I wasn’t really paying attention, but we actually passed the 100 episode mark for this podcast a few episodes ago! That includes the episodes when this podcast was Quality Living Made Simple. I started this podcast back in February of 2013, so it took 3 1/2 years to get to 100. Obviously, I’ve missed several weeks here and there, otherwise we would have passed that mark over a year ago.

Anyway, throughout all those episodes we have looked at many different things to help us reach higher levels of success, or a higher quality of life. There are several things that I have realized as I’ve thought about this podcast over the past few months.

First of all, I’ve been able to talk with and interview a lot of really great people.

• Early on, I was able to interview John Miller, author of” QBQ: The Question Behind the Question.” He focuses on personal accountability. I was also able to talk to one of his daughters and get her perspective, especially in light of his parental version of QBQ.
• I was also able to talk with Jon Acuff, who is another best-selling author, and was one of the big influences that helped guide me as I started pursuing my side business.
• I talked with John Lee Dumas, who started a business around a podcast and grew it to earn six figures a month!
• I talked with Rory Vaden, a champion in public speaking and best-selling author of a couple books. The book we talked about on the podcast is “Procrastinate on Purpose.” We’ll get back to this book later.

The second thing that I began realizing as I thought about this podcast is that I haven’t followed through like I’ve intended to. In some cases, I’ve even made promises on the podcast and failed to follow through. Some of the things have been personal, like loosing weight and focusing on the right things. Some of the things have related to you. I’ve made promises of making this a weekly podcast, but I’ve missed that mark many times over. Maybe you understand that “life happens,” but I shouldn’t have made such a promise without following through on it.

Another realization I’ve had is that my passion for this podcast is not what it used to be. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve shared. But in comparison to the other things in my life, this podcast takes the back seat.

And this is what I want to speak about for this episode.

So, let me back up just a little bit. A minute ago, I mentioned “Procrastinate on Purpose” written by Rory Vaden. On this podcast, I’ve also talked about two other books: “The ONE Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan and “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown. These three books have similar messages.

• In “Procrastinate on Purpose,” Rory emphases learning what really needs to get done and and what can be done later. Then you need to give your self to “procrastinate on purpose” so you can focus on the things that really need to get done.
• In “The ONE Thing,” Gary and Jay narrow that down to focusing on just one thing. They say to ask yourself, “What is the ONE thing that, by so doing, makes everything else easier or unnecessary?”
• In “Essentialism,” Greg talks about saying no to most everything so that you can say yes to the right things – to those things that are absolutely essential.

With these similar messages in mind, I haven’t really acted on them like I’ve wanted to. I have the habit of saying yes to too many things and starting things on my own.

When I evaluate my life, though, I have to admit that the things I really want to focus on – the things I consider essential in my life – I haven’t focused enough on them. And one of the big reasons is that I have too many things going on that take my focus away. I haven’t said no enough.

The things I need to focus on are:

• My spiritual walk – I need to get back to a consistent, daily walk with God.
• My health – I need to get back down to a healthy weight.
• My family – there are many things my family needs.

Regarding my family, we are having a baby in October and my wife has had a difficult pregnancy. We are continuing to home school our kids, and I’ve taken some short cuts, allowing my kids to get sloppy and take short cuts themselves.

On a positive note, we are really close to paying off our house. This is one of the big goals we set at the beginning of the year. The medical expenses are starting to slow down this process, but we should still hit this goal by the end of the year.

After the baby’s born, my wife is going to be on maternity leave for at least six weeks. In fact, we have even talked about her staying home for good. With the house about paid off, this becomes more of a reality.

One of my other goals was to get my business making enough to replace my current job so I could work from home and create more flexibility around my family. I’ve made about $9,000 in 8 months, so it’s not enough to match my income yet, but I’ve been reaching out and building relationships over the past couple months. Those relationships could develop into more business through referrals. I’m still hoping that this could be a possibility by the end of the year, but I’m going to have to make some changes if it’s going to have a chance.

I won’t be able to maintain my current load while growing the business more and while having a newborn. I’m going to have to say no to some things. I don’t know everything that this will entail, but one of the things that I’ll be setting aside is this podcast.

This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make. This is the first podcast I started, and it’s been my baby. I don’t know if I’m stopping it for good, but I’m at least putting it on hold. But I know that it is one of the things I need to stop so I can put my focus on the other things.

I know I’m also stopping some other side projects I’ve been doing. None of these things has taken up a lot of time, but they add up. They also take up mental space. If I know that they need to be done “sometime,” then they take up space in my mind, hindering the focus for other things.

I will be focusing on the home schooling with my kids, making sure that I take the necessary time to explain the new concepts to them and answer their questions. I need to make sure to grade their work daily so they can get feedback quickly and correct any misunderstanding.

I will also be focusing on building my business. Besides the relationships I’ve been nurturing and some prospects I’ve been speaking with, I have an idea to create a course that should provide a much bigger return on my time than what I’m currently doing. The course would be for teaching how to create a narrative podcast, which is an area I’ve been working in a over the past year or so. There’s a growing interest in this area, and I’d like to help people shorten the learning curve.

Something that I’ll be working on that will be a blend between work and family is that my kids and I are starting a podcast where we will create a narrative podcast. It’ll be based on history, but with a twist of a professor that takes kids back in time to experience history first hand.

As I wrap this episode up, I do want to thank you again for listening to this podcast. I may bring some episodes back from time to time, but there are no guarantees on when they will be or how frequent they will come out. So, please stay subscribed!

Also, I welcome your comments and feedback. What have you enjoyed with this podcast? Has it been helpful for you? What would you like to see or hear when this starts back up? You can go to JoshuaRivers.net and click the Contact tab to let me know.