Procrastination Isn’t Laziness: What’s Really Holding You Back with Jon Acuff
Episode Notes
What if procrastination isn’t about laziness… but a disconnect between who you want to be and what you actually do?
So many of us carry goals we care deeply about: habits we want to build, changes we long to make, ways we want to grow. And yet, we find ourselves stuck in the same patterns, circling the same resistance, wondering why it’s so hard to follow through.
In this episode, Dr. Alison Cook and goals expert and New York Times bestselling author Jon Acuff explore what’s really happening beneath procrastination and how to finally begin moving forward.
Because procrastination isn’t a character flaw. It’s a gap.
A gap between your intentions and your actions.
And over time, that gap can quietly erode something deeper: your trust in yourself.
If you’ve ever felt stuck, overwhelmed by your goals, or caught in cycles of starting and stopping… this conversation will help you understand why and what to do next.
You’ll explore:
- Why procrastination isn’t about laziness and what’s actually driving it
- The hidden impact of broken self-trust (and how to begin rebuilding it)
- How your “soundtracks” (repetitive thoughts) shape your actions and results
- The real reason discipline alone doesn’t work and what does
- The 4 key places people get stuck in the growth process (and how to move forward)
This conversation offers a practical, compassionate path forward, helping you close the gap between who you want to be and how you’re actually living, one small step at a time.
More Resources:
Make sure to grab Jon Acuff’s latest book Procrastination Proof: Never Get Stuck Again and then claim $97 worth of free bonuses.
Take Jon's free procrastination profile here.
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Want to go deeper with Dr. Alison? Join 80,000+ soul menders in our email community and receive weekly reflections and gentle practices here.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 199: How the Body Teaches the Soul with Justin Whitmel Earley
Episode 157: Braving Change—3 Ways to Get Unstuck and Transform Guilt and Regret
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
Procrastination is just when your actions don't match your intentions. When there's a gap between
who you say you want to be and who you actually are. A goal is never just a goal. A goal is a
promise you made to yourself. And every time you break it, it gets easier to break the next one.
The things you think become the things you do become the things you get. And so there's a lot of
times where we over-focus on the results we want, but we never change the underlying thoughts so
we don't get new actions. Like, what does it look like for you to give yourself permission?
permissions that we found were the most valuable in this order were permission to dream,
permission to plan, permission to do and permission to review.
Hey everyone. And welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of the Best of You podcast. I'm so
glad you're here with me today for this conversation. Today's episode sits in a part of the growth
journey that I think is so important. So often here on the podcast, we talk about healing by
looking beneath the surface, by trying to understand our patterns, our pain, our stories,
the ways we've adapted in the places where we still need healing or repair. And this work is so
important.
truth about where we've been and what has shaped us. And it's all toward this wiser way of being
human. And there's also another part of growth that matters. It's equally important.
At some point, we find ourselves asking, now what? How do I move forward?
How do I make a change? How do I stop circling the same patterns, the same resistance, and actually
take a step toward the life I wanna live? We sort of move from the inside into the action. And
that's what today's conversation is about. I often get asked about the difference between therapy
on one hand and coaching on the other. And while there's absolutely overlap, between the two,
they're generally doing different kinds of work. Therapy is often about understanding our symptoms
and patterns and pain and relationships in the deeper context of our lives. Coaching,
on the other hand, tends to be more focused on goals, on action, on momentum, and helping you move
forward in a practical way. And both have incredible value. I think both are important and both can
serve us at different seasons of our lives. And part of wisdom is knowing which kind of help we
need in a given season. That's why I was thrilled to have John Acuff join me on the show today.
John Acuff is a New York Times bestselling author. He's a speaker, a coach, and an expert on
overthinking goals and getting unstuck. He's written several books, including soundtracks,
where he explores the repetitive thoughts that keep us trapped. And he has a brand new book out
this week. It's called Procrastination Proof. And if you're anything like me, that procrastination
topic really resonates. What I appreciate about John is that he brings a lot of practicality to
this conversation. He's thoughtful. He tells great stories. he's really observant about human
behavior. And his work is so helpful in just helping us figure out how to take that next step.
Because the truth is, insight matters. Understanding your story matters. And sometimes you also
need tools. You need structure. You need language for why you keep putting something off. You need
help noticing the thoughts that are tripping you up. And you need help getting into motion again.
That's where today's conversation goes. We talk about John's own story of procrastination and what
led him to write this book. We talk about goals, what makes a goal meaningful, and how to think
honestly about the difference between a life-giving goal and one that might be driven by pressure,
perfectionism, or even fantasy. We talk about the inner scripts we repeat to ourselves,
the soundtracks, that's what John calls them, these soundtracks that keep us stuck, and what it's
like to start rewriting. these soundtracks. And toward the end of the episode, John shares really
personally about how he's rewired his own brain to think differently about God. So with that,
please enjoy my conversation with John Acuff.
