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Welcome to Leading With Force — a podcast where seasoned entrepreneur Brian Force shares the invaluable lessons he's learned on his journey through this crazy, wonderful life. Having built several multimillion-dollar companies, Brian dives into the nuts and bolts of building successful teams, scaling businesses, and leading with passion and purpose.
Each episode offers practical tools to effectively cast your vision, build your team, boost productivity, and become the leader you were meant to be. Brian's mission is to inspire you to unlock the incredible power within yourself, achieve your goals, and make a meaningful impact on the world. Join us as we explore how to find your inner leader, empower others, and embrace your journey.
We as human beings have always had a very tenuous relationship with time. There's no consistent rate by which we can truly measure the passage of time. Now, we keep time on clocks and things like that as a way to signify where we're at at any particular moment in time relative to every other [00:01:00] human being on Earth.
But the passage of time is incredibly fluid. It's incredibly contextual, and it's based on what's going on in our world at any given moment. Now, it sounds kind of like gobbledygook, but this is very practical and heavily documented. And I give you a great example, take a one hour period of time, and I think that we can all agree that we're going to experience that hour Very differently as far as how long or short it is based on what we're doing for that hour.
If we're sitting through a really boring lecture on a topic that we have no interest in and we don't find much meaning in, but we feel like we're forced to be there, that hour is going to feel like an incredibly long time. In a much more morbid sense, if we were in pain and we had been injured somehow, perhaps we're in a terrible accident and no one was able to help us [00:02:00] for an hour.
That hour might feel like a year because in times of pain or distress, time tends to expand. It's called time dilation or the oddball effect.
But if you were to take that same hour and spend it with somebody who you are truly in love with, or maybe even doing something with that person you're truly in love with, that's very arousing. That time would probably have passed by much more quickly. It's the same amount of time and we measure it in the context of an hour.
But we experience them entirely differently. this relationship that we have with time can be very helpful in some regards and very unhelpful in others. But I think what's most important is for us to have awareness around our relationship with time awareness around how we don't experience time in a linear way.
And the dangers that that poses to our ultimate goals, our ultimate vision that we have for our lives and the way that we [00:03:00] experience the short time that we really have here on this earth.
More specifically, what I'm getting at here is we tend to think that we have a lot more time than we really do. We tend to look at the world as this really, really, really long journey that stretches out ahead of us. Without realizing that that journey actually gets shorter and shorter and shorter the longer that we're here.
Now, that sounds obvious because the longer we're here, the closer we are to not being here. The longer we live, the closer we are to death. And I understand all those things, but I actually mean something even more critical than that. Our experience of time actually continues to compress the older that we get.
Children actually experience longer days than adults do. And for a very simple and practical reason, every day [00:04:00] for a child is a much larger portion of the total time that they have spent on earth. And so the things that they eventually will put on autopilot when they grow and become adults, the things that they'll tune out organically, the things that their intuition and their brain will sort of filter so that they can get through their day more efficiently.
They haven't been fully developed yet. They're much more aware of the world around them because they haven't created those algorithms and those loops and those automations in their minds yet. And so a child can experience All 24 hours of a day with much more clarity than an adult who has been here for 30, 40 or 50 years and has trained their nervous system to automate and filter out an enormous amount Of their daily life experience, because they have told themselves, this thing is important.
This thing is not important. And we do that day [00:05:00] after day after day after day. And we're continuing to do that every day of our lives and continuing to evolve, create more automations, create more intuition about what is important and what is not. And that actually compresses the time with which we experience every single day.
So when I'm 5 years old, I feel like my days are quite a bit longer than I do when I'm 45 years old. And that phenomenon will continue in perpetuity. For the rest of my life. And so every day, not only brings us closer to our final day, every day inherently feels shorter than the last. We just don't notice it day by day.
We notice it in big chunks. When we look back and realize that so much time has passed and we've done it almost completely unconscious. We've done it in a way that we haven't really noticed. that five years have gone by an entire month [00:06:00] has gone by. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's already December again.
