Something For Everybody
3 Lessons It Took Me 34 Years to Learn (Do Not Skip This) - #495
12 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What life lessons does the host share in this episode?
Hello, my friend, and welcome back or welcome to something for everybody. My name is Aaron Mashpitz, and today is a solo episode of the podcast where I'm discussing some life lessons that took me a little bit longer than I wanted to learn. But once I did learn them and apply them into my life, have made my life much, much better because my whole goal in life is to
leave this world better than I found it, and to become the best version of myself in greatest service to the world. And understanding these life lessons has helped me become the man that I wanna be for my wife and for my son. And maybe these same lessons can help you in some area of your life.
And maybe it won't take you as long in your life to understand these as it did for me, because around the time I'm recording this and releasing this episode, it will be my birthday. My birthday is June 15th, 1992.
And so again, around the time I'm releasing this, recording this, all that stuff, I might be 34 years old at this point or sometime soon or after, whatever, kind of in that ballpark, my birthday will be here and I'll be 34 years old. And so I've kind of distilled some really important lessons I've learned over those 34 years into three lessons or three
brutal truths that we all should know, and that if we do know and apply them into our lives, will make our lives better.
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Chapter 2: How can simplifying your approach lead to better execution?
So the absolute best way to support the work we're doing here is by becoming a member on Patreon. And the next best is through Shop for Everybody. Every piece of hat, clothing, merchandise you see me wear on this show is found on Shop for Everybody. It's also the home to our exclusive merch of For the Dads, For the Moms, You Are Loved. All podcast merch is at shopforeverybody.com.
And again, if you become a member... On Patreon, you get exclusive merch discounts. Those are the best ways to support the work that we are doing here, now, onto the episode, completely uninterrupted and ad-free. So here we go.
Lesson number one. Stop overcomplicating, start executing. The core theme here of this lesson is that humans use complexity as a shield to procrastinate and avoid emotional discomfort. This is the actual brutal truth. You don't need a complex eight-step protocol or a new online guru or a new course or an expensive 20-hour seminar.
Most of your problems can be solved by fundamental unsexy basics, getting eight hours of sleep, exercising, and going for a daily walk.
Chapter 3: What does it mean to take full responsibility for your life?
Before you get into the complexity of everything, you must first be brilliant at the basics. What are the basics? I'm almost at episode 500 of this podcast. And if you've listened to any episode, you know what I'm about to say. You have to be brilliant at the basics. And then you might ask, what are the basics? Eating well, moving well, sleeping well, and thinking well.
Once you have dialed in those four fundamentals to the absolute best of your ability, then you might be able to get a little bit more complex from there. But you cannot use complexity as your shield to procrastinate or avoid the hard things. It's the unsexy fundamentals. It's the basics. The same thing applies in business, in parenting, in sports. All of these things.
You want to be the best version of yourself in greatest service to the world?
Chapter 4: How can upgrading your problems lead to personal growth?
Great. Be brilliant at the basics. sleeping well eating well moving well thinking well relationships exercise sleep walking the food you consume your information diet all of these things are unsexy They're the basics and they move the lever the most. They create the most change because they're the most important things. And that's really what we need to address, right?
Because the lesson is stop overcomplicating, start executing. And executing on what? Executing on the basics and the fundamentals. Because we assume difficult problems require complex solutions. But things like breaking up with someone or changing a habit are simple to understand. They are just emotionally difficult.
So we avoid them through the idea of getting more complex, which is really the shield for us to procrastinate because we don't want to feel that emotional discomfort. We invent complexity to justify or delay what we know we need to do because it is emotionally difficult. It is simple to understand.
Chapter 5: What are the basics that everyone should focus on for improvement?
The quote here, I don't know who it's from, probably should have got that before I started recording, but it is what it is. Learning more is a smart person's favorite way to procrastinate. Learning more is a smart person's favorite way to procrastinate. We buy another book or take another course to quote unquote feel productive when the real answer is to stop planning and start doing.
You can think about doing the thing. You can plan about doing the thing. You can read about doing the thing. You can meditate about doing the thing. You can listen to a book about doing the thing. None of that is actually doing the thing. No matter what you do, the only thing that's going to move the needle forward is your ability to get into action.
