983. Never Say "I'm Fine" Again!

When someone asks how you’re doing, “I’m fine” might be the most dangerous answer you can give. In this episode, we break down why “fine” is a comfort-zone trap that quietly feeds complacency and keeps you stuck in average. You’ll learn how to redefine your baseline, weaponize awareness, and stop settling—so you don’t just arrive at fine, but move beyond it.

Transcript

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All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it after this episode. When somebody asks you, how are you doing? I hope that you never say I'm fine again. I'm fine is sabotage, and I hope by the end of this episode you'll realize how you've been. Sabotaging your own life. It wasn't the new baby, it wasn't the job pressures, it wasn't any external things. It's been you the whole time. And when you become accountable to this and you realize, dude, how sneaky this is. You are gonna be like, well, I'll be damned. So let's get started with this episode I'm reading right now the G Code by Ryan Stewman and there's a chapter out of this that I wanna share with you, chapter three. And for context, Stewman's grandfather was a banker and. He had survived many, many crashes over the years and really bottomed out from those crashes, and he said, Ryan, one thing that you have to understand is the market always returns to fine. meaning there's always a baseline. The market may have fluctuations. It may go up for a while. It may go down for a while, but it always returns to fine. Stewman writes every time you slip and fall, and you will, we've all had that. Every time you slip and fall, you're gonna know where the line is between quote unquote fine. And where you must go above and beyond to reach that elite level. We're all born to be elite, but it ain't in being fine. Fine is your comfort zone. It is. And though everybody's zone is different, everybody wants to be fine. Think about this, think about any goal that you, that you set in your life and the goal that you set, whether it be monetary, whether it be a house, whether it be a relationship. What are you thinking about? You're thinking about, if I get to this level, if I have these things, well, I'm, I'm gonna be just fine. And that's the most deceptive thing there is. Your body and your mind fight to keep you at just fine. Stewman calls it the the force of average. And it wants to keep you from defining exactly what your comfort zone is because. If your mind and body can keep you unaware, it's gonna keep you average. It's the death spiral of average, and we don't ever, we, we don't even realize it. It's okay to arrive at fine. So let's go back to your goals that you've set in in years past. It's okay to arrive at fine. But it's not okay to stay there. Every one of us have reached levels of success only to give it back. And, and, and sometimes even make your situation worse. And the reason being is, is because you defined what fine looked like to you, and you worked your ass off to get there, but once you got there, you parked, you arrived. You didn't redefine a new fine. So Stewman says, that the first thing you have to do is you have to define. What fine is to you so that way you can recognize the triggers and immediately leave those zones fine. I'm fine. It's your comfort zone. So look at different areas of your life where you know you're okay. It could be better. But you know, I wish it were better, but it's, it's okay. It's cool. That's fine. And you gotta understand the baseline always moves, but what's happening is when you grow unaware, you slip into complacency. What are the three problems we all face? Adversity. Uncertainty. And complacency. And complacency is that fine zone. I'm fine is deceit. It's a trap and the line between fine and elite is so subtle that you slip from elite. Think about goals that you've had and you got 'em only to give it all back and you're like, oh my God. What happened because you arrived at fine and you stayed there instead of redefining it, you thought that you had it all figured out. Go back to and listen to episode 9 72. I just did one on this. Not knowing I was gonna bring you this, but you're never going to have it all figured out. You're always going to be figuring it out, and you've gotta keep that in your mind. So you gotta redefine it. And, and that's the, isn't that the deceptive thing? Like, you, you get to this, these levels of success and you're like, oh, okay, I got the cat by the tail. I figured it all out. And you think that the tables won't turn on you. You think that you have the upper hand. You will never have the upper hand as long as you stay at fine, you're gonna get worse. So you have to weaponize fine. You do. Because go back to what I said at the beginning. You want to and, and go back to your goals. You define what fine look like to you. Right. This is, this is what I want. I wanna look this way. I wanna have this much in my bank account. I wanna eliminate my debt. I wanna have this size house. I want to get this promotion. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And you were so focused on fine. You defined it, you strive for it. But the problem is, is you arrived and you stayed there. Strive for fine. Arrive at fine. Just don't stay at fine. So we gotta weaponize fine and use it to your advantage. Number one. This brings the awareness is. What does your fine look like now? I mean, look at across your relationships, across your finances, across your fitness, across your professions. Like what does fine look like for you? Okay. A it again. It's okay. It could be better. Wish you were better, but you know, it could be worse, you know?'cause I mean, back in the days, 15 years ago. I mean, I was like this, so I'm, I'm, I'm doing pretty good. It's like the girl having a fat friend to make herself look prettier. I mean, that's, that, that's basically what it is. And so what does your fine look like now? First define it. What does fine look like now? You're comfortable right now. It's time to level up, redefine a new fine, here's where I'm at. So let's just use finances. If you have a thousand dollars in your bank account, that's fine. Okay? Statistics show most people don't even have a thousand dollars in the bank account, so I'm good. I'm fine. I'm better than most, right? That's the fine level, but there are so many opportunities and there's so much possibility that it's just, it's lapping you by, you think you're okay at a