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Getting After It
This isn’t just a podcast—it’s a relentless pursuit of growth, grit, and getting after life on your own terms.
Every week, we break down what it takes to push limits, embrace discomfort, and turn ambition into action. This is where wisdom meets execution—because knowledge alone doesn’t cut it. You have to apply, refine, and outwork your own self-doubt to see real results.
We bring on guests from all walks of life—entrepreneurs, athletes, creatives, adventurers—people who have battled through resistance and come out stronger. Their stories aren’t just inspiring; they’re roadmaps for anyone looking to level up.
The mission? To fuel your fire, challenge your thinking, and equip you with the mindset and tools to chase down your biggest goals.
This is Getting After It—not just a podcast, but a movement for those who refuse to settle.
Getting After It
142 - Time Is Finite. Are You Spending It Well?
We’re all running out of time.
That’s not a dramatic opener—it’s just the truth. This episode is a solo reflection on something that’s been weighing on me lately: presence, purpose, and the short window we’re all given to do something that matters.
While on vacation, I read Whale Fall, a story about a man swallowed by a whale who finds clarity about his broken relationship with his father—just a little too late. It hit home, because isn’t that how so many of us live? Waiting. Delaying. Postponing healing, connection, meaning—for some better “later” that may never come.
In this episode, I talk about:
- The guilt I feel when I’m not working.
- How hard it is to just be still.
- Why time, once spent, is never coming back.
- And how Getting After It is not just about productivity—it’s about presence.
I open up about what gives my life meaning: faith, love, growth, community. And I challenge you to ask yourself what gives yours.
Because the clock’s ticking. And the worst thing isn’t failing. The worst thing is never trying.
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I hope today’s episode sparked something within you to pursue your dreams and unlock your true potential. If you found value in it, consider sharing it with someone who might need that same push.
Getting After It is for those who. want to silence their self-doubt. Refuse to be owned by comfort. Understand their limits are man-made and breakable. We live in a time of constant comparison. Social media drowns us in highlight reels and overnight success stories. But what most people don’t see is the grit behind it all. The reps. The quiet mornings. The sacrifices. The failures.
You are just getting started.
Keep Getting After It.
I want to tell you I love you way every day. Yeah, I want to be with you night and I'll spare you. I won't do it. I'm excited. Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 1:I, as you can see I hope you can see if you're watching this we got our first getting after shirts. Live, not live. Um, I wish we got them in the mail. We're just getting some prototypes done, but, um, I mean, this is kind of what it's starting to look like and I'm really pumped to start offering these to all of you guys. Um, just to build a community. I don't know. I feel like anytime you see a group of people with the same shirt on, you're like they're together. They must be doing something. So I'm excited for that rollout and I hope you are too in at least rocking some of the getting after it stuff.
Speaker 1:But it's not what we're talking about today. I have had a lot on my mind about being present and trying to live in the moment, trying to make the most of whatever you're trying to do, and trying to live in the moment, trying to make the most of whatever you're trying to do, because something I've realized and yeah, brett, this is real obvious. But time is final, and it's the only resource that we can't make more of. The reason I've been thinking about this is I was just on vacation. Last week, my wife and I we went to California to spend some time with my family. It was a lot of fun, it was nice to decompress a little bit I don't really do that too often and it was just kind of nice to get away and spend time with her and my family. So I always have this problem, though, when I go on vacation, that I feel guilty. I feel like I should be doing something. I feel like I should be doing something. I feel like I should be working and whether it's getting after it, if it's on my job, if it's working out like I feel like I need to be doing something all the time, which is sad because I want to enjoy those times where I am on vacation, like with my family there and go to the beach with them and try to be fully present. But it's something I'm working on. I'm not perfect at it and, as weird as that sounds like yeah, brett, you're not good at vacation, what a problem to have, but it bothers me, it really does. I wish I was a little bit more relaxed and was able to take some time just to decompress a little bit.
