failed. Last year, when we did this gym, so, you know, here we are success through a failure podcast and I failed the first time around, but I learned a lot of things from doing it wrong. And 1 of the things was that again, you had to think about your goals. Number 1, you had to come up with your why, why are you doing it?

[10:00] Craig Fullen: You just can’t set a goal and just say, it’d be nice for me to do this. It really has to be something that you want to do. And that will kind of motivate you and inspire you. But then once you have those goals, you really kind of got to break them down from a micro goal and kind of working backwards and like, what do you need to do to set yourself up for success?

[10:17] Craig Fullen: I think it’s breaking things down, working backwards, like I said, to just kind of figure out what you need to do to set yourself up for success. And I think the other thing was use your alarms on your phone and your watch. I use those to make sure that I had alerts. And I said what the alert was, you know, did I get this in by this time?

[10:34] Craig Fullen: And then also each day, I would make sure that I recorded the results in our tracker. We had that tracking sheet that tracked every day. You could see your progress there. And so I made sure that. By eight 30 every night, I got a alarm on my watch that went off and I went down and hopped on my computer and logged in the fact that I did everything I needed to do to meet that challenge for the day.

[10:57] Craig Fullen: And if I didn’t, I go, I went and did whatever I had failed to do that day

[11:00] Jim Harshaw Jr.: and took care of it. So there was accountability there with the tracking chart and you could track it and you could see your progress and measure your progress, but the two biggest takeaways I take from what you said, Craig are number one, just start.

[11:12] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Like, just, just do it. Don’t overthink it. Pull the trigger, get it done. And the other one is start with the end in mind, right? Stephen Covey told us that in the seven habits of highly effective people, start with the end in mind and reverse engineer what you need. So great advice. Thanks, Craig. Sure thing.

[11:27] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So Craig, what has been your experience as a pathfinder?

[11:30] Craig Fullen: Oh, man, it’s been been awesome as you know, I got in your pathfinder group and the reveal your path program. What about 7 years ago now? 6, 7 years ago. And, you know, it’s just only gotten better and expanded as the program has grown. And as you’ve gotten more people who’ve involved it.

[11:46] Craig Fullen: So it’s number 1, it’s just. You know, you learn to be the best version of you through going through the program. I mean, that’s the 1st thing. And the 2nd thing is just the community of people that you’re constantly engaged with, who are like minded, who want to get better, who you can learn from, who you can grow with, who you can learn from, from a standpoint of, hey, what doesn’t work.

[12:07] Craig Fullen: And then trying and figuring out what are the best processes and methods just to, to, to keep moving forward and making progress as an individual.

[12:16] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Okay. So that was Craig Fullen. Amazing guy, amazing coach, and you hopefully you learned a lot from his experience in his 30 day challenge. Okay. Now let’s go to Dan Mochi.

[12:27] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Now, Dan is also a longtime Pathfinder. He’s been with us. Probably second longest in terms of the folks who I’m bringing you today. Uh, Dan’s been with us for several years as well. He’s done a lot of business coaching over the years, and he is also. A certified Pathfinder coach. Dan has an incredible background in business and multiple different industries and building and scaling businesses and sales teams.

[12:52] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And Dan is a, an incredible. Individual well, he brings so much to our community and so much to our clients who he coaches. So, all right, this is Dan Mochi who went 30 for 30 in his challenge. Here’s what Dan did. So Dan, you crushed the 30 day challenge. You went 30 for 30. Tell us about the challenge that you designed.

[13:14] Jim Harshaw Jr.: What did you include and why? Sure. My

[13:16] Tim Lynch: challenge is relatively nuanced, Jim. There was some different tiers to it and layers. I had devised a plan that I actually, uh, yanked from another podcaster, Tom Bilyeu, to wake up, uh, and get out of my bed within 12 minutes of waking up. I already hit the gym every day, so that wasn’t an addition to my challenge.

[13:32] Tim Lynch: But while I am there, I added 50 curls to my typical repertoire and workout. In addition to that, 50 pushups. And on top of my indoor cardio, I added an outdoor run. On top of that, I challenged myself to hit on all of my vitamins and supplements that I traditionally like to take daily. I made sure that I did that on a day to day basis.

[13:52] Tim Lynch: Stop eating every day at eight o’clock, no later. And then lastly, to dial in on a cold shower every day. And the reason I did it was really twofold, Jim. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on skill development and cultivation, adding new skills. This year I’ve decided to hone in on being more precise with the skills I have.

