Rules of Engagement

Good morning, Cadre. It's Betsy here with my wet hair and my vintage, actual, honest to goodness Springsteen tour T shirt from the Born in the USA Tour. Little gift to myself during pandemic lockdown, as a matter of fact. And I wear it on special days. And today is not a special day for any reason other than I wanted today to feel special. And I want to apologize. I was supposed to be here last Tuesday, and I showed up an hour late, and no one, you know, that wasn't my time. I was in Mexico. I was still in Mexico, in Puerto Vallarta.

Well, Bucerias, near Puerto Vallarta. So I apologize for missing everybody. That was my bad. And I have put steps in place to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Good morning, Anna. So nice to see you. C. we got, like, six inches of snow here yesterday, and the entire city shuts down, even if there's a forecast for like, an inch. And so I knew that my stuff yesterday was canceled, so I kind of had a snow day. And as a Minnesotan, that's very fun because, you know, in Minnesota, you get a snow day every few years.

But here, this is the first real significant snowfall we've had probably in the five years since I've been here. I may be forgetting one, you know, in the lockdown times, which it didn't matter because we weren't leaving our houses anyway. C. snow. I've been home for a few days. I went to a workshop. I actually like it. My cat is. I have two cats, and they've both been on me like glue. But Nakatomi, who's particularly bonded to me, can't decide whether he wants to punch me in the face or just lie on my face because he's just so upset I was gone, but so happy I'm home.

And he sort of goes between those things. So happy 2025. Happy New Year, everybody. This is my first chance to really talk with people in the new year. And I was thinking about my rules of engagement. I added a new one, which I'm not ready to talk about yet on a live stream. It's choose. You know, if you have a choice, choose the rare thing. One of my mentors, John Acuff, talks about that. I'll talk about it a little bit. I haven't fully wrapped my brain around it. Like when he's at home, like when his daughters are home from college and he has the chance to hang out with them even Though he's supposed to be doing whatever his daily task is, meeting his goals or reading his book.

He says choose the rare thing, right? It's rare to have your daughter's home focus on what's rare. And that is just such a rich thing to use as a choice that I've really been mulling it over. I heard him say it like last week. I immediately knew I wanted to add it to my rules of engagement. I think it's number 34 or something. But today I realized is a good day because it's the beginning of the year and I am a very, very goal oriented person relative to other people. I just am. And I spent a lot of time in the last quarter of the year really reviewing how the year's gone so far and then putting together what I want my goals to be for this upcoming year.

And I have a 25 and 25 for the fun things I want to do because I do a fun list every year. Last year was 24 and 24. You get the picture. For the personal things. This year is the first time I've put it in some personal things and then work things. And they're not all super hard. You know, one of them I'm. One of the fun things I'm doing is it was on my list was to watch the movie Almost Famous because I've never seen it and good morning, Nettie. 0717. 0717 is my sobriety date. July 17, 1989 is my sobriety date.

So I like to see the 0717. I've never seen Almost Famous. So I watched about an hour of it last night. I can't. I can if I'd started it earlier, but I really wanted to go to bed on time. So I'm a very goal oriented person. You may pick that up from the way I actually have posted lists of rules of engagement for my life, for example. And not everybody is that way. And that wouldn't work for everybody, but it really works for me. So Rule 22, Rule of Engagement number 22. As much as I can, I make decisions while I'm planning as opposed to while I'm doing something.

What do I mean by that? And this just seems timely at the beginning of the year when people are thinking about plans and such. Not everybody, but I am. And you might be too. It is because one of my other rules of engagement is trust the thinking. Trust the decision I made when my thinking was at its best. This is sort of a corollary to that, which is make decisions when my thinking is most clear, as clear as it can be. So I do a lot of planning for my day, for my week, for my month, for my quarter, for my year, just so that once the decisions are made, I can have something just hum along.

That's one of the reasons I spend so much time thinking about what tweaks I want for my year and what does it look like to put that in place. Now there are some really good books I've read that have helped me clarify how to do that. The best one for me is a book by Gretchen Rubin called Better than Before. I love Gretchen Rubin. That book is not about what habits you should have. That book is about knowing yourself well enough to know how to set up your life in a way that will work for you. com she doesn't sponsor me, I'm just a big fan.

But she also things like Are you a night owl or a lark? Right. Are you a morning person or a night person? About 30% of people, our chronotypes are more night oriented. I am not one of them. I am a lark. I am a morning person. Are you an abstainer or a moderator? Most people are moderators. Meaning if you tried to abstain, abstain completely from something, it's very hard to maintain. But there are, there are abstainers. I am one who it's easier for me to not do something at all than it is for me to try and do something a little bit.

Now some of that is because I'm an addict alcoholic, but I just don't like my brain will obsess about when I get to do the thing I'm trying to moderate and that will take up way much more time than than it should. Right. Instead of doing these other things. So those are examples. Other books include I am reading Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg right now. F O G G so good talks about how to link your habits, link things together to make it more possible to just remember to do them and get them done and start as small as you can.

And I only just recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear and it was worth the hype. I have to say. It was very good and very helpful. And then I like as I said, John Acuff is one of my mentors. I'm a big fan of his work and one of his book soundtracks. So good. And then his book finish. If you're somebody who starts stuff and struggles to finish it like most of us, his book finish is really helpful. So why am I talking about that? I like to know ahead of time what I'm gonna do. Because like going to a restaurant, if I want to eat the way that I want to eat, I eat out a fair amount for work and for fun.