Speaker 1:But anyways, I was reading this book on the beach that my dad gave me, called whale fall, and wasn't really expecting much of it. It's a nonfiction book about a diver who his dad spoiler alert if you don't want to read it or if you don't want to listen to this, skip forward a little bit. Spoiler alert his dad passes away and he had a pretty bad relationship with his dad. Um, and his family's kind of written him off, a little bit like because he wasn't there when his dad wanted him there and he was passing away. Really sad story. And he gets this idea in his head where, you know, his dad was lost at sea. He died at sea. And he says, if I go and recover the bones of my dad, maybe my family will let me come back into the fold and be one with them again. And so he puts on all his dive gear and heads out into the ocean to try and find his dad's remains and a lot happens. But basically he ends up getting swallowed by a whale and he's in this whale, which apparently was anatomically correct. You know where the body is correct, but the diver, studied different whales and all the stomachs and that kind of thing and made sure that the stomach was going to be big enough to hold this guy. So, anyways, he gets swallowed by a whale and it's not until this part where he starts making amends with his dad. He starts making peace with his dad. Obviously he's not there, but it's just interesting that in this story it took this guy, the main character, jay. It took him getting swallowed by a whale for him to reconsider how he felt about his father, and it made me sad because he could have done that when his dad was alive and obviously it's a book, so there wouldn't be a story if he did that. Obviously it's a book, so there wouldn't be a story if he did that.
Speaker 1:But really, though we have a lot of time, that we don't really take time to do the things that matter most a lot. I don't know if it's because we are distracted I'm often distracted by many things but that's the thing. You have to kind of understand what is important to you and what deserves your attention. Is it mending relationships, is it working on yourself, trying to provide better for your family, or whatever that is. But I thought about this more, and I wrote on my blog a whole journal entry about this and I just want to read it. It's going to be story time with Brett for a second, but it's called no Time to Waste we're all running out of time. That's not a dramatic statement, it's just the truth. You can make more money, build more muscle, grow more influence, but time, once it's gone, it's gone.
Speaker 1:I think about that a lot, especially when I catch myself wishing for long, slow days with my wife, days where we wake up with nowhere to be, no one else to please, days where we want to just be together. That would be beautiful, but life doesn't always give us that luxury. So we work with what we have and we make it count. While on vacation. Here it comes. While on vacation, I read a book called Whale Fall. It's a heavy story. The main character, jay, has a broken relationship with his dad. It's only when he's swallowed by a whale and he's forced to confront death that he finds healing and perspective. He remembers the love, the sacrifice, the lessons, but by then the clock's nearly out. That hit me hard. How often do we wait to say what matters? How many dreams get shelved for later? How many relationships go unmended because pride gets in the way. We act like we'll always have more time. We won't.
Speaker 1:I don't have all the answers on how to live a meaningful life, but I've figured out a few things. It's not about fame or wealth or social clout. It's not about checking off achievements for the sake of optics. It's not about hustle without direction. For me, life is meaningful when I'm helping others grow, when I feel close to Christ through prayer and faith, when I hold my wife Allie and feel peace in knowing I'm where I'm meant to be. That's the good stuff Not flashy, not loud, but real. It's easy to get caught up in the grind, it's easy to mistake motion for meaning, but I'm learning that real fulfillment often shows up in quiet ways. When my little nephew asked me to dig him a hole at the beach, when a friend just needs to talk and I make space to listen, when I laugh at the dinner table with my family, phones away, fully present. Those aren't distractions, they're the point. And when I start thinking I have to choose between ambition and presence, I remind myself getting after.