[14:10] Tim Lynch: So by setting up these, um, numerically stamped pieces of the challenge, the 12 minutes, not allowing it to be 13 minutes, the extra 50 curls and not allowing it to be only 35 curls or. Eight o’clock is the cutoff and 8. 05 is not acceptable. I found that the preciseness of the challenge allowed me to kind of build that skill that I could then take and be precise and impeccable in other areas of my life.

[14:34] Tim Lynch: The second phase of it was adding the physical components. You’re like myself, we’re guys that are in the gym every day. I love gym culture. I love being fit. However, I don’t care who you are. There’s certain elements of your workout. That you just don’t like. And for me, it’s always been the pushup for whatever reason.

[14:50] Tim Lynch: And it’s always been the outdoor running. And the other thing on top of being impeccable and trying to be precise, I’ve been trying to build the skill of dealing with resistance in other areas of my life, particularly in the business world that I’m in. And I find that if you can manufacture resistance.

[15:05] Tim Lynch: And do things in challenge yourself to do things you don’t necessarily like to do. In addition, additionally, the cold shower that then also kind of like the preciseness will carry over and enhance your ability to deal with resistance and other areas of your

[15:17] Jim Harshaw Jr.: life. Yeah. It builds confidence in your ability to do hard things and be precise and choose the hard way, which is, you know, the right way is usually the harder way.

[15:27] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And yeah, I love that. I love the thinking behind that, Dan. For me, I’ve become a runner in recent years. I used to hate running. I always joke when I’m doing my workouts with, with F3, my weakness, like the one exercise that I hate. It’s not even burpees. It’s we call them iron mics, but it’s like the, I don’t know, jump squats where lunges, where you jump and squat one leg and sort of lunge with one leg forward and jump and switch.

[15:51] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I just hate those. That’s like my purgatory. So if, you know, if I don’t do things right on this world, I’m pretty sure I’m doing iron mics in hell, but I think I’m okay. So I’m a believer anyway. So, all right. So your benefits, what kind of benefits did you see, Dan? Like, what did you see? What did you feel?

[16:07] Jim Harshaw Jr.: What did you experience in terms of the benefits of your

[16:09] Tim Lynch: challenge? Well, obviously there was, listen, there was physical components to this. So right out of the gate, when you add 50 curls and you add 50 pushups and you add a complete, um, extra components to your run, the physical benefits were obvious, right?

[16:23] Tim Lynch: You’re, you’re working out better and harder. Um, the cold shower makes you more lucid and ready for the day. All those physical benefits were a part of it, but the bigger benefits were the carryover. I found myself being more impeccable and precise in my other dealings throughout the day, being on time, keeping my commitments.

[16:41] Tim Lynch: I have hundreds of people that either report to me in my various businesses or rely on me as their coach when you cumulatively add all these people together. And I found that my preciseness carried over into my conversations with them. These people are counting on me for my actions and my words. And if you could be impeccable, it’s very difficult to be impeccable in your word with other people and to keep your commitments.

[17:03] Tim Lynch: To others, if you can’t start daily by keeping your commitments to yourself. So I found by keeping my commitments to myself in the challenge, it built that trust factor amongst the people that I deal with every day. You have to have some degree of selfishness when it comes to your self commitments, because again, if you’re going to let yourself down, how do you keep your commitments and your promises to other people?

[17:21] Tim Lynch: So I found that the carryover was the greatest benefit aside from the, yeah, there was a little bit of a physical edge from all this, but really it was just the carryover in my ability to stay true to myself. That carried over in my ability to stay true to other people.

[17:35] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. I love that. You know, I think a lot of people experience or some people, I should say, experience almost the opposite.

[17:42] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Like people in like caring professions, they can almost hold their word to other people more so than they can themselves, right? They are forsaking their own workouts, their own diet, nutrition, their own health, their own sleep so that they can serve others. And what you’re saying is, you know, and I love this, this perspective is like, I can do this.

[18:06] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And I think of this as myself the same way. And sort of that, like you said, the selfishness is okay. If I take care of myself, if I do the things that I know that I need to do. Then I can show up as the best version of myself, as a father, as a husband, as a coach, as a leader. If I follow through and do the things that I know that I need to do, I am even better in those other roles.

[18:28] Tim Lynch: So, well, yeah, I looked at it. You can’t pour from an empty cup. And if your cup is running low, how do you turn around and pour and share from that cup with others, if there’s nothing to share from that cup, you know, you’re taking care of yourself with, with the end goal of being able to stay capable in taking care of others.