You can have awareness, then you move into acceptance, but you have to move into action because that's the only thing that's ever going to change. If nothing changes, then nothing changes. We have awareness, we have acceptance, and we have action. Stop overcomplicating things and start executing.
Chapter 6: How does identity influence our life choices and values?
And once you start executing, you'll be able to see what needs to be tweaked, what needs to be reviewed and altered and changed, what needs to be adjusted. And then you go back to the drawing board, you make those adjustments, then you get back into action, action, action. But it really all boils down to the fundamentals and the basics.
And once you have those dialed in on the most consistent basis possible, then maybe you can look for some more quote unquote complexity. But don't use that as a justification to delay or to avoid something that's difficult, especially if it's emotionally difficult. And so, again, that is the first lesson. That is the first lesson. Stop overcomplicating. Start executing.
Really, lesson number one is do the thing and be brilliant at the basics. Cool. Now we go into lesson number two. Take full responsibility of your life. Basically, a value ownership lesson. We're going to tackle like some identity, right?
Chapter 7: What mindset shifts are necessary for overcoming fear and anxiety?
Identity is repeated beingness and the danger of living a life dictated by social media and outside expectations. Your life is not truly yours if it is dictated by other people's opinions. The real truth is, the brutal truth here is that if you don't intentionally choose your priorities, the world will fill that vacuum and choose them for you. Again, your identity is is your repeated beingness.
What does that mean? That means who are you being on a consistent basis, which really means what values do you filter your thoughts and actions through? Is it zest, resiliency, consistency, kindness, hope, love? What is it? If you don't have any values, someone is choosing those values for you, and then that's how you're moving through the world. That is your identity, your repeated beingness.
Your identity is not your job. Your identity is not those types of things. Now, part of your identity is your job or being a parent or being a husband.
Chapter 8: How can you apply these lessons to serve the world better?
I love being a parent and being a dad, and I love being a husband. That's part of my identity. But really what is my identity is how I show up in those roles, what values allow me to show up in those roles as the best version of me. And so if I'm letting everything dictate everything around me, then I have no identity and it's not really my life. It's someone or something else's.
So you have to intentionally choose your priorities by taking full responsibility of your life. By taking full responsibility and ownership of your life, you actively choose your values. And those values dictate how you move through the world. So again, you can picture your brain as a gumball machine. Right. It has empty space.
And then the world kind of bombards you with distractions, social media and outrage, filling it with values that aren't yours. Bunch of gumballs. You wake up at 40. For me, that's six years from now and realize you went to med school or bought a house or did all these things just to impress people you don't even like. That life is not yours. And so let's put a stop to that now.
Maybe you're younger than me, right? Put a stop to that now. Don't allow that to dictate where you go with your life. What do you actually want? Ask yourself that question. What do I really want? Get clear on that. Clarity is one of the most important things we have for target setting. What direction are you headed in?
If you have no idea, you're gonna be pushed in a direction by the outside world, by social media, by people you don't even like or respect or wanna even be like. But you have the courage. You have the ability to walk the life that you want. It's going to be emotionally taxing and difficult and hard and there's going to be setbacks and challenges and you're going to get knocked the fuck down.
But how many times can you get back up and keep putting one in front of the other and learning from those mistakes and building your identity and not trying to impress random fucking strangers that don't even care about you or your well-being? You're building that identity. You're building that repeated beingness and you're constantly asking yourself the question, what do I really want?
And then moving in that direction and then using that framework to say, what do I really want and how can I be in best service to the world? How can I leave this place, whatever it is, my house, my community, the world a little bit better than I found it and use that to dictate kind of your values because your true values, your true values aren't defined by what you pursue.
They are defined by what you're willing to give up. Your true values are defined by what you're willing to give up. Your values aren't what you say, just like your habits aren't really what you say. Your habits are what you do on a day-to-day basis that someone can clearly see what your priorities are by just looking at what you do. And the same thing with your values.
So take Muhammad Ali, for example, right? Lost his boxing titles.
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