Speaker 1:It isn't just about pushing yourself. It's about doing it for the people you love. It's about using your gifts to bless others. Time is finite. It's the one resource we don't get to refill. So mend the relationship, start the project, say the words you've been holding in. Take the risk you've been afraid of. Your life is meaningful right now if you decide to treat it that way. For me, that looks like being faithful to God, loving my wife deeply, staying connected to family and friends and continuing to build, getting after it into a community with purpose. I'm only 27, and I already feel like the luckiest man on earth because I've deemed it so. So now it's your turn. Whatever time you've got, use it, because there's no time to waste. And that was it. I um, I was just thinking about that because of, like I said, that book just made me rethink a little bit about what's important and that we don't have time. We don't have time to do the things that we want to all the time. So you have to make time, and it's the one thing that we cannot get back.
Speaker 1:I often think of getting after it, the whole podcast, the community I'm trying to build, that we're building together. I think about it a lot because the podcast is almost four years old and I've learned so much just from taking a chance on myself, and this is not meant to make me look real good for you guys right now. I'm just telling you how I feel and what I've learned. I used to be a timid man boy, you might you might say could call me a boy, child. Whatever, I used to be a timid little boy. Uh, when I moved up to Utah, I took a risk on myself, and when I first started the podcast, I had some direction on where I wanted it to go, but didn't really understand the future of it.
Speaker 1:Through doing it, though, I've learned so much about what it takes to push myself, and it's going to look different for everyone. That's definitely one thing I've learned with getting after it is everyone has their own unique perspectives and everyone has their own unique habits, and that's why I've been trying to have so many different people come on and share their own stories about what they're doing with their lives, how they're getting after it and what they're using their discipline and their consistency to work towards, because I think it offers you guys, the listeners, a little bit more of a hands-on approach to be like okay, well, brett does these things. I don't want to do that. That sounds crazy. And maybe Michael, who just came on and talked about Javelin. Maybe there's some things I could take from him. Maybe there's some things I could take from Bryn Brynley, who came on and talked about PT.
Speaker 1:You know, and that's the thing is, we all have so much to learn from each other and that only takes. I mean, the reason that comes and you're able to learn from other people is through asking them questions and building those relationships with them. That's one thing that I have learned from my wife that I'm so glad I have is the value of relationships, because prior to starting getting after it, prior to marrying my wife, I only really cared about my family relationships, and you can ask all my friends when I was sick, I didn't reach out to one of them and I'm sure that was pretty messed up on my part. I know it was messed up on my part because they were worried about me, but I didn't care. I was like, yeah, you know what my family is, what matters most to me. But that's not true. That is not true.
Speaker 1:A community is a group of people who decide to get better together and that's what getting after it is. It's a community where we've all agreed to push each other. We've all agreed to sign up and do something. That's difficult because through that we know we'll be forged into better people. A relationship, it's the same thing. I heard Simon Sinek talk on Chris Williamson's podcast about that and he said his definition of a relationship is two people who agree to help each other or to grow with each other. And that's really it.
Speaker 1:I've missed that a lot of my life, having that desire to build relationships with people, to learn about them, find out what they're doing, what they're interested in, how I could potentially help them, how they could potentially help me, whatever it is. But people are the most valuable thing that we have to build our own communities around. I know that sounds so stupid, but just throwing things out there, um, and it's gotten important to me and so, like how I think about the finite time that I have, I want to have a big portion of it working on building and building myself, getting after it my relationships, um, others trying to help them with them, with whatever they might be struggling with. That's why I love to coach. I love to see people succeed and I love to see how excited they get when they do something that they didn't think they possibly could in the past, and that's one way I love to build my time or spend my time. I also love spending it with God.
Speaker 1:God has played a significant role in my life, and it might be taboo to talk about him on a podcast where it's all about self-improvement, but I would be a hypocrite if I didn't say that most of that self-improvement came because I wanted to be better for God. I know who he thinks I can become and who he knows I can become, and I trust that, through some of the things I'm doing, I will become that person that God envisions I can be. And peace comes from spending time with God. It comes from studying his word through scripture. It comes from living the principles of his gospel, which, if you think about it, if you think about what, are the two main things that we should be focusing on if we want to live a. For me it's a Christ-centered life, but for you it might be different, but I think the principle applies it's you love God. That's number one. And then the second is, like unto it, you love your neighbor.