[18:46] Tim Lynch: That’s how I look at

[18:46] Jim Harshaw Jr.: it. So Dan, what advice do you have for others for the listener who’s sitting there going, man, that sounds like a great challenge. That sounds like Dan got so much out of this for the listener. Who’s thinking they want to create their own challenge. What advice do you have for them?

[18:59] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Two things.

[19:00] Tim Lynch: Number one. Look into the environment that you’re already in. If you’re already in a gym, you’re already in the shower anyway, right? You’re already in that bed. Don’t make it too easy, but create challenges that are an extension of the environment you’re already in. Too many people create challenges that are a complete deviation from where they’re going to be anyway.

[19:17] Tim Lynch: And it becomes insurmountable to try to even get to the location or to re juxtapose your life in a manner that’s going to allow you to tackle the challenge. That’s the first thing, Jim. The second thing is You have to look at timestamp challenges, whether they’re 30 day challenges, 60 day challenges, you have to count your victories by the day and only look at that day.

[19:38] Tim Lynch: Too many people, it’s no different than a new year resolution. The reason people off board on their goals. is they see the 364 days in front of them versus trying to win that day. It’s the same thing here. If you’re on day three, try to win day three. Don’t look at it as, ah, yeah, I won day three, but man, there’s 27 more days to go.

[19:57] Tim Lynch: So it would be those two things, Jim. Create one that’s in an environment you’re already immersed, just an extension of what you’re doing, but make it challenging and do it day by day. Don’t try to measure yourself, especially at the beginning. With where you have to go, you’ll get there. If you just win every day anyway, that’s the whole purpose of a challenge.

[20:12] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Right? Very good, Dan. I mean, you crushed the challenge or role model in our community. And that’s one of the reasons why you’re a coach. So keep up the good work. All right. Hope you got a lot from Dan. Now let’s go over. To Justine, Justine Pfeiffer is a Pathfinder. She’s been with us for a couple of years now.

[20:30] Jim Harshaw Jr.: One of our few women, most of our Pathfinders, most of our clients are men. Um, but not all of them. We have some amazing, absolutely incredible women in the program and Justine is one of them. So, uh, you’re going to learn a lot from Justine. She’s just another incredible member of our community, high performer, and brings so much positivity and perspective to what we do in this community.

[20:51] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So I’ll turn it over to Justine. Here we go.

[20:54] Justine Pfeiffer: Hi, I’m Justine and I am coming up on two years of being a Pathfinder and currently I’m in education. I’ve really always been in education and I joined in an effort to really start to think about what else I can do as the next phase of my career. And I’ve been working through some different goals and it’s been a great experience for me.

[21:15] Justine Pfeiffer: And. I’m still working on getting to that next step. Each day is a day closer.

[21:20] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So let’s talk about your challenge. Like you crushed the 30 day challenge. So tell us about what you included in your challenge and why.

[21:28] Justine Pfeiffer: I had actually a really hard time narrowing down where I wanted to focus. I do every month.

[21:33] Justine Pfeiffer: I have a hard time every month. I feel like there’s so many things to choose. And so I really brought it back to our four goals within reveal your path. And I chose one for each of these sections for wealth. I chose to work on my business idea every single day, whether it be, you know, read an article five minutes, 30 minutes.

[21:53] Justine Pfeiffer: I just let myself choose each day how much I was going to do, but I touched it every day for health. I did a daily meditation. I have different forms of meditation that I try to do, and I’m usually pretty good about it. Having that every single day, doing that was definitely a, an upgrade for self. I did 10 pages of nonfiction reading every day.

[22:14] Justine Pfeiffer: I was able to get through a book that I had started and not really gotten very far in. So I was able to finish that and really learned a lot through that process. And just having that. Go into my brain every single day versus two weeks of, of not reading it and then picking it up, trying to figure out where I was again.

[22:30] Justine Pfeiffer: And then for relationships, this one was really fun. I either wrote a love note to my husband every day, or I reached out to a friend or family member that I hadn’t talked to for a while and sent them a text. So I would literally like scroll through my phone and just kind of. Look at names and go, Oh, wow.

[22:46] Justine Pfeiffer: I haven’t talked to this person a while. I would send them a text just saying, I hope you’re good thinking about you. And that really led to some updating of conversations and catching up with people that I hadn’t talked to for a while. So that was

[22:57] Jim Harshaw Jr.: good too. So for the listener, the four areas where we set goals, relationships, self health and wealth, and Justine said, this is the framework that you use for yours.

[23:06] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You picked one thing in each of those areas and none of those are like. Earth shattering or massive or really hard to do like, like the first one you mentioned touching your business every day. It was just, just something just advancing the ball kind of minimum effective dose. So what benefits from all of this, did you see or feel or experience?

