Hello, everyone.

Welcome to another GrowthSpurt.

I'm Anthony Alibro, and today we're going to be discussing the difference between being busy and being effective.

The idea behind this is activity creates the illusion of progress.

A full calendar, a cleared inbox, a long list of things handled, all the checkmarks next to your to-do list feels like evidence that the day worked.

But there is the idea that or the possibility that everything you did never touched the outcome that actually mattered.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to another Growth Spur.

Again, these are bite-sized versions of the Growth Project brought to you by Amplose, powered by Elliott Davis.

Really, at the end of the day, we record these and we film these to help you both pursue better and be better.

I'm Anthony Libro, and today we're going to be discussing what are you practicing every day? We tend to usually reserve the word practice for things we're trying to get better at, a skill, a sport, an instrument.

But really, if we simplify this, practice is just repetition.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to another Growth Spur.

Again, these are bite-sized versions of the Growth Project brought to you by Amplose, powered by Elliott Davis.

Really, at the end of the day, we record these and we film these to help you both pursue better and be better.

I'm Anthony Libro, and today we're going to be discussing what are you practicing every day? We tend to usually reserve the word practice for things we're trying to get better at, a skill, a sport, an instrument.

But really, if we simplify this, practice is just repetition.

to another growth spurt, a bite-sized version of the growth project that really aims to help you pursue better and be better.

I'm Anthony Alibro, and today we're going to be discussing the myth of falling behind.

Almost everyone who feels as though they're behind is comparing their own timeline to someone else's highlight reel.

You know the entirety of the story of your own path, the detours, the years that took longer than planned, the parts that nobody but you were able to see and actually applaud, all of it.

But the thing that you're comparing against, you know almost nothing about.

You know almost nothing about the path you are comparing it to.

Anthony, for you, when you hear silence and solitude, what are your initial reactions?

Uh, discomfort, uh, to be, to be [laughs] completely honest with you.

No, I...

It was funny, before we started this podcast, we were talking about, like, okay, like silence and solitude comes easier to some people than others, right? And I, for, for example, myself, like this is something that I struggle with, is like how do you just simply exist, right? What mindfulness practices are you engaging in where you are truly detaching from your day-to-day, and you're truly just existing and being at a specific point in time? And when I think about this, I'm like, "How often am I just being?" It's usually not that often.

Usually I'm, I'm pretty go, go, go.

I'm pretty focused on accomplishing some kind of task and accomplishing some kind of goal.

So it's...

Mm-hmm.

[laughs]

... multiply that by eight, so to speak.

And, uh, it's incredible to think since, you know, 1776, when, uh, when we, when we got our independence there, how far we've come, just how much we've developed and evolved as a society.

And, you know, this idea of we were founded on these ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And a lot of those manifestations, a lot of those issues, a lot of those challenges, you know, more broadly, obviously they sound and look quite a bit different in the year of 2026, but they're still things we aspire towards.

They're still thing that w- they're still things that as a society we begin to work towards and to hold ourselves accountable to.

So it, it, it's, it's truly a fascinating look, uh, rewinding of the clock, if you will, when we think back to 250 years ago of what it looked like versus what it is now.

That, to me, is, is at our core.

And I think the goal that we talk about, can we recognize progress, not perfection?

I mean, we beat the drum on awareness with every single client that we work with, right? It is the exact same thing we talk about American society, right? We have to have awareness of where these gaps exist in order to actually take action, to hold ourselves accountable and hold each other accountable.

in order to reach those ideals.

The idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I don't think you'd find many people disagreeing with those ideals.

So the idea, we have these great things to aspire to that are going to unify us, absolutely.

But what we tend to see, and as you said, the reality divides.

The idea of progress, unfortunately, is uneven.

So how do we bring people together? How do we? How do we have some of these courageous conversations? What are some things we can do since we seem to be so divided as a country right now?

Like what are some of the things I can do to start priming myself for sleep?

As you talked about earlier, like the idea of a routine is massive, right? The idea of a routine, so like if you're a nighttime shower, if you're someone who likes to put a face mask on at night, if you brush your teeth, wash your face, all the little things that you do, if you can do that in almost like a ritualized order, that's massively beneficial because what you're doing essentially is you're communicating to your brain, again, this level of familiarity, like, okay, we're trying to begin the descent here, right? When the pilot says, okay, we're beginning our initial descent, that's effectively the cue that you're sending to your brain when you're engaging in that nighttime routine.

Now as well, if you're someone who's prone to the racing thoughts.

If you're someone who's prone to a lot of the pre-nighttime worries and the pre-nighttime problem solving, and especially when you know your brain's not ready for that, right? Because every single issue that your brain runs across when it's like 10.30 p.m.

and it's like, I don't know how to solve this.

It's just going to create more and more anxiety.

So one of the skills as well, if you wanted to incorporate this in your routine is called worry journaling, right? And it's very simple.

I know I've talked about it in the past, but just as a reminder for our listeners today,

Hello, everyone.

Anthony Libra here on The Growth Project.

Specifically, this episode is going to be a growth spurt.

Bite-sized action you can take and plug in immediately into your day-to-day.

Today, we're talking about a pretty heavy topic.

We're talking about burnout.