All right, well, John, I am thrilled to have you here today. I've followed your work and feel like
we have these overlapping circles with your background in Boston and Nashville. So thanks for
joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it. I want to just start kind of with your
personal story. Your book is so practical. It's about procrastination,
but it comes out of your own personal journey with procrastination. Would you start just helping us
understand your own relationship with procrastination and how things kind of shifted for you?
Yeah, a friend of mine who's a comedian said, I saw your new topic and I was like, oh, geez, this
guy, what does he know about procrastination? He's always getting things done. And that was a funny
statement because it meant he didn't know me the first 34 years of my life. I mean, I knew in the
third grade, speaking of Massachusetts, my... third grade teacher at Doyon Elementary School in
Ipswich laminated some poems. I knew in third grade I wanted to write a book, but I really was like
a lot of other people, pretty lost in my 20s, pretty aimless in my late 20s, pretty distracted and
frustrated in my early 30s, had a very up and down career, probably had six jobs in eight years,
like real jobs. pretty average marriage out of shape. And in my mid thirties,
I really started to tap into what mindset can do, what you can do with goals,
what you can do when you embrace this. really unpopular phrase in our culture called personal
responsibility. And I started to dial this in. And so I couldn't have written Procrastination Proof
as my second book because it wouldn't have been true yet. It would have been an arrogant 37-year
-old going, no, maybe this is the way. But on book 11 at 50, I feel pretty good going,
hey, I figured this thing out. And you don't have to wait to do the things you're called to do. And
there's some specific things you can do. So that's why I wrote it as somebody who had...
years, for decades, kind of started, stopped, started, stopped, tried a different thing, tried a
different thing, and never really gotten any traction. And so the last 16 years, I've released,
again, 11 books because I learned how to deal with what I would consider a mindset issue like
procrastination. Interesting. So how do you define it? How do you define this term procrastination
that so many of us are familiar with? Oh, yeah. My favorite definition that works for me is
procrastination is just when your actions don't match your intentions. When there's a gap between
who you say you want to be and who you actually are. And the flip of that, you know,
the opposite to me is a remarkable life. And that's when your actions overlap with your intentions.
Where there's almost the Venn diagram is so close that it's almost an eclipse. And so who you say
you want to be is who you actually are in a consistent, ever-growing way. And so,
yeah, procrastination is when there's a big gap between those two things. And an example of that
would be, according to the New York Times, 82% of Americans want to write a book. And if you look
at publishing records, less than 1% do every year. So 82% have this intention,
1% do the action. That's a massive gap. And so I like to use this book to close the gap with
people. Oh, that's such a great – this is what I love about your work. You take these sort of terms
and bring a depth to it because there's almost an integrity in what you're saying, right? There's
an integrity. Yeah. Yeah. I love that you use that word. I always tell people a goal is never just
a goal. A goal is a promise you made to yourself. And every time you break it, it gets easier to
break the next one. And you don't want to beat yourself up for breaking it, but there does become
this kind of residue and distrust. You start to distrust the person you spend the most time with.
And that's a really difficult place to be. Yeah. Yeah. You're building that, which is one of the
things. So on the podcast, we talk a lot about trauma and healing. And one of those very basic
building blocks is learning to rebuild that trust with yourself. So you went exactly where I want
to go. Before we go deeper on procrastination, let's back it up into goals. Because I think
sometimes we can beat ourselves up, right? And so we have a goal. We're not achieving it.
And a lot of times, I think what fills in the gap is shame. Right? Oh,
yeah. Which doesn't help at all. You know, I just beat myself up that I'm not the person I wish I
was. So talk to me a little bit. You're really big on goals. How do we,
and I know this ties into procrastination, so take this where you want to go, but how do we begin
when we've got a, you know, you talked about how you kind of had this pile of things you weren't
proud of. And I think sometimes we can get overwhelmed if we set the goal as,
something that we're not going to achieve. And then, then we feel more shame. Like, how do we just
start? How do we get out of that stuck place? Yeah.
A lot of my work is kind of the opposite of what's popularly said right now,
meaning like people go, go big or go home. But I know through experience with helping a million
people with their goals, most of them go home. And so a lot of what I do at the outset with
somebody is where they go, I want to change every part of my life. Or I want to run a marathon.
I'll always go, have you ever run a half marathon? Have you ever run a 10K or a 5K? Even just a K.
Get like a tiny little medal. And they go, no, I heard an Eminem song. I'm inspired. I bought a
carbon fiber bike. I'm going for it. And I know that's not sustainable. And so sometimes it starts
from a good place, like wild optimism. Or you see somebody online that tells you, you should 100x
your sales. And you go, well, I have to do it this way. And we feel like the little things don't
count. the little steps, the little progress. And then we do get into that shame where we're so
unfair to ourselves. I'll give you an example. I was talking to a real estate agent and she was
saying, I'm just not doing as many sales as I used to do. I'm not crushing it. And I said, well,
has anything in your life changed lately? Is there anything different? And she said, no, not
really. And I kept asking. And eventually she said, well, I mean, I am taking care of my dad who
has early onset dementia for about 20 hours a week. And I said, that's a massive shift.