[23:24] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And did they, did they happen early on as was it not till the end or, or did you feel any at all? I mean, tell us about your experience. I think

[23:32] Justine Pfeiffer: that it was the right amount of challenge. I will start off by saying it was enough that there were days it was uncomfortable and I believe in having some discomfort in your life, um, to, to grow your, your mind and heart.

[23:44] Justine Pfeiffer: And, um, so there was just enough challenge to kind of make me go, Oh man, I really have to think about how to get this in today, you know, and. For four of the days in October, I was on vacation and had to really, really think about how to do this outside of my routine. And I think that’s always a good thing to do.

[24:01] Justine Pfeiffer: I think that we have a lack of commitment as in general right now. It’s easy to be like, eh, it’s too hard today. And I really believe in setting goals and then holding yourself accountable to that. Your word, you know, I gave myself my word that I was going to do this. And so that’s a very good feeling of accomplishment.

[24:18] Justine Pfeiffer: And I’m, I have. Overall, I have a big sense of pride that I did it. And then within each of those four goals, I’ve made progress. I got further in my business planning than I had in any other month. I think just in terms of meditation, the practice of meditation helps you be aware of what’s going on in your mind versus just mindlessly thinking.

[24:37] Justine Pfeiffer: And so, you know, it helps the more you do that, the more aware you are of what’s going on in your head and you can stop yourself and go, that’s. That’s actually not a helpful thought. Let me, let me pull myself back into what’s actually happening in front of me. Like I said earlier, I was able to finish a book that I’d started and stopped several times and really felt like I learned a lot from that book.

[24:55] Justine Pfeiffer: And then, you know, relationship wise, I kind of already said it to the look on my husband’s face as he read the notes or the response back from friends and family that heard from me was, um, it just, it felt, everybody felt good. I benefited. Cause I brought that joy and then they benefited because, you know, I reached out and that meant something to them.

[25:13] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Did it help having the accountability of other pathfinders and the leaderboard and kind of tracking yourself and making that commitment publicly? To do this.

[25:24] Justine Pfeiffer: Yeah. I function well with a leaderboard apparently. Um, that was, it tapped into my competitive spirit. I would go in every day and there were, you know, a group of us that were just killing it every day.

[25:36] Justine Pfeiffer: And then it became, can I get my check mark in the box faster than the other people?

[25:41] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Right. Who gets it

[25:43] Justine Pfeiffer: first? Yeah. Like, Oh, I’m actually like number one. So that was really. A great accountability tool. I definitely tapped into my accountability partner for that month. And so he knew what I was working on and, you know, was able to say either.

[25:57] Justine Pfeiffer: Did you do it today? Or. Awesome. You’d already did it today. Cause you already told me that was another layer. So I think that kind of public announcement of this is what I’m doing. And then the leaderboard and just having somebody, I also told my family what I was doing, the friends we went on vacation with, I said, Hey, I got to do these four things every day.

[26:13] Justine Pfeiffer: Make sure I don’t forget. So, you know, I had all kinds of layers of support and motivation to get it done.

[26:19] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah, that’s great. So what advice would you have for anyone listening who’s thinking themselves, yeah, I’ve thought about some of these challenges before, but maybe they don’t really fit me. There’s the 75 hard and Exodus 90 or whole 30 or whatever it might be all these different challenges out there.

[26:35] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And they’re thinking, yeah, but I want to create one for me. What advice do you have for

[26:39] Justine Pfeiffer: them? I’m on year two of making monthly goals. And like I said at the beginning, it’s, it’s actually really challenging for me to choose. So I really try to think about what I need most in that particular month or that particular timeframe and what would be the most beneficial.

[26:56] Justine Pfeiffer: I usually have a long, long list of things that either I mostly do and really want to do every day or that I haven’t started that I really want to do. And so I, I think that process of kind of brainstorming and then. Narrowing down to what is the one thing, or in my case, the four things that are going to be the most helpful to me in that moment, because we change, you know, that might, it’s gonna be different the next month, the next period of time that you’re working on something and I think to making it.

[27:21] Justine Pfeiffer: At the right balance of being attainable, but pushing you, you don’t want to make it so easy that you don’t have a whole lot of pride by the end of the challenge where you’re like, well, yeah, I kind of made it easy on myself. You have a sense of pride because it was the right amount of hard. And if it’s too hard, we’ll bail.

[27:37] Justine Pfeiffer: And if it’s too easy, it won’t matter. It won’t make an impact where we won’t have that sense of pride when we finish it. So choosing things that are like you said earlier, nothing that I chose was. Earth shattering, but the combination of the four doing every single day was that right amount of hard for me.