Not nearly as much as I did when I was elected official, but I still eat out a fair amount. And if I ate out, if I ate the way I wanted to every time I went out, that would not be good for my health. So I decide ahead of time. I'll look at a menu ahead of time and figure out what makes most sense on the menu and do my best to stick with that. Make the decision when I'm thinking more clearly as opposed to when I'm hungry and the menu's in front of me and I'm in the social setting, etc. Etc. Newfie lover Sue748291 Good morning.

Very excited to see you here. I think that means you love dogs, but my hope is that you also love Newfoundland, Canada. Because I'm a big fan of Canada or someone from there. Perhaps in my head that's what's going on. But you can feel free to tell me and hello. Get to the root. Rachel Good morning. I am talking about my rule engagement number 22 as much as you can, make decisions while you're planning rather than doing because in the heat of the moment, I won't be thinking my clearest. It also helps me enjoy the moment if like key decisions have been made this morning.

It's funny, I didn't even think about this this morning. I went to Orange 3 Fitness. It was my first one in 2025. I was going to go yesterday but they canceled everything yesterday because they knew snow was coming. C. and I worked out while I was in Mexico but I didn't do, you know, high intensity interval training works out. I lifted some weights and I did, you know, I did a lot of walking and I knew it'll be easier for me in my life if I just ease in. And I didn't get great sleep last night. So I decided before I showed up that I was gonna walk on the treadmill during the treadmill part of the day.

And that was smart because often even under negative conditions like not great sleep or what have you, I will run anyway. I'll get in there because it's just so fun for me. Running is just so Fun and orangetheory Fitness for me is so fun. But before I went, even last night, as I was going to bed, it was, betsy, you are going to walk tomorrow. Sometimes it's like you can walk if you want to, you can, or run if you want to, but you are free to walk. You know, give myself that choice to make it easier to get out the door.

This was one of those, betsy, it is not going to make sense for you to go ham. As the young people were saying two years ago at Orange Theory Fitness. Today, for a whole host of reasons, I don't want to injure myself, all of that. So I decided ahead of time I'm going to walk. And so when it came time to be on the treadmill, I walked. I did. It was great. It was really great. If I work, if I go to Orange Theory more than three times a week, I for sure walk the fourth time. And sometimes I'll walk on the third time or other times as well.

So that's what I mean when I say make decisions while playing instead of doing, you know, if I'm cooking a recipe and I don't have an ingredient, it helps to plan ahead. For me, if I'm going to cook a recipe, I'm doing more cooking this year. I'm laying that down here with you in the Cadre sphere. I'm not a big cook and I want to do a little bit more this year. It helps to plan ahead, right. Instead of find out in the middle that you don't have an ingredient. Helps to plan ahead, that sort of thing when my mind is clearest.

And as I said, that's a corollary to another rule of engagement of mine, which is trust. The decision I made when I was thinking most clearly. You know, when I went to bed last night, I knew that it made sense to go work out. This morning I was a little slow out the door. It wasn't late, a little slow out the door, but I went and I did the workout. Of course I love working out. That's not the greatest example, but you know what I mean. It's so good to be back. It's so good to be with all of you.

I'd love to Hear how your 2025s are going whenever it makes sense. Thank you, Anna, for the love this. I'd love to hear how your 2025s are going. If you have been making plans for your 2025, let me know what they are. I have a lot of fun plans. I know I talk a lot about Fun. I think it is the secret sauce for a great life, especially if you have big goals and big ambitions and you work really hard, it is possible to have fun at every level. This is my constant PSA for fun. One of my goal, you know, one of my fun things this year I'm gonna wear not with 6 inches of snow on the ground, but I'm gonna wear my sequin duster at least three times this year.

I wore it to a party in December. It was fabulous. So I'm going to do that some more. I'm going to Nashville. I want. I have a trip I'm hoping to be able to pull off to see some friends in Canada. It's a whole. It's a whole thing. So. Happy New Year, Cadre Sphere. I'm very glad to be here with you, very glad that we are all here together and in this together. This will be my first full calendar year with Cadre. Very excited to see what that rhythm feels like as the year goes on. And if I don't see on the live stream, yours is unexpected, both good and bad.

Your 2025 is unexpected. You already know that seven days in. All right, that's good to know. I'm very curious about what that means. Anna. Yeah. If I don't catch you on the live streams, I'll catch you in the app and we can chat. Maybe I'll ask the question today. What are you looking forward to in 2025? So awesome. All right, well, you already know in 2025, Anna. I think maybe if you know by January 7th that things aren't going to go according to plan, that might actually be good because then you can craft new.

So I'm very curious. Maybe I'll ask later. So I hope everybody has a great, great Tuesday and rest of your week and I will see you in the Cadre Sphere. Oh, you met a new friend and had a change in professional life. Aha. More will be revealed. I hope both of those things augur A fabulous 2025 either way in shocking and surprising ways. Yeah. Riding the wave, my symbol, my word for this year is allow. And my symbol for it is a river. And there aren't waves in rivers the same way that there are in lakes in the ocean and such.

But there are. There are. You can't push the river. I will offer that to you. Riding the waves, you cannot push the river. So. All right, Cadre Sphere, I look forward to more. It.