The soundtrack that I gave her, and soundtrack is just a phrase I use for a repetitive thought, was
new seasons deserve new scorecards. New seasons deserve new scorecards. You're in a new season and
you're judging your current results against the season a year ago when you didn't have a dad that
you were trying to take care of. And it's the same with young moms when they have kids and they go,
yeah, I'm just not performing the way I want to. And I go, yeah, you have twins. You have two,
three months old. That you're wearing clothes is amazing. Like we're going to have to change the
bar. So I do spend a lot of what I do helping people. Be kind to themselves,
not beat themselves up, you know, not regret that they haven't made faster progress.
But it's just I've never met somebody whose tool for long term sustainable change was shame.
Like it's just not it's it's not a good like you can whip yourself into shape temporarily.
It's a really interesting conversation about. I meet CEOs and executives who used anger as a fuel.
Yeah. And the problem with anger as a fuel, it will get you some places. It will. It'd be silly to
not say otherwise, but it's kind of like when. When they launch a rocket, they have a certain type
of fuel that helps it break through the atmosphere. But then once it does that, they drop that fuel
because that fuel is not sustainable. It's too dangerous. You can't steer it. You can't actually
use it. They have to use a more stable fuel. And so I try to get people to go like, I get that
you've used this fuel to get somewhere. I'm just telling you. it's long-term,
it's going to ruin your marriage. Long-term, it's going to ruin your health. Long-term, you're
going to get some rewards, but you're not going to even enjoy them because you've burned yourself
up. I love that. You've got to meet yourself where you are as you're rebuilding that trust.
And I think that, and this ties into the procrastination conversation. I think a lot of people
think, to your point about the real estate agent you were working with, think that procrastination
is laziness. Oh yeah, no. What is actually going on beneath it then?
The people I know that work the hardest deal with procrastination the most. And the reason I say
that, like I always tell people that listen to podcasts like yours, by the way, congratulations,
you're a high performer. You're a high performer. They always go, no, that's other special
different people. And I go, no, low performers don't listen to podcasts like this. They don't even
know this category exists. They don't read books like these. That you're even in this conversation
means you're already. trying to change something. And so the people I know who go, Hey,
I want to do more. I know I'm capable of more are often doing a lot already. They just need to
tweak something. So no procrastination isn't a laziness problem and therefore hard work won't fix
it. Like discipline won't fix it. The big thing for me with discipline, I still haven't met
somebody who changed their life just because meaning they said, John, today I got up and decided to
have grit today. I just decided to have sacrifice or willpower. It's never that. It's usually one
of two things. There was a desire or disappointment. One of those two things got loud enough to get
their attention. There was something they wanted or they didn't like where they were. Like no one
willingly leaves the comfort zone. And you shouldn't. It's comfortable. The only reason people
leave the comfort zone is something outside of it is worth being uncomfortable for. And then you
go, oh, so for me, desire always leads to discipline, not the other way around.
And if you think work harder, if I just work harder, if I buckle down, I got to get my life
together. Like if you kind of try to wipe. knuckle that change, it's not sustainable. You don't get
the real change you want. So this really does, everything you're saying leads into this last book
you put out. I feel like there's a part one and a part two here, which was this, right? I mean, I
don't know if that's how you're thinking of it, but the soundtracks, which you mentioned, it's what
you're thinking. So tell us what you mean by soundtracks, because what I'm hearing and what you're
saying is your soundtrack matters to your motivation. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. So mindset's really easy. We've made it kind of woo woo in our culture where you think you're
going to light a sprig of sage in a drum circle and kind of manifest the universe. Like there's a
lot of like woo woo language around it, but mindset's very practical. Your thoughts turn into
actions. Your actions turn into results. The things you think become the things you do become the
things you get. And so there's a lot of times where we over-focus on the results we want, but we
never change the underlying thoughts so we don't get new actions. So for me,
mindset and goals are kind of like peanut butter and jelly. They just go together. And so what
you'll see is often somebody will do a couple different actions, but they haven't changed their
underlying thought, and then they don't actually perform the way they want to. And sometimes it's
they inherited an old soundtrack. from a family of origin. Sometimes it's they were told a certain
thing and believed it. Sometimes it's because they had never taught how to think. I was never
taught how to think. Like in eighth grade, I didn't have a mindset class. In high school, I didn't
have a, here's how to think about yourself in stressful situations so that you don't add shame to
the feeling of stress. You know, thoughts were something outside of us that just showed up on their
own. And then the older you get, hopefully you start to go, wait a second, I think I can control
what I think. I think I can renew my mind, if you will. I can take every thought captive.