[27:52] Justine Pfeiffer: I could look at each one separately and feel like, okay, this is manageable. So by the end of the day, I had had four moments of, oh, this is okay. But making sure they happened all four every day was that right amount of challenge. And I moved myself forward in all four categories because I chose things that, that were the right choice for me.

[28:11] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. And everybody for the listener, you have to think about that for yourself too. Like what is the right challenge for you? This is the whole point of this exercise is creating something specifically that you know, that you need, that will help you. And, you know, we talked to Craig fallen as another pathfinder and a pathfinder coach who shared that last year when we did this 30 day challenge, he failed.

[28:32] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And he learned from it and he got better. So for the listener, you might fail the first time around too. It may not work. You may dial it up too hard or may not be hard enough for you. Like Justine said, it may just be not hard enough. And therefore it’s not meaningful. So you don’t stick to it. You’ve got to figure this out for you.

[28:49] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So thank you, Justine for sharing and congratulations on crushing it and continuing to crush it. Thanks.

[28:53] Justine Pfeiffer: It was fun. And sometimes it’s not fun.

[28:56] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. That’s part of it too. All right. Next, we’re going to go over to Tim. Tim is of the Pathfinders who I’m bringing you today. Tim is our newest of the Pathfinders.

[29:07] Jim Harshaw Jr.: He’s just been with us for a few months. Seen incredible change through the Reveal Your Path program. Incredible entrepreneur and individual just as an incredible backstory. I wish you knew all these people’s backstories. Like I do. They’re incredible human beings and people. I’m just so grateful to be able to be a part of their lives, and I’m grateful that they’re a part of this community.

[29:28] Jim Harshaw Jr.: This community is, I vet who comes into the community. Um, not everybody can, can sign up. I, I hope you do apply as a listener, but it’s not right for everybody, for you, and it’s not right for us to bring in. Just quite everybody, you know, we make sure it’s the right fit. I hope you understand that. But Tim is an incredible, incredible individual who’s bringing so much to the Pathfinder community.

[29:48] Jim Harshaw Jr.: All right, here we go. Here’s Tim’s challenge.

[29:52] Tim Lynch: Hey, my name is Tim Lynch. I live in West Deptford, New Jersey, which is right outside of Philly. Go birds. I’m a dad. I’m a husband. I have three awesome kids and I’m an entrepreneur. But, uh, I think most importantly, in a nutshell, I’m a person in long term recovery.

[30:12] Tim Lynch: And I believe. Wholeheartedly that I have been gifted two separate lives. And, uh, so I sit here now as a pathfinder trying to get

[30:24] Jim Harshaw Jr.: better every day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you’re an inspiration to all of us in the, in the community and, uh, love having you a part of the community, Tim. So you, you crushed the 30 day challenge.

[30:35] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You crushed it. Tell us about your challenge that you designed for you. What were the items that you selected and why? Okay.

[30:42] Tim Lynch: So the beginning of the challenge, when I, when you got, when you first presented us with the challenge, I was like, what can I do? I need to be involved in this. I need to push myself.

[30:51] Tim Lynch: And a lot of pathfinders are athletes. Including you, of course, and, um, I’m not an athlete. I’m a musician. I hid behind guitars and mic stands for a really long time.

[31:02] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So,

[31:04] Tim Lynch: uh, the health aspect of being a Pathfinder is important to me. So I had to put some kind of health component in there. So I wanted to do at least 45 minutes on my bicycle every

[31:15] Jim Harshaw Jr.: day for the entire month of October.

[31:19] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And that was road biking, right? Yeah, yeah, it’s road

[31:22] Tim Lynch: biking, uh, bicycle pedaling about 10 to 14 miles every day in the rain, you know, the weather wasn’t horrible yet in October, but, but, uh, we pushed through and we, we got it done and man, did I feel good about it at the end of it, you know, not being an athlete, the biggest part of the challenge, like I had something hanging over me.

[31:43] Tim Lynch: For my wife, for us, for my family, I do a bunch of work to my house myself, and I had the trim work

[31:52] Jim Harshaw Jr.: in my bedroom

[31:54] Tim Lynch: was not finished. I re drywalled the whole bedroom. I didn’t finish the trim work. My wife was, you know, obviously, I want the bedroom done. And there’s this other stuff that I’m doing, taking care of the kids, the house, the business, whatever.

[32:06] Tim Lynch: I put that on my challenge to get it done. I put a deadline on it. I wanted to get it done.