We experienced those things because our minds create so many automations to filter things out that we can turn around and realize that time has passed in an incredibly meaningful way, but we didn't really experience it. And so it's incredibly important for us to bring awareness. To the passes of time because we don't always consciously experience it in a way that is in alignment with the things that we want to accomplish in our lives.
Specifically, we always feel like we have more time than we truly do, not because that time doesn't exist, but because every day that goes by, we're constantly training our minds to filter out more and more and more of our time. And so unless we're fully aware of the amount of time that we really have, it's difficult to create that sense of urgency, that sense of true motivation [00:07:00] and the things that we've left undone.
If you're listening to this show, it's most likely because you want to live a more meaningful, purposeful, productive life and you have a vision, you have goals for what you want to achieve here, the impact that you want to make.
And unfortunately, the way that we organically experience time works completely contrary To what would be the most beneficial way we could experience it as far as us actually building the life of our dreams, manifesting our vision and accomplishing the things that we want to accomplish while we're here on this earth, what would be the most beneficial way for us to experience time is for our sense of urgency to increase with each passing day that we haven't done the things that we want to do, that we became more and more aware.
Of how much time has passed and how much time we feel we have left, we'd be much more organically inspired to take massive action around our goals. But [00:08:00] unfortunately, time passes more and more quickly without us noticing it the longer that we're here. And so we have to put tools and mechanisms in place to draw more awareness to the passage of time.
So that we can create that sense of urgency inside of us, or at least keep it in context, or at least experience more time. We all spend, on average, a relatively similar amount of time here on this earth, but we don't all experience it the same. The more awareness we draw to the present moment, and the passage of time, the more we get to truly live the present moment.
A life of meaning because we experience each and every moment pleasant or unpleasant. We get to experience our time here. And so I have a couple of challenges that [00:09:00] I would like to make to you. And this tool, these tools I think can be very, very beneficial only if you're willing to get. A little bit uncomfortable, just temporarily, and I'll lay out something that I think is a powerful mechanism to start to train your mind to be more aware of the passage of time in relation to the things that you truly want to do, but you're leaving for some day.
You're leaving for some day that's not today. You're leaving for some day in the future. Those things that truly inspire you. You truly want to take action on, but you feel like now isn't the time that there will be a time in the future. I want to challenge you by putting a mechanism in place that might make you uncomfortable enough to bring awareness to the fact that that time in the future.
[00:10:00] Is coming much more quickly than you think it is. In fact, it may already be here. It may have already passed because the reality is there actually is no such thing as the right time. There's only time and we only have so much of it. And it's fleeting in the sense that we experience it more quickly, the longer that we're here.
And so it's important for us to be more aware of every passing moment. In relation to the things that we want to accomplish, I'm going to challenge you to become a little bit uncomfortable here. The first thing I want to draw your awareness to is the idea that most people experience life as a thousand little cuts.
You're probably familiar with the idea of death by a thousand cuts. And that sounds a little morbid and a little scary, but it's also a little true. In fact, it's a lot true. Most people experience death by a thousand [00:11:00] cuts when it comes to the passage of time. And what I mean by that is we live every day as if the present moment is, incredibly meaningless.
In the broader context of our entire lives, meaning what we do today, we completely undervalue its impact on the rest of our lives. For example, how we treat our bodies, what we eat, what we drink, what we digest as far as content or thoughts or don't digest, what we avoid. to keep ourselves from challenging our notions of the world, what we choose to ingest, put in our bodies and spend our time doing or thinking about or reading about or working on or not working on.
We very much minimize the impact of one single day's worth of essentially abandoning all of the things that we find important for [00:12:00] ease and convenience. And the laziness, a little bit of gluttony and all the things that feel really good in the present moment. We undervalue the impact that those types of things have on our entire lives simply because one day out of tens of thousands of days doesn't feel very important.
But the reality is that day doesn't feel that important, but neither will the next and neither will the next and so every day that goes by Where we don't feel like that particular day Is particularly important We tend to continue to devalue the following day and the following day.