I can think of what's noble and true and beautiful. And what if I actually did that? What would the
results be? And so for me, that's... That's what's really, really fun because then you can take
some simple steps. And here's a simple exercise every listener can do. It's my favorite when it
comes to mindset. All you have to do is, number one, write down a goal. And it can be any goal. It
can be I want to lose 10 pounds. It can be I want to write a book. I want to move to Boston. I want
to know my kids better. Any goal. Write down the goal. And the second step is listen to your first
thoughts about that goal. Listen to your reaction to that goal because every reaction is an
education. It's educating you about what you really believe. And then just say, Are they positive
or negative? When I wrote that I'm going to start my own podcast, what are my first thoughts? Oh,
you should. You've got so many interesting things to say. There's not enough podcasts yet. You
should do it. Or were they negative? Who are you to think you could do a podcast? You don't know
anything about the technology. You already missed the boat. And what you find is the majority of
those first thoughts are often negative. I still haven't met somebody whose problem with
overthinking is they overthink kind thoughts about themselves. Where they go, yeah, my main issue,
John, is I'm too nice to me. I'm too... I'm so quick to forgive myself that it's a real hassle.
And so then you go, okay, well, once you identify some negative broken soundtracks, you can do
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Okay, this is so good. You are just speaking the language we talk a lot. My background is in parts
work. And so right, these are these parts of us this inner family of voices we have where one part
of us really wants to make this change. And I love what you're saying. Another part of us still has
this broken, you use the word soundtrack, this broken record. And the first step is just to notice
that. You're speaking right out of the therapy playbook. It's just that awareness, right?
It's not to... that. It's to notice it. That's what I'm hearing you say. Just to start to see how
common it is. I mean, even just in conversations with my wife, I told somebody, my marriage is so
easy when I don't add you idiot to the end of sentences my wife is saying to me. So when she says
like, hey, did you remember an umbrella? And I overreact. And I go, of course I have an umbrella.
I'm the king of umbrellas. I've always bringing umbrellas. I've added to her sentence, you idiot.
are forgetful you're not detailed you're gonna get wet you're gonna look whatever and her intent
was really just hey We both are going to get wet if we don't have an umbrella. But for me to notice
that and go, oh, wow, I just overreacted to a thing that didn't require that amount of energy, that
amount of emotion. And so for me, self-awareness is a superpower.
And so the three steps of soundtracks, it's very simple. I just teach people, retire your broken
soundtracks, replace them with new soundtracks, repeat those new soundtracks so often they become
as automatic as the old ones. So it's retire, replace, repeat. And it's been so fun for therapists
to reach out. I've had so many therapists go. Soundtracks, the book, is such an easy on-ramp to
conversation with people because it's really simple. It's really funny because I use a lot of
humor. Like I just know if I had named the book Soundtracks Inner Voices, men wouldn't have read
it. They just wouldn't have. Like because men don't want to admit they have an inner voice. But
I'll speak to 1,000 plumbers. I do 50 events a year. It'll be 1,000 plumbers, 98% male room,
and they'll admit they have soundtracks because the – allows them to talk honestly.
Okay. Ladies who are listening. This is for, that's a good tip for your husband who won't take the
therapy speak, but might take the soundtracks. That's a really, it's wild. I talked to 4,000
cattle ranchers the other day. I was at a cattle con, the world's largest beef event. And it was 4
,000 ranchers and they were willing to go on this, like, Oh, why am I holding on to my ranch and
not turning it over to the next generation? What's the broken soundtrack that I have about that?
That's holding me back from allowing my son or my daughter to step into this. And again, And if I
had named it inner voice, it would have been a non-starter. But because it's soundtracked, it's a
really easy conversation. I love that. So I heard you on a podcast share some research that just
stopped me in my tracks. And I'd love for you to share it with us. It had to do with some research
you ran across when you were researching soundtracks about improving at free throws. Oh,
yeah. That's crazy. It's crazy.
And there's so many studies like this. When you start to dig for them, there's just so many. So
this is Research Quarterly did a study where they had – on college students because it feels like
we're always testing things on college students. And so they wanted to test could you improve free
throws by just thinking about getting better at free throws. And so they had two different groups
and one – actually practiced. They went to the court, they shot free throws,
they held a basketball, they did all the things. And one just thought about improving their free
throw. So they'd imagine, okay, I'm shooting a free throw. Oh, I missed that one. Let me, let me
try again. Oh, let me change the arc. And at the end of the 21 day study, the group that had
actually used the balls improved by 24% and the group that had just thought about it improved by
23%. And, and so there's so many, and I mean like the other study that I sometimes reference is,
There was two student groups where they were supposed to form sentences out of a word bank,
like come up with some sentences, and one group had words related to being old, so retired,
slow, bald, Florida. And so they do this test for 45 minutes, and then they say the second part of
the test is down the hall. Please walk into the hall. And the scientists secretly timed how long it
took each group to walk to the end of the hall. And the students who had read the words about being
old physically acted old. They walked slower than the other group. And so you just see that over
and over and over again where the things you think are very important.
And then you go, why don't we talk about this enough? Like, why don't we have practical tools?
Why don't we, like... know, again, every eighth grader, every ninth grader you think about because
they pick these soundtracks up and we'll carry them for 30 years. Yeah. And then it's really hard
to kind of change them in your 60s, your 70s. But like, what if we could learn along the way? Yeah,
it is. It is a sort of mental rigor. And it's not like you're saying,
it's not magic. We are rewiring those neural pathways. And even as you are older, it is possible.