[32:12] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And smashed it. So you got a big project off your plate. It’s off my

[32:18] Tim Lynch: plate and, and more importantly, it’s off my wife’s plate. And, you know, happy wife, happy life, as they say. So that was the two biggest aspects of the challenge.

[32:29] Tim Lynch: I also, you know, I wanted to eat healthier and that’s been ongoing even before October and continuing on, you know, trying to eat. Better because I want to live to be 104. And so that’s, that’s one of my life goals. I wanted to live to be 104. I wrote it down. I made it

[32:44] Jim Harshaw Jr.: real. You know, you also had a, one, one of your challenge items was to remember people’s first names, right?

[32:52] Tim Lynch: It was one of my challenge items. So I’m horrible at remembering people’s first names. I don’t know if anybody can relate to that. I’m quick to want to speak. I’m quick to answer or quick to want to solve a problem. I don’t remember them. Minor details of of conversations and it’s it’s a character defect of mine.

[33:14] Tim Lynch: So every time I talk on the phone starting in October I made a conscious effort to write people’s names down when I talked to him on the phone even asking them twice what their first name was write it down on a piece of paper next and they have a conversation and repeat their name back to them and it changes the demeanor of so many conversations when you could do that because People love hearing

[33:37] Jim Harshaw Jr.: their names That’s a great habit.

[33:39] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I love that you included that into your challenge. Yeah,

[33:42] Tim Lynch: it’s, it’s just, it’s just beneficial. And it’s something that, like I said, a character defect that I need to work on, I need to get better at, and I need to keep growing as a person and, and, uh, you know, writing it down and making it real as part of the October challenge was

[33:55] Jim Harshaw Jr.: super important to me.

[33:57] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So like I said, you crushed it. What, what did you feel? What benefits did you feel? I mean, these are items you can be like, yeah, okay. I checked the box. I checked the box, but like what actual, like, did you feel good about these? What benefits did you see and experience or feel in your life? I mean, the

[34:12] Tim Lynch: obvious.

[34:13] Tim Lynch: Benefits health wise, like riding a bike every day for 30 days. I think I did. I think my total was 365 miles on the bike in October,

[34:22] Jim Harshaw Jr.: which is how many more miles than you would have done 365.

[34:29] Tim Lynch: I just literally started riding the bike this summer. So, so leisurely to pull around on the camper. So maybe it’s 360 miles more. How, however. I’m continuing on. I’m going to continue to push. I got the stationary bike in the basement now, so now that the weather’s changing and getting cold, I can still get, get it in.

[34:46] Tim Lynch: But the physical aspect of it was great. The health aspect of it was great. The pain in my legs walking up the steps was a reminder every night, like, yes, I’m doing something. I’m working. I’m getting better. More so. Jim, the consistency of making a commitment, being consistent every day. And, you know, I know I put in the group chat that we had, but no days off, no days off.

[35:14] Tim Lynch: And I was, I was pushing. So consistency is huge to me. I want to be a consistently good father. I want to be a consistently good husband. I want to be a consistently good boss. I just want to be consistent, just like recovery. I’ve been consistently not living that lifestyle for a very long time now. So consistency is huge.

[35:34] Tim Lynch: And this showed tangible evidence of consistency in my life. It’s no different for me than when I was a little kid and somebody tapped me on the back and saying, great job. Because that makes you feel good. That blows my spirit up inside. Like I physically feel a spirit in the center of my chest blowing up when I can be consistent and when I can have these little rewards and these wins.

[36:00] Tim Lynch: There’s just wins. And, uh, I’m not focusing on negative things. I’m focusing on positive things and

[36:06] Jim Harshaw Jr.: wins. So for the listener who says this sounds great, what advice do you have for them? If they want to create their own challenge, it’s going to be uniquely theirs. What advice would you give to somebody?

[36:21] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You know, what worked for you? What didn’t work for you? What, what advice would you offer?

[36:24] Tim Lynch: So the first thing that I needed to do was

[36:28] Jim Harshaw Jr.: literally do it.

[36:29] Tim Lynch: Write stuff down, like, because I could overthink things and I could freeze myself into inaction, so I wanted to avoid that. So it was important for me to pick something and write it down.

[36:40] Tim Lynch: I mean, that’s why the trim ended up on the list. To be honest with you, I needed to pick something. It was right in my face. I needed to pick it, write it down and make it real. And then do it a day at a time, there was many days when I didn’t want to get on the bike, or I had to literally squeeze time in, put the lights on, headlights on on the bikes, because I had, you know, I still have to run the kids around, I still have to do my job.