And that's how we get into the mindset of I'll start on Monday. I'll start after New Year's. I have a New Year's resolution now, new year, new me, because I'm going to devalue all of the time in between now and that specific moment [00:13:00] later on. But the reality is by the time we get to that specific moment later on.
We've done such a great job of devaluing every day and every moment from now until then that it's really easy for us to push that important day further into the future. I messed up today, so I'll start again next Monday. Or I have something else going on right now, I'm going to have to move this important thing to sometime in the future.
That day when I was going to start out. My new life with my new habits, my empowering habits, doing things the way that I know the version of myself that I want to be would do things. I'm going to push that off for a few more days while I continue to treat my body poorly, my mind poorly, and disrespect my time.
We have a really bad habit of doing that. It's not necessarily our fault. Again, it goes back to our [00:14:00] inability to experience time as it truly is. We do not. understand the impact that every individual day has on our time. And as I discussed earlier, every one of those days is another day where we're training our brains to filter out what we find unimportant and filter in what we do find important.
And that gets rooted down to the core of our nervous system. And so if we continue to train our minds and our brains every day, that junk food and binge watching are important. By doing those things, then every day we're going to be more drawn to prioritizing those things. That's how habits get really, really ingrained.
Our body, our nervous system is creating an automation that becomes more and more ingrained in us every single day. And so the further down that path we travel, two things happen. The harder it is to break that cycle [00:15:00] because we're not just fighting against our awareness. We're fighting against our own nervous system to correct the bad habits that we've ingrained in it and two We end up having less time to do that like legitimately less time because we're older and Time has continued to be compressed because every day feels a little bit shorter and a little bit shorter So small that it doesn't even feel noticeable, but over the long term We're going to look back and realize how much time has passed because every day felt shorter And so it's incredibly important to draw awareness to the passage of time in the context of every single day Because most people die by a thousand paper cuts the reason most people end up with really poor health Or becoming really overweight or unhealthy in whatever form is because they didn't [00:16:00] value that one day at a time where they treated their body poorly.
There was always another day where they could change and another day where they could change, but we don't realize that we're never standing still. We're either moving towards the version of ourselves that we want to be, or we're moving away from it. And every day that we move a little bit further away from it, the longer it will take us to even get back to where we once were, let alone move towards who we want to be.
And so when we end up at the end of the road, really poor in health, or poor in spirituality, or poor in relationships, or poor financially, It's because we didn't manage those things day in and day out. We didn't manage our finances well day in and day out. We didn't manage our relationships well day in and day out because we didn't value that one day.
And when we don't value that one [00:17:00] day, we don't value the next day or the day after. We have to remember that every day is equally important in the story of our lives. And there is no right time. There is only time and you only have so much of it. And to put that into context, I would invite you to use a very simple tool if you're comfortable with it just for a little while, because I think that this can be an incredibly triggering tool as well.
And so you may want to think deeply. about the impact that this tool might have on you and choose if it's something that you might like to implement or something that just the thought of it might be impactful enough for you to start to value your time a lot more highly.
First I want you to do a very simple math equation. I want you [00:18:00] to start with the number 85, which is about the average life expectancy right now in America, at least, I want you to take that number 85 and subtract your age from it. Subtract your age from the number 85. I'm 37 years old. So my number would be 48, 85 minus 37 leaves me with 48 years that I can reasonably expect to have here on this earth.
And that's very simple. I want you to multiply that number by 365. I ended up with 17, 520 days that I can reasonably expect to have here remaining on this earth. And as we've discussed, I now know that I'm not going to experience all 17, 520 of those days as equally long they're going to continue to [00:19:00] increase in their velocity.
The longer that I'm here, the longer that I ingrain my habits, the longer that I head down a certain habitual path, I'm going to create more filters in my mind. I'm going to filter out more of the life's noise and more of the world's noise that my nervous system doesn't find meaningful based on how I've lived my life up until now.
So even though I have 17, 520 days left here on this earth, I'll tell you that already doesn't sound like enough. I'm actually going to experience that as a much shorter period of time. And so the way to bring awareness. And hopefully create a sense of urgency because I have things that I want to accomplish in those 17, 520 days.