It's like you said, it's I'm thinking of the listener that, you know, it's like catching those old
messages of I'm not good enough or I'll never X or. Or your labels.
Yes. And just it's not magic. It's not. Sometimes I think we think of it like an incantation, like
you're saying. It's like building a muscle. And the neuroscience,
you know, you're genuinely kind of... slowly sometimes, but you're repaving a new neural pathway.
Wait a minute. There's that. I just went down that path. What if I took a right turn? What if I am?
And a lot of times I notice with folks who have them, they're really deeply ingrained. Sometimes
it's just what if I'm right? Just what if there's a possibility that I can,
you know, it doesn't even have to, I don't even have to be totally bought into it yet, but I can be
open to.
Well, and it's a practice too. That's the other thing. Like you have to see mindset as a practice.
I mean, that's why, you know, the third step for soundtracks is to repeat them. Sometimes like I
remember. When the book came out, 48 hours after it came out, people would email me and say, hey,
John, I retired my broken soundtracks. I replaced them with new ones, and it's just not working.
And I would say, well, the book's only been out for two days, so I know you haven't had a chance to
repeat them. Yes. And we want fast progress. So one of my soundtracks I tell people, because what
will happen in diets is people go, this exercise isn't working. I'll say, well, how long have you
done it? They'll say three weeks. They'll say, how long did it take you to gain the weight? They'll
say three years. So you gave the problem three years to develop, and the solution only. three
weeks. That's so unkind to yourself. Never give the problem a year and the solution a week. So like
some of this stuff does, and some of them can disappear in a, in a day. Like there's some that can
just unravel of course. Um, but there's some that like, One of my core broken soundtracks is around
the idea that the true test of talent and ability is to just be able to do things immediately.
No prep, no planning. Planning is cheating. Like the prodigy kind of, like I had this broken
soundtrack of like, we love the underdog story. Like there's a reason why Susan Boyle's audition
for Britain's Got Talent has 50 million views and Carrie Underwoods only has,
you know, a million. Because she didn't fit the mold and we all want to be like, oh, here's this
underdog story. And so I had to learn as a writer, like, no, planning is good.
It's actually good because every time I spend a lot of time on something, I would hear this broken
soundtrack to go, you must not be talented. If you're talented, this would be easier. You wouldn't
have to prepare. This is cheating. Like you really, you shouldn't, it shouldn't take this long. And
I thought, oh, that's interesting. And my definition of talent includes no prep. Boy,
you don't get to run a good business with no prep. Instant success. So the soundtrack that helped
me, and it's not my own, Keith Cunningham said it this way. not smart enough or talented enough to
be unprepared. And that really helped me. Like I'm not smart enough or talented enough to be
unprepared. So now I'm kind enough to myself to give myself preparation time so that I can perform
at my best. But I had to first notice that. You and I are both from... new england so we can bring
up tom brady but i think that's part of why we love the tom brady story is it wasn't an oh yeah
success barely drafted yeah yeah he was you know we he was he had to work he worked for everything
he has i mean obviously a lot of talent too but so let's bring this all back to procrastination
right when someone says because i we've kind of so i i do think a lot of what's underneath it is
our soundtracks are You know, there's more to it. But so so what how do you if someone is kind of
listening, going, I have these things I've wanted to do, you know, whether it's like you said,
you know, whether it's be a better parent, whether it's in the work arena, whether it's in the
relational arena or even just self growth. You know, I want to I want to get out of this stuck
place. And they're not seeing that. What are some. First steps,
what are some, what are you finding really can help us get into the,
out of the just can't get started phase? Yeah, I mean, it's what we've talked about for centuries,
I feel like. It's the small start. I think part of the pressure we put on ourselves, especially
around New Year's resolutions, is that we commit to doing something for a year we've never done for
a day, which is like marrying the person you just met at speed dating. And so I always tell people,
maybe just audition something. Like let's just do a small audition. Let's take all the pressure
off. So if you found 15 minutes a day for the next seven days to try something, let's see what
would happen. And maybe you love it and you double down at the end of the seven days or end of the
two weeks. Or maybe you realize, no, I really don't care about this. Like I've been carrying around
an old goal like some sort of baggage. I have to write a book. And you go like, no,
I tried writing for seven days. I didn't enjoy any of it. Turns out I don't need – and now you're
freed from this thing that – started from a good place, but it's become this anchor around your
neck. So I always try to get people to kind of start small. And then the book,
the core of the book is about how do you give yourself permission? Like what does it look like for
you to give yourself permission? And the four permissions that we found were the most valuable in
this order were. Permission to dream, permission to plan, permission to do, and permission to
review. So when I sit down with somebody, I try to get a pretty quick sense of like, where are they
stuck in that process? Because it's not complicated. So if it's, is it dream? Like they got so many
dreams, but they don't know how to pick one. And they're afraid if they pick the wrong one,
something terrible will happen. And so they're kind of frozen there. Or is it planning? Like they
need to do a little bit of planning and they don't know how to do that. Or is it the doing? And so
that's where I try to get people like, and we have a quiz that does that. It's at johnacoff.com
slash quiz, which is a couple of questions to go, Hey, which of these four spots are you going to
get stuck in? And what can you do about it? I love that. It's, it's deeper than just name it and
claim it there. There's a process. Oh my gosh. No. Yeah. I am so practical. I,
my favorite thing is to simplify complicated things and to add action to things that are kind of
like fuzzy and name it and claim it. is very fuzzy.