[37:03] Tim Lynch: Sometimes I work till 2 in the morning, but I still have to get it in. So. Do it, write it down, do it, be consistent and getting through the other side is, you know,

[37:13] Jim Harshaw Jr.: very cool. It was cool to, to be part of that with you and watch you go through it and, and, you know, encouraging others and inspiring others. So, so good job, man.

[37:25] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I hope you learned a lot from Tim there. I learned from Tim all the time and let’s go to Lisa Kerley. So Lisa has been with us for several years now, came to us, I think. Uh, during the pandemic and she stayed with us, uh, 96 percent of people who complete our eight week program stay with us for much longer, most of them for years and years, and some of them have been with us for four or five, six, seven, I think our longest pathfinders have been with us for eight years, which is almost.

[37:52] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So the very, very beginning of the company when I didn’t even have a coaching program. And so Lisa has been with us for several years. Another incredible individual has been through some, some real trials in her life and just brings so much perspective and positivity. She’s a former college athlete and just an incredible individual.

[38:10] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So here we go. Here’s Lisa sharing her 30 day challenge.

[38:15] Lisa Kerle: I’m Lisa Carley and I live in Northwest PA and um, I’ve been with Revoyer Path for about three years.

[38:25] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yes, you have. You’re a, you’re a veteran. Tell us about your challenge. You crushed it. You crushed the October 30 day challenge. So tell me about what you included in your challenge and why.

[38:34] Lisa Kerle: 90 ounces of water a day. No coffee after 11. Um, work on at least 30 minutes a week was working on my career and possibly a move in that. And no sweets Monday through Friday. So the no sweets Monday through Friday. It’s probably typical. A lot of people choose that I like sweets, but with the other things that I do in life with training, lifting weights, I knew that that’s an area that I really need to work on starting to really limit those and then.

[39:11] Lisa Kerle: The no coffee and water kind of go hand in hand. I could drink coffee all day long because I like it. I just like it. It can be hot. It can be iced. It can be frozen. But what I found out was that I’d be getting ready to go to the gym after work and realize at three o’clock, oh, maybe I should have some water before I go hit the weights.

[39:35] Lisa Kerle: And I realized that I was drinking coffee all day. And not getting the water that I really needed for my body. So, I put those together. So, I cut my coffee off at 11 and start drinking my water and get that intake that I really need, whether I’m training or not training. So, that’s kind of where, uh, how I started and based my challenge on.

[40:02] Lisa Kerle: Yeah,

[40:02] Jim Harshaw Jr.: that’s great. So what benefits did you feel? Did you notice any benefits early on or towards the end or at any point? I mean, what helped? What was your, what did you see? What did you feel? What did you experience from doing this and including these daily? Let me start

[40:14] Lisa Kerle: with the sweets. I did not miss them.

[40:18] Lisa Kerle: So I did allow myself the weekends because there was. There were two weekends that we were camping and we camp in a large group generally, and it’s not primitive. I’m glamping. I have this cute little camper. You know, food’s a big part of it. I’m not trying to build a fire. And I did allow myself sweets for those weekends.

[40:41] Lisa Kerle: There were two weekends, but it was really easy to eliminate them. Like I, I had a headache for a couple days. Which I think is a combination of the sweets and coffee maybe together, but I didn’t miss those sweets Monday through Friday. Unfortunately, I failed miserably in November with that. But that is a goal for the beginning of the year just to start those habits.

[41:09] Lisa Kerle: I realized. I can do those. Those are not difficult things to do. And then the coffee and water, I think I had more energy. Maybe it was all in my mind, but I was not as tired, which kind of seems silly to me that I’m drinking all this coffee. But I felt more energized with the water than with the coffee and I don’t think I missed the coffee after 11.

[41:38] Lisa Kerle: Like I said, I drink it because I just like it. I enjoy it. It’s, I guess my vice, but it’s really crazy because on the weekends. I can go without coffee.

[41:53] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Lisa, what advice do you have for any listeners who are thinking they want to create their own challenge? Any, anything you learned that you could share?

[42:00] Lisa Kerle: Make it attainable, especially when people want to start something or make a change. We often, especially, you know, we’re. Going into December. So everyone’s thinking of what they’re doing January one. And we jump

[42:17] Justine Pfeiffer: so

[42:18] Lisa Kerle: far and fast that it doesn’t have to be that hard. If you just start something simple to get that routine and then you accomplish it, you realize what you can do.

[42:33] Lisa Kerle: And that it’s not difficult to stick to those commitments that you’ve made for yourself, because I don’t know, you know, this probably more than I do, but often these challenges are for ourselves, not. An external affecting, you know, they do affect others to some degree, but we just have to achieve that for ourself.

