 Hey guys, don't be so loud. I'm doing it live real quick. Okay, I know I usually do my Sunday lives at five-ish, but I'm in total do or die mode. I'm getting all this stuff done and right now I just finished one huge thing and I'm taking a break, so I'm doing it right now. Do or die mode is like this, in case anyone missed it. I have this on my wall now. To keep me in line, I look at it every morning to get me going. Anyway, okay, I did think of something that I wanted to talk about. What are you guys doing? You're just hovering around now. Go play. Hey, Mr. Landfall, what's up? Okay, last week, a lady said in one of the comments something that I didn't really respond to very much, but I kind of been thinking about it a lot. And she said that her best Christmas ever was the first Christmas when she didn't have anyone relying on her. And she just had like a hot dog and a 7-Eleven. Like that was her Christmas, but she was like it was the best because no one was relying on me. Now, I don't know that lady's particular circumstances or anything, so I don't want to talk about that. I'm going to talk about the fact that I've heard that said a lot of times by a lot of parents. You know, I just want no one to rely on me. I just want to be in a situation where no one relies on me. I want to go somewhere where no one's relying on me, blah, blah, blah, you know? And the thing is, if you're going to have kids, they're going to rely on you. So if you make the decision to have kids, you are already deciding that they're relying on you. And a lot of people say, you know, but it didn't mean to have kids. No, you made some decision. There were very rare cases when someone had no control over it. Like did you decide to get drunk before you went to the party? Well, that was the decision that got you the kids, whatever, you know? Generally speaking, almost everyone decided or made some decision that resulted in their kids. And that's when you took on the responsibility of taking care of those kids. But even in the circumstances, the very extremely rare circumstances where the person has no control and somehow they ended up with the kid, you still are responsible because that kid is helpless without you. So you have to be responsible, right? Now, when you're in a situation like that, where there's something that you have to do, like it's not just gonna go away. I mean, unless you give your kids up for a doctrine or whatever, you know, fine. And in case you haven't figured it out yet, this does not just apply to kids, but this is the analogy we're going with right now, the example we're going with right now. Oh God, I gotta give, give her a scoop of stupid peanut butter. Anyway, if you have a responsibility like that, like kids, where you're going to have to continually do things for them four years, the harder you try to get out of it, the more miserable situation it's gonna be. And the more you embrace it, the more you just say, hey, I'm gonna be a parent, I'm gonna be an awesome parent, the better it is. Because the more you try to avoid it, the more you try to avoid the situation, the worse a parent you end up being. So your kid needs something and you kind of like do a really crappy job and avoid it and do something else or whatever. And then you end up feeling bad that you did a bad job. And then you associate all these negative feelings with being a parent and being a kid and then you don't wanna do it more and then you don't do it more and then you feel even worse because you haven't done it more and it's just this continuing cycle. But if you do the opposite and you say, all right, I'm gonna love the crap out of these kids. I'm gonna make it so they feel so loved that they're not always screaming at me for love that they can relax and they're not going crazy. That's one of the big parts of this. Like if you're always trying to avoid your kids, they're gonna come after you and try to get your attention. You know, I'm totally sweaty right now, right? But if you give your kids like lots of love, every time they need it, they're gonna feel secure and they're not gonna constantly be in your face, like trying to get your attention and acting up and doing all this stuff, right? And there's a video I did years and years ago about courage, you know, one of the adventure builder virtues, one of the main eight principles, courage, where I was saying that if you try to avoid problems, they can just run over you. And the example I gave was sailing a ship on the sea. And now I actually have a lot more experience with being in waves on a boat. But if you're trying to kind of like turn away from the waves, the waves hit you on the side of the boat, your boat's just rocking like crazy. But if you face the problem, you face right into the waves, you cut through them and it's a much smoother ride. So like the harder you try to avoid dealing with problems, the harder they get. And it's all kinds of things, not just kids, obviously, it's anything you need to deal with, any problem in your life that you have, or not even necessarily a problem, some obstacle, anything you have to do, the harder you try to avoid it, the harder it becomes. It's like when you've made a mistake, when you spilled something on the floor and then you put a rug over it, and then it's like, whoa, I'm not gonna say anything. The longer you leave it, the more rotten it gets and the more disgusting it gets and the more in trouble you're gonna get and the worst mess you're gonna have to clean up. But if you just address it right away and say, okay, I spilled something, let me not just try to cover it up with a rug, let me just actually like address it right when I can, clean up the problem, it's done. Then you don't have to spend the next week smelling this horrible smell, constantly under stress, waiting for someone to figure out what it is. And it's like that with all kinds of problems in your life. So deal with your problems as soon as you can, but to do this is not an easy thing, right? And this is why if you go on YouTube, there's like millions of videos of like psychology tricks and psychology hacks that you can use to kind of trick yourself into doing the right thing