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I'm curious about that review step, not to give away everything you've – because I almost hear when
you're describing the start small and you're describing this process, a little bit of mindfulness
in it. Stay mindful because your goals might shift. I know I found that to be true in my life. I'll
have a goal, and then I'm kind of into it, and I'm in the right direction, but I'm like, the goal
changed. Actually, I don't want that thing. It's evolving. Is that something you run across?
Yeah, and it takes the pressure off. like perfectionists are worried that once they commit they
have to commit for the rest of their life i have to do this until i'm dead yeah and so what the
review does is it gives you a pause to go is this still the direction i want to go am i getting the
results i want to get is this still worth the time? Does this still serve me,
this particular goal? So yeah, the path is really, really easy. It's just four different people get
stuck. Dreamers get stuck in the dream stage, obviously. They have a thousand ideas, zero actions.
Perfectionists get stuck planning. They're going to change the world just as soon as the plan is
perfect. I just need a little more data. And there's no end to the data you can get right now,
unfortunately. The hustlers are who get stuck in doing. Hustlers hate a plan and they hate to
review. They just want to go, go, go. They never want to look up. They want to skip right from
dream, right into doing. Sales teams are amazing at this. Sales teams I work with will say things
like, I don't have time to fill out this paperwork. And the leadership will go, it's three fields.
We need to know the name of the customer you sold the product to. And they're like, get me back in
the streets. I'm a salesman. I just want to hustle. And then analysts tend to get stuck in review.
They overreview the mistakes from the past and predict failure in the future. And so they're really
good at going. That's not how we do things here. We tried that before and it didn't work. I'm
hearing that a lot right now with leaders in AI. They'll go, oh, we already tried AI. It didn't
work for us. And I'll go, when? And they'll go, four years ago. And I'll say, for how long? And
I'll say, about a week. We told our most technical guy, Gary, at the office to explore AI. It's
just not for us. And I'll say. it's changed a lot. Maybe we need to do a deeper review and figure
out what to do. But yeah, it's super simple and super fun, but the review is very valuable.
I almost hear in those different types. I think, again, there's a lot of freedom in that,
recognizing we're different kinds of people. I almost hear Enneagram types a little bit, or kind of
our predispositions. We're going to get stuck for different reasons. And so I love that idea of
kind of finding yourself in those four. Where do I tend to get stuck? I had a friend tell me, she
was more of a perfectionist and also maybe a little bit of a doer, but I'm trying to place her in
that. But she was telling me recently that she wrote a paper and it was like a perfectly formed
paper. It was like perfectly laid out, but she got a, it's graduate school. She got a bad,
you know, the teacher said, this is a perfect paper, wrong topic. So essentially she was
formulating all these ideas in the wrong direction. And maybe that's a doer thing where you're
working really hard, but you're not actually going for the thing you want. Yeah. You're making tons
of progress right off a cliff. You're running. There's tons of momentum. There's tons of –
I would say I have friends that I would call success voyeurs,
meaning they'll tell you the 20 leadership podcasts they listen to, but they don't change their
life. They'll tell you the 30 books they read by CEOs of billion-dollar companies, but they're in
debt. And it's their –
guzzling leadership content, but not changing their own life. And so it looks like hustle on the
out. And where I got in trouble with that is one year I read a hundred books and I realized at the
end of it, oh, I did that because I like to tell people I read a hundred books a year. Like I did
that for like the wrong, that's the wrong reason. And two, it was easier to read other books and
write my own. And so I was using a lot of outside on the looking hustle to avoid something that I
really needed to focus on because it was easier to be like, no, I'm just such a great reader. Like,
look at me go. And so that was a form of avoidance for me that actually looked like a lot of
effort, but it wasn't getting me to where I wanted to go. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I think we
even see that in therapy culture. We talk about on the podcast where you can have a ton of
knowledge and a ton of insight. But that doesn't always translate,
which is part of why I wanted to have you on the podcast. At the same time, we can have all of
that, and we still have to put one foot in front of the other toward rewiring the soundtracks,
right? Toward taking the steps. We still have to do the work. And you can get caught in all of the
knowledge that we have access to in this day and age. So that makes a lot of sense to me,
what you're saying. Yeah. It can be pretty, it can be, it's a good, it's a very, we call that a
noble obstacle. Like I've just have to finish. I have to master this before I change some part of
my life, which is like saying I have to read 10 books on swimming before I get wet. That's never
how it, like if you've read five books on difficult conversations, but you haven't started a
difficult conversation and like, it might be time to, to start some degree of difficult
conversation. Yeah. How do you, as we're kind of winding down, John, how do you,
see all of this work in your own life and the fruits of it overlapping and intersecting with
spiritual growth and spiritual formation oh yeah I mean my faith is my most important thing to me
so you know the I think there's a lot of people that when they read my books,
will recognize things like, oh, this is renewing your mind. Yes, that's what I hear. Yeah,
and so for me, they're hand in hand. They're not really separate in any way.