I have an impact that I want to make on the world. I have joy that I want to bring to the others. I have meaning and purposes that I want to fulfill. So, a tool that I would [00:20:00] suggest you may want to use is to take whatever size container you would need. Maybe a big jar, maybe a big bucket, but something ideally that's clear, transparent that you can see into.
And this is going to take a little resourcefulness and a little bit of time. And I would suggest that you do this somehow in bulk, but I want you to fill that container with marbles. The exact amount of marbles that correlate to the amount of days that you got as your answer in that math equation, essentially how many days you reasonably can expect to have on this earth.
And again, I would do this very practically and purposefully. If you have tens of thousands of days left here on this earth, you may want to buy a pack that you already know has 500 marbles in it. So you don't have to count every individual one and buy several of those and add them all up. [00:21:00] So you're not individually counting 17, 520 marbles.
That in and of itself might be a waste of time. But if you add all of those together, put them in your container, you're essentially going to have your days right there. in one container, all of the days that you can reasonably expect to have here on this earth in one place. And this is going to be the part that I think will be very challenging.
It could potentially even be triggering. And so maybe this is something you only need to do for a short period of time to truly get the understanding of it and to realize and bring awareness to your experience of time and how important it is to value every single day as equally important and value the impact that every individual day has on your entire life.
I want you to get a second container and place it right next to that one. Maybe on your nightstand by your bed, [00:22:00] maybe on your kitchen table, somewhere where you can see it each and every day. And I just want you to take one marble each morning. out of the big container and place it into the little container.
And that's going to represent your day, your one less day that you have here on this earth. And I think this will do two things. I think the act of physically holding your day in your hand in the morning can be an incredibly powerful mechanism to draw awareness to how important that one day is because all of those marbles look pretty much the same.
Every single one of them is unique, but no one of them stands out any more than the others. And while you're going to have incredibly meaningful days in your life organically, maybe the day that you got married, the day that you had your first child, the day that you landed a big job. Unfortunately, the day that maybe you [00:23:00] lost your job in the broader narrative of your life every day is equally important because when you string them all together, that is the story of your life.
Your wedding might feel like the most important day of your life, but the day that you met. your future spouse and every day between the day you met them and the day you married them was just as important as the day of your wedding. I hope you realize that. So every one of those marbles is equally important and I think that the physical act of holding your day in your hand just for a brief moment can have an incredible impact on the way that you prioritize what you're going to do with that day.
And I think the second thing that might happen, and this is the thing that might solidify your awareness around the passage of time, is the visual aspect of watching those days start to dwindle. [00:24:00] Something that we don't consciously see in our day to day lives. We don't consciously see the passage of time and as we've discussed, we actually experience it.
In a more and more and more compressed way, the more that time passes, we essentially move the marbles even more quickly mentally without even realizing it. And so bringing awareness by watching those marbles start to dwindle and watching the other container of our days past start to fill up, begin to realize.
How truly little time we have here compared to how much we think we have. We are really, truly poor at underwriting long periods of time as human beings, how much time we have left on earth. For example, we see it as this almost infinite amount of time until we turn around one [00:25:00] day and realize that a significant portion of it has already passed.
And by then. We have much less time to make the changes that the future version of ourselves, the one that we want to become would need us to make. And so I understand that this might be a very uncomfortable tool to utilize, but I think if you're willing to try it, it can have a significant impact if you only even do it for a short period of time.
We'll teach you to value the magnitude of every single day. And I hope even just this conversation. Has helped you bring some more awareness to the impact that every day has on your life, whether or not you're trying to have that impact. Every day that goes by, whatever you've done with your time that day continues to set the narrative in motion for the rest of your life.
There is no such thing as the right time. There's only time. So if you have a future version of yourself that you know is different [00:26:00] than the version that you currently are, Now is a really good time to start making the changes that that person would need you to make Thank you for listening to another episode of Brian force for good and I'll see you next time