in different circumstances. And there's like hundreds of them for all kinds of different circumstances. But here's the thing, you can just get rid of all that. There's only one psychology trick you really need, and it's not really a psychology trick, it's just you just have to build the habit of doing what you need to do. Build the habit of doing whatever you need to do and not doing whatever you don't need to do. A lot of this applies to like trying to quit smoking or eating better or exercising in the morning or whatever, like all kinds of things in your life, you have hundreds of decisions in your day and you know the right answer and the wrong answer for the large majority of them. Like you wake up in the morning and you're thinking like, oh, I should go run a few miles because then I'm gonna feel better for the rest of the day. But my bed is so comfortable. You obviously know which is the right thing to do there, right? But it can become a habit to do the wrong thing over and over and over. And maybe I'm partly talking about this because it's New Year's and people like to make New Year's resolutions. So here's something you can do. A New Year's resolution you can do if you like doing that kind of thing. And if not, just do it anyway. Start trying to address problems as soon as you can. Oh God. Start doing the right thing, you know? And stop doing the wrong thing. And there's a way you can build habit for this. And I'm gonna give you an example of one I did years and years and years and years ago. So when I was a kid, I grew up on sugar. I just ate mountains of sugar, so much sugar. Like I was a kid. I didn't know how bad it was for me and my parents were just like, oh, sugar, whatever, you know? So much sugar. And then finally, I don't know, at some point in my 20s or somewhere around there, I don't know, somewhere along the line, I was like, I wanna stop eating sugar. Like I'm gonna stop eating sugar. And I quickly realized that I am addicted to the sugar. Like if I don't eat sugar for a certain amount of time, that's all I'm thinking about. I'm just like, oh my God, I am totally hooked on the sugar. And this is why I don't give sugar to you guys because you get addicted to it really bad. And I'm totally addicted to sugar. Kept trying to not have it. And it wasn't working for a while until I did this one thing. I went to the store and I was like, all right, I'm just gonna face this head on and just, I'm just gonna focus on this and I'm just gonna beat it. I went to the store to get groceries, you know. And then as I was leaving, I was like, all right, here's the chocolate bar thing that's, you know, right by the cash register, impulse buys. Let me find the most gooeyest, carmeliest, chocolate-iest, delicious, cool, scrumptious, oh, so delicious chocolate bar I could find. And I got that, ooh, so, oh, so tasty. And I bought that and I took it home. And then I put it on a shelf in a place where I spend a lot of time. Whenever I'm inside, I will see this thing. So I put it right where I would see it, right at my eye level and I saw it like 150 times a day. And I walked by this thing. And every time I was like, no, I'm not eating you, I'm not eating you, I'm not eating you. And at the beginning, a few times I actually had to yell at it like, no. But eventually it just became a habit to not eat the thing. And then like six months later, girlfriend came to visit, like just a friend who's a girl. And she grabs this chocolate bar and opens it, starts eating it, and she's like, hey, you want some? And I was like, first I was like, what are you taking my chocolate bars for? But whatever, I mean, oh, no, this happens. And I was like, no, I don't want a piece. And she's like, really, it's yours? I mean, you should have some. And I was like, no, I just don't want it all. Because I mean, by the end of the first month I barely noticed the thing was even there. And by the end of six months I didn't care about sugar at all because it was staring me in the face over and over and over. And because it was constantly in my face and I constantly said no to it, I built up the habit very quickly to not be interested in that. And you can do this with smoking. If you're trying to quit smoking, you can say, all right, here's a cigarette. I'm gonna light it. I'm gonna hold it right in front of my face and then I'm gonna put it out. If you have a shopping addiction, say this, all right, I'm gonna go into the store. I'm gonna walk around. I'm even gonna pick up a few things. I'm gonna put them all back and I'm gonna walk out with nothing and then do it and do it very deliberately. Because the problem is with habits and addictions. You get trapped when you're not paying attention. And that was with the sugar. Like when I was doing something else, not paying attention I would start thinking about the sugar. And then by the time I realized what was going on I was just like, oh, I want it. Do it when you can be very deliberate and what's rational about it. And do that and get used to doing that. Get used to not indulging in the thing you don't want. And also if you get used to doing whatever right thing and pretty soon you start building up the habit of just doing the right thing. The thing that you know is the right thing instead of what you know is the wrong thing. And then when you start building up those habits you start feeling better about yourself. And you start feeling better about all this stuff. And you don't want to avoid your life and try to get away and just get drunk or go to parties or just anything to escape your life. You actually start liking your life when you start doing a good job in it. It's kind of like playing a video game. Life is like a video game. You do a terrible job in a video game and you just get killed over and over. It's not very fun, right? But you start doing a good job. You start getting some kind of positive feedback. Gold or whatever. But in real life you just start getting better and better experiences and that's how you get a good life. So anyone who likes New Year's resolutions make a New Year's resolution to build better habits, to build specifically one generalized habit of do the thing that