I can tell when I've forced an idea versus received an idea.
Meaning, you know, like I feel like writing is an act of worship for me. Figuring out these ideas
is an act of worship. And so I love when something shows up that I don't have to go.
I don't know where it came from. I'm just like, oh my gosh, God, you're so generous. Like what a
fun idea. Or like a very small example that would be the prodigal son story is probably one of my
favorite stories in the Bible. Absolutely love it. And I've read it probably 500 times. And one
time I read it and I realized that the father never talks to the son. And I'd never heard anybody
mention that. So if you read it. The son asks for his inheritance, and if you haven't read this
story, it's about a son who asks for his inheritance, blows his life up, and still gets
forgiveness. Son asks for his inheritance. Father doesn't say anything, just gives it to him. Son
comes home. Father hugs him and says to the servants, go get the robe, go get the fatted calf,
doesn't talk to the son. And so often as a believer, when God feels quiet, we think he's mad,
he's disappointed, he's frustrated. But what if he's just busy planning your party? He's got you
embraced, and he's busy. planning your party. And that kind of thing, I go, oh, that was a really
fun idea that I feel like I received from a generous God who loves giving ideas.
And so, yeah, for me, writing is a big part of that. But yeah, this is, you know...
It's fun to see the fruit of the work, and it's fun to also see the celebration when things happen.
The other parable I love is the talents where there's five, two, and one given, and then... they
double them and come home and there's a celebration and there's a lot of hangups I had from my
faith background about success. Um, that success was evil. Um, and that,
you know, Jesus rode a donkey, like your, your car should, should be, you should have a terrible
car. You should be, you should live in abject poverty because that's the only way that Jesus loves
you. And so over the years to see that I can be successful and still be generous,
that can be successful and not idolize it, that I can be successful and use my gifts to the full.
extent that I have them, that's been very eye-opening. And of course that fits in with personal
development and goals and numbering my days and having a clear vision and all the things that I
feel like God tells us again and again and again. Well, what's so interesting is everything you
just shared is a little bit of a changing a soundtrack.
Oh yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I use them in my own, like that's what I don't think people
understand. I'm a very negative person by nature. Like my natural bent is pessimism,
cynicism, sarcasm. And I always say it's because I grew up in Massachusetts and we're wicked cold
people. Like when Noah Kahn said that he's mean because he grew up in New England, the singer
-songwriter, I was like, I get it. it dude so am i um but over time what happened was i learned
that positivity has a better roi than negativity yeah like when i'm positive i have more friends i
feel better physically i'm a better husband i'm a better dad i make more money so now i just
practice positivity and a big part of that practice is soundtracks. We made a soundtracks card deck
because I was carrying cards around in my pocket so much that said the soundtracks I wanted to
remember. I don't want my brain to have to remember to be positive or to remember this.
So like when I plan my week, I plan my soundtracks. I go, hey, I got a tough meeting on Tuesday and
it's going to be easy for me to roll into that meeting with that person as if they're my
competitor. Like I'm frustrated and when I'm frustrated, I make people my competitor. not my
coworkers. So I need a soundtrack on a post-it note that says, Brian and I want the same thing.
Brian's on my side. Brian is not my enemy. And I'll put it by my laptop. Like as I do the Zoom,
because I'm not going to hope I kind of sort of remember, I'm going to have that reminder and I'm
going to practice that repetition. And the meeting is going to go so much better versus me coming
in as like, I've already got my guard up and I'm fighting this person versus like, no, what's true?
What's true is this. Okay, well, let me remind myself of the truth in easy ways. That makes it so
much easier on me. I love that. And again, I'm also hearing in that.
We can't. You could do that. You could almost substitute for Brian, God.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Totally. We could retrain the soundtracks we have spiritually.
Oh, I thought God was a jerk for most of my life. Like most of my life. I was like, he likes,
he loves me, but he doesn't like me. Like he, he loves me at an obligation. Like we have a
contract. He's kind of a jerk. He wants the worst for me. Like, oh my yeah.