thousand dollars in account, have some sort of health crisis, let a recession kick in, what happens then and wipes you out. You ain't so fine no more, right? So what I like about. Redefining a fine is, it gives you something new to fight for it. It's the old adage of, you gotta get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It's so cliche. We've said it so many times that we're kind of, you know, we're numb to that. Right. We know. Yeah, I get it. I get it. But when you look at it through the lens that Stewman writes about, about being fine. Defining what fine looks like to you. I'm fine. I'm good. What fine looks like to you now versus you're redefining and finding a new fine. See, this is what's going to, to push you up. And so again, you're gonna, you're gonna fight for fine. You're gonna strive for a new fine. You're gonna arrive at a new fine 'cause you're focused, but you're not gonna stay there. So let's go back to the finances. You have a thousand in your account. Ste says, redefine it. Now your new fine is 5,000 in your bank account. Then you fight and you strive and so I manage my day-to-day operations. My thinking, my processes, anything that causes me to get off track and sabotage that I'm not gonna do that. I gotta get to that five grand. See, it gives you a new focus. It gives you a new target. You get to five now 10, now 15, now 25. See, we all wanna be a millionaire, but you can't even be a five thousandaire. You gotta be a five thousandaire first. And then a 10 and then a 15. See, you're always going to be broke at whatever level you're at. If you don't manage your day-to-day operations differently, and you gotta stay out of the comfort zone of being fine, I'm not as bad as I was. I'm not as bad as him. That's why we watch the reality tv, right? Well, I guess my life isn't so bad. That's what we do, and that's how we define our lives. Well, I'm, I'm fine. That's what happens. So now we're gonna get outta all of that. We're gonna redefine that. Fine. And I, and I'm using finances as a metaphor, but you could do the same thing. For your fitness. You could do the same thing for your relationships. You could do the same thing in your profession. What does fine look like now? Again, I'm good. Don't wanna rock the boat. Could be better. Wish it were better. All right. Redefine it. It's time to level up. We got a higher place to be. Stewman says, this is how you stay outta your comfort zone. And if you think about it, this is how you stay aware. See, it's when you go to unaware, like you can do your job in your sleep, literally, because it's just so, it's just muscle memory Now. And you're, you're fine. You know what you're gonna make, you know what bills you got, and so you just, you just do what you do. Same thing with your fitness. I, I'm, I'm a workout a few days a week. Yeah. But you're not defining that. Like you're just, you're really just probably negating the bad eating that you did yesterday. But when you redefine what fine looks like, I really want to get into a. A large shirt and not an extra large. I really want a 34 inch waist, not a 38 or 36 with the elastic waistband. That's that new fine. So you gotta fight for that new fine. You gotta find that new baseline. Then you gotta keep leveling up. That's what I really love about this, is you're never going to stay and say, I'm fine. No. What's the new fine? I'm getting a fine. That's what, that's what I wanna do. He ends the chapter with this. In reality, your comfort zone is not a comfort zone at all. It's a sedative tool. It is. Think about your comfort zone. You get lazy, you get in front of the tv, you start eating bad. You start making these exceptions. You say just this once, but just this once isn't a moment. It's a mindset. And so you start making these concessions for yourself and these allowances, and pat yourself on the back because. I worked hard. I'm good. I did everything I said I wanted to do, but what you don't realize is that you're giving it all back. And Stewman says that comfort zone is not a comfort zone at all. It's a sedative tool that is used by the force of average to distract you from becoming. The elite person you were meant to become. This makes you want to never say like, as soon as I go to work today and somebody says, Hey man, how's it going? I don't even wanna say I'm fine, because it's like you're reinforcing average, you're reinforcing. Your comfort zone. I don't, I, I, Hey, I don't know. I might need your help on this one. Like, what are you gonna say when somebody says, Hey man, how's it going? I'm doing well. I gotta retrain myself. And that's, I mean, really, if that's what you think about, you really have to retrain how you're talking, what you're saying. It sounds kind of hokey now that I speak this out, but I really wonder out loud. How much we reinforce our comfort zone by simply saying, I'm fine. And really sometimes you're not even doing fine. You're really like aggravated. You're pissed off. You're not where you want to be. You've actually gotten worse and you're like, be, I can't figure it out. It's because you have it redefined what fine looks like to you. So now what I want you to do is I want you to define what does fine look like to you right now? It's good. Could be better, but it's good. And then redefine it. Remember, there are levels to this thing. We're not gonna go from right here to. Floor number 1000, you gotta get to floor number three or four. Then when you get to three or four, then redefine it again because if the leap is too big, you, you, you, you can't even, it's consistency over intensity. You can't even sustain it. So there's levels to this that you gotta equip at that level. And if you look back on your life right now, like really in hindsight, you're probably a little better off than you were a decade ago just because you've just reacclimated yourself just because you've leveled up. But you've got to a point of fine, of comfort and you know you're okay with that. And it's not that you don't have any gratitude, it's just. Really, the way to say I'm grateful for my life is to keep striving for more because there's potential. There's other areas that I could grow into, but I've gotta redefine. I've gotta define what it looks like now, and then I've gotta redefine what I want it to look like and then a fight. To get to the new fine and then when I arrive, I won't stay there. Alright, let's get outta here. Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.