you know is right. Oh, here's another really good example. Because a lot of people are stuck on this one. TV, watching television, right? How many people watch television spend hours a day? Or YouTube, whatever. You know, any just staring at a screen endlessly just like with your brain half on and just bloop. Here's what you do. You say, all right, here's a TV show I'm interested in and I really want to watch it. I am going to watch half of it and then turn it off. You do that a few times and your brain just like breaks the cycle of being trapped in there, of being stuck and not being able to get away. You break it right at the part where you really want it to continue but you've already predetermined that you're going to do this. If you're a guy who's afraid of talking to girls and you see a girl you like and you know that you have to talk to her like within one second or you're gonna psych yourself up. Say this, all right, I'm gonna talk to her two minutes from now. And get yourself psyched out, let yourself get psyched out and then go talk to her. And because you're doing it at the hardest point then it like breaks down that resistance. Like go through the obstacle at the hardest point and it knocks down the obstacle. Okay, so any New Year's resolution people do that or do whatever you want, I don't know. All right, what do we got here? How is everyone Mr. Landfill? Tony Simmons, what's up? Hello, Jimmy, big thumbs up from England, McBong's lab, I love your crazy names. Oh, happy New Year, Shawn, absolutely true. And it's wisdom from our ancient ancestors, ancestors that did not come easy. Your refrigerator is very cool. Well, actually it's not, it's off right now so it's kind of warm, there's nothing in it but I'm gonna go get something to put it in it probably today and then it will be cool, yeah. Hopefully even cold. But yeah, it is pretty cool too. Have a productive, happy New Year to you and your whole family. Well, thank you, what is this kid doing? Look, you're not being productive, you're just like lazing around staring at nothing. Just kidding. Peace, Jamie, great message. Thanks, man, self-control pays very well. Self-control, man. Yeah, the harder you try to avoid stuff the harder it gets to deal with what you gotta deal with but if you build that habit dealing with the stuff you gotta deal with maybe it just becomes a habit and then it gets a lot easier and yeah, life just gets way better, man. Hi, Jamie, great to see you. Wait, what? I was snacking raisins. You wanna snack a raisins? No, you already have one. This kid will eat like a gallon of raisins if I let her. Raisins and peanut butter. Hi, Jamie, great to see you. By this point, can you eat some sugar and not become addicted to it again? Yeah, yeah, I can totally. If I go to a party or something and there's cookies I can eat a few cookies, I don't care or a piece of cake or whatever and a lot of times I just won't but yeah, if there's something around, I'll eat it. Particularly if I know I'm gonna do a lot of exercise. I was just doing a whole bunch of digging and wheel-barrowing and I know if I'm doing that I'm just gonna burn off the sugar pretty quick anyway. But yeah, I can be in a circumstance where I eat a cookie every couple months and it doesn't throw me back on the wagon. Actually, I don't really like sugar anymore. Like it tastes terrible to me. It's funny, yeah, I don't know, yeah. Like it kind of tastes sickening, you know? All right, let me just make sure I'm at the bottom. Hi, Jamie, do not work so hard in 2024? Are you kidding? I gotta work 10 times harder in 2024. Let's see, would you plug your house into your boat batteries while as you did your lumber mill? No, I don't see any reason to do that. The boat has enough electricity, the house has enough electricity, I don't need to connect them. It's an electronics lab, oh, McBong's lab, is an electronics lab. I know the name always makes you raise an eyebrow. Your giant robot was a big inspiration to my work. Oh, that's excellent, well, hopefully my next giant robot will also be an inspiration. I'm super excited about building another giant robot. Of course, I gotta finish a bunch of other stuff right now. Well, not right now, but before I do a giant robot. So today I was doing a bunch of digging up on the hill, flattening out a zone where I still wanna put a guest house up there. And then I was taking the dirt and putting it on my running trail. I'm bumping up my running trail, like maybe that much higher. Because there was that one weird tide last week where, I don't know, for like 15 minutes, my part of my running trail was underwater. It wasn't even the highest tide day last week. I think it was just a weird circumstance where two tidal currents were coming in and converged at the same time, like this bumped up the water for 15 minutes. Kind of like a slow-motion ramp-pump effect. But yeah, it was... Ramp-pump? I could explain to you, Ramp-pump, we're gonna build one eventually, but don't worry. But yeah, I just wanted to make sure my running trail is always dry. Yeah, maybe it was a tsunami. Hi, Jamie from Rhode Island. I spent a lot of time in Rhode Island. That was where I went to school. How was the fart tank project? Oh, the fart tank, you're right. I wanna, yeah, I wanna get the fart tank going again. I got a pipe for it. Hi, Bellatrix. Wait, I put the pipe and the valve. I just need to make sure it's all airtight, because I think there's a leak in it. I mean, I'm pretty sure there's a leak. Hi, Bellatrix, yes, that's you. David is saying hello to you. Mini one, mini tsunami. Okay, I'm gonna go eat some food and start my next thing. What am I doing next? Oh, I gotta dig some more digging, because that doesn't matter. All right, I'm gonna get to work. Everyone else, have an excellent day. And where's it, you wanna push the X? Enjoy your swimming around the island videos. Oh, I'll have to do more. I got a new underwater camera, something like that. I feel like I'm swimming right now, because I'm soaked. Anyway, push the button. I'm trying to. Do it. Missed it. Do it again. I'm gonna follow this lab. Wait, you just gotta push it once. Okay, now push okay. Very good.