Name a bad soundtrack about God. And it's like, and then you add other people's like to the money
thing. I had a musician, I live in Nashville and I had a Christian musician say, if you buy a,
$90,000 Chevy Suburban. People go, good for you. It's a family car. Good for you. If you buy a $90
,000 BMW, they go, hey, the church probably needed that money. Wow. What's it like to worship
Mammon? Same amount of money, different perception. So then of course you go,
oh, well, success must be bad. And I always tell believers, the enemy only wins one of two ways,
when you abuse your gift or you don't use it. And so when you abuse it, you're achieving things
that like, it's not, they're not meant for you. You're hurting people, but not using it as just as
toxic out of a false sense of humility of like, I'm really good at this thing, but I don't want to.
And like, mine is like a big part of my mission is like, let's grab a shovel. I think you buried a
talent. And I think God's way better. Like I saw a guy wearing a shirt once at Costco and it said,
God's in a good mood. And that stopped me in my tracks as like, Oh, I don't. I don't know if I
believe that right now. Like I think he's kind of, kind of grumpy. And so that,
yeah, it's been a long process of that without a doubt. I love it. I have to say on a personal
note, because I love the sort of New England curmudgeonliness. I grew up in Wyoming as we were
talking. And when I first moved out there, even when I went to college, I went to college up in New
Hampshire, in New England, all the way from Wyoming. And I would just walk around smiling and
waving and greeting people by name. And people just kind of like look at me like, you're weird.
They don't want that. Just culturally so. different but over time what i learned is there's also
this um just this uh and again it's sort of a changed soundtrack right of like but gosh if someone
says they're going to show up they show up You know, right. So you don't have as much of the
superficial kind of smiling and let's get together and let's be best friends. Not, you know, but
but you have that real there's it's a different kind of integrity.
So I think that's interesting context for your own story, because who I think most people know you
to be is very positive, very forward looking. But there's that cultural thing that shapes us.
I can't lose it. Like when I'm in New England now, I'm still smiling. And I just it's part of how I
small. you know, Wyoming, you know, everybody by name, everybody's your friend is part of me.
I've had to actually learn a little bit, not to make go negative, but like, oh, you can't trust
everybody. You know, I've had to learn a little bit of healthy skepticism,
not hopefully cynicism, right, but just healthy. And almost in the opposite way,
you know, you've had, you know, some of that stuff is. it's, it creates those soundtracks, right?
You have to just, um, but, but I think that's interesting. It does. Yeah.
You've done it for years. Like that's the other thing is like, give yourself grace. Cause you've
practiced a certain way of thought for 15 years, for 20 years. My situation was the reverse. I grew
up in Massachusetts and then I went to school in Birmingham, Alabama. And nobody, nobody told me
like, Hey bro, that is not the South. That is the deep South. And I loved it.
But that first year was really hard because people would say to me, like, how's it going today? And
I was kind of like, what's it to you? Because in Massachusetts or New England, the stop and shop
cashier doesn't care how your day is. No, she's not going to ask. But like you, what I realized is
in New England, there's a townie. there's a townie loyalty, like your townie friends will be your
townie friends forever. And they'll link arms with you. They'll get through stuff, stuff with you.
So it's not that one is bad or good. It's just, they're so different. And yeah, I, that was a real
like whiplash for me. Um, but again, like the point being, you're really good at the things you
practice. And I'm just saying, I think you can practice something else. So like you can practice
permission, like giving yourself permission to go like, you don't have to like perfectionism. Great
example. I always preach the day after perfect. A perfectionist really needs to be deliberate on
the day after perfect, meaning they had a streak going, and it was amazing, and they missed one
day, and that'll wreck three weeks for a perfectionist. That'll wreck a month because the streak
ended. They start to beat themselves up. They're like, I can't believe I forgot to do blank,
whatever. I'm like, no, the day after perfect is coming. What permission are you going to give
yourself on that day? The permission to start again? The permission to go like, oh, okay. You know,
like back on the horse, like, oh, man, I wonder how long the next street can be like that. That
permission matters for that type of person. And it's OK that you practice the other way a long
time. Let's just practice a different way. I love it. I just think it's so helpful. And where can
my listeners, you know, I think a lot of. A lot of my, you know, it's like, how do we take that
next step? You have so many resources. As I think everybody's heard today, there's just a lot, a
wealth of wisdom, of practicality, of spiritual anchoring. Where can people find you?
And what kinds of things? I love the quiz sounded really interesting. Where can people find you and
get connected with what you're doing? Yeah, so the quiz is just joanacop.com slash quiz.
It's a free, super easy quiz. I have a podcast called All It Takes a Goal. The thing I'm really
passionate about right now, too, is we're doing small, intensive events in our office. We have a
beautiful office now in downtown Franklin for people who want to be speakers and writers. Because
for years, people have said, hey, I want to figure out how to do that. I want to do that more. So
we've got small events we do around that. And then, yeah, the new book is Procrastination Proof.
It's out everywhere books are sold. and I read the audio book and there's tons of bonus content in
it. So yeah. And then LinkedIn, I mean, everywhere that there's other than like Etsy, I'm not on
Etsy. I'm not doing anything on Pinterest right now, but other than those two things, if you type
in John Acuff, I'm probably doing something. Well, this is fun. Thank you so much for doing this.
Thanks. having me thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the best of you it would mean
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