Speaker 1:And what I'm talking about with relationships, with building up people, I believe it comes from that. I believe it comes from the fact that I love God and I love his children, which we are all his children. We're all God's children. Um, and it's it's interesting to me because, like the time that we have should be spent trying to help other people, building ourselves up, improving ourselves, because we don't have a lot of it. You know, there's going to become a. There's going to be a time when you look back on your life and you're like you will have the opportunity to either say I'm proud of what I did or I wish I had more time to do X, y and Z. I don't think you want that second option. I know I don't. I don't want to live a life of regret or a life where I'm questioning if I could have gave more.
Speaker 1:So what's the solution? I think it's just go all in. Go all in in whatever you're doing. If it's your job, if that's where you want to focus, be your best, do the best you can. If it's podcasting, learn, try to be the best. You can be there. You want to work on your relationships. You want to do whatever it is, go all in. Don't half-ass motivation sometimes.
Speaker 1:Do it to make yourself proud and, like I said in that blog post, if there's a project that you've wanted to start, if you wanted to start a business, if you've wanted to start a family, what the hell are you waiting for? Are you waiting for the right time, because odds are it won't show up? The right time is a myth that we tell ourselves. It is a illusion that we build up in our minds to trick us and to help us feel more comfortable that the right time will show up at some point in our lives. But it's not today. Counter argument here from me. What if it is today? What if you started today, no matter how small the first step might feel like? What if you started today and you just tried something new, or you had that hard conversation with someone and you want to build that relationship back to where it used to be? But you know, and they know, that it's going to take work to get there. So what are you waiting for?
Speaker 1:Pride is something that can be dangerous and pride, I think, for me at least, gets into my head and says, yeah, but there's other people who are doing it better, like with these shirts that I want to launch. I want to build a website, send them out to everyone so people can wear getting after it apparel and um show their people. You know they're part of a community that wants to improve and that community is aimed to help each other grow as well. Um, I want to do that and it's been something I've wanted to do since the beginning. And why did I wait so long? Honestly, fear I made up the excuse that, man, I'm so busy. Yeah, I might be, but it's important to me, so I try and make the time for it, and same goes for you.
Speaker 1:If you want to get into shape, don't wait until January 1st. That's five more months from now. Don't wait until that moment. Start now. You'll become so much better. If you start now and then, by January 1st, you're like okay, well, let's make more specific goals here.
Speaker 1:What else can I do? Time is precious. We all have 24 hours in a day. You decide how you want to spend them, and the last thing I'll say on this is if you spend your time wisely, you will not live a life of regret. Not live a life of regret, and the definition for me of spending time wisely is doing things that give your life meaning. That doesn't mean it's not going to be hard. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy all the time. Because, let me tell you, running is something that I think gives myself meaning. It gives me time to think, it lets me exercise my, my body, but it's hard as hell, but I feel great every time I do it and it's not easy, but it's meaningful to me.
Speaker 1:Podcasting same thing.
Speaker 1:Spending time with those that I love that's not really a hard thing to do, but it's very meaningful for me.
Speaker 1:And so, if you are struggling to understand what is meaningful to you, take out a journal and just start writing some things down right at the top, that question what is meaningful to me, and then start brainstorming.
Speaker 1:You know, think about it as like you're back in elementary school and you're trying to make a bubble chart just brainstorm. No one's going to make a bubble chart, just brainstorm. No one's going to tell you how to live your life, no one's going to tell you how to spend your time. That's all up to you and you either have the opportunity to make the most of it or waste it. But it's a valuable resource and you should treat it as such. I appreciate you guys for listening to this episode. I know it was a little bit of a shorter one. It's a solo one. I haven't done that in a while, but we got some good guests coming up soon and I'm excited for them to join me on the conversation couch. So you guys, keep pushing hard, spend your time wisely, figure out what makes your life meaningful, ask me for help if you need it and, as always, keep getting after it.