[42:53] Lisa Kerle: So nothing’s too small to do to win that first goal.

[42:58] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah, I think that’s great advice. I mean, it’s the little things that help us show up in the world to be the best version of ourselves, to perform the way we want to at work and at home or elsewhere. And so it’s for us, but it’s also for all those who, who we interact with throughout the day.

[43:12] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So yeah, great advice, Lisa. Okay. Last but not least, here’s my challenge. Here’s what I did. I had six things. First one was a God thing. Okay. For me, that’s a prayer or devotional every day or reading from the Bible. Anything like that. Anything that’s it’s a, you know, I call it a God thing. Another one was limiting alcohol, any alcohol intake to just the weekends.

[43:35] Jim Harshaw Jr.: No, nothing on work nights. And typically if anything, I may have like one beer typically on a weeknight anyway, so just limited that to zero. And another one was journaling every day. Kept it very simple. I kind of do minimum effective dose. Another one was meditating every day. Again, minimum effective. It was literally, I set that at one minute, you know, minimum of one minute of meditating.

[43:57] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Usually if I did a minute, I would do two or three or five or 10, but meditating every day, reading my goals, reading my micro goals every day. So just reading them, refreshing, okay, here’s what I’m working on. Here’s where I’m going. And then, and when I say micro goals, those are my monthly goals. This is something that we do in a, in a program as we set goals every single month to keep us on track.

[44:17] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And then the last one was two sets of pull ups every day. So those were my six items in my challenge. And the reason I chose those, those hit every area of my life in the sense that, you know, hit my spiritual life, you know, my health, and then, you know, the journaling and meditation, reading my goals, they hit my personal life.

[44:35] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And my pressure professional life. And in really every area of my life, cause I have goals in every area. Meditating made me more present when I was home with my family, with my wife and my kids journaling, maybe more present as well, and helped me have just absolute clarity going into every day because I would always journal on, I would write down three things I’m grateful for three things that would make today great, and then I would do a couple of affirmations and that was sort of my, my journaling framework that I use.

[45:00] Jim Harshaw Jr.: It was, it was, this was all. Minimum effective dose and the benefits that I got from it were incredible. And I kept it going all through November as well. And then, uh, into, uh, I’m into December as I record this and it’s still going and not, not as consistent as I was. We did the 30 day challenge. I actually only got 29.

[45:18] Jim Harshaw Jr.: I actually missed a day, but. You know, once I missed the one, I didn’t let it throw me off track. I just said, okay, back at it tomorrow. And when I miss, I only miss, I think I just didn’t, I think I did one set of pull ups instead of two, but just doing these simple things was so critical to my success. And it’s critical to.

[45:36] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Success in every area of my life, you know, my relationship and my relationship with my wife, with God, with the kids focus and clarity at work. It just centered me every single day doing this. So my advice to you, if you’re thinking about creating your own challenges, number one, make it winnable. Don’t make it so that it’s so hard that you’re just bound and destined to fail.

[45:58] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Make it winnable, but make it challenging. Only you know what that means. I don’t know what that is for you. This is not a prescription for you. I have my prescription for me. You have to determine what that is for you. So make it winnable, find accountability, do this with somebody or post on social media.

[46:15] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Hey, I’m going to do this every day. And then every day you have to respond and say, did day one, did day two, did day three. So you have some accountability out there. Those are the two key things. Make it winnable for you. Make it customized and personalized for you. And then get some accountability in whatever way, shape, or form that means to you.

[46:33] Jim Harshaw Jr.: All right, good luck. I hope you learned. I got so much out of interviewing the pathfinders who participated and crushed this, got so much out of doing it myself. I hope you’ll take up the challenge and do your own 30 day challenge. Good luck. Thanks for listening. If you want to apply these principles into your life, let’s talk.

[46:51] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You can see the limited spaces that are open on my calendar at. Jim Harsha, jr. com slash apply where you can sign up for a free one time coaching call directly with me and don’t forget to grab your action plan. Just go to Jim Harsha, jr. com slash action. And lastly, iTunes tends to suggest podcasts with more ratings and reviews more often.

[47:13] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You would totally make my day if you give me a rating and review. Those go a long way in helping me grow the podcast audience. Just open up your podcast app if you have an iPhone, do a search for success through failure, select it, and then scroll the whole way to the bottom where you can leave the podcast a rating and a review.

[47:31] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Now, I hope this isn’t just another podcast episode for you. I hope you take action on what you learned here today. Good luck and thanks for listening.

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