By Any Means Necessary: The Extreme
(and Necessary) Rejection of Backup Plans

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #529: By Any Means Necessary: The Extreme (and Necessary) Rejection of Backup Plans

Jeff Sanders
We all need a plan B, right?

Going out on a limb with only one possible outcome is a bad idea, right?

Taking a big risk is dangerous and stupid, right?

Well, it depends.

Does your goal matter to you or not?

Will this pursuit change your life or not?

Playing it safe is smart.

But being smart is not always the best path forward.

This is The 5AM Miracle, Episode #529 – By Any Means Necessary – The Extreme and Often Necessary Rejection of Backup Plans.

Good morning and welcome to The 5AM Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful, lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

In the episode this week, I'll break down why backup plans are nothing more than fear talking, why your goal is likely too weak and uninspiring to get your full attention, and how to pursue your next big ambition with all the confidence you need to ditch any backup plans you once thought were necessary.

Let's dig in.

So let's go back to 2009.

My wife Tessa and I were living in Boston at the time and we knew it was time for a move.

Tessa had been going to graduate school and the two of us decided, "You know what?

We love Boston.

It's a great town.

It's just not our town.

It's too cold.

It's too expensive.

It's not our place.

Not our vibe.

Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome place to visit, fantastic city with lots of things to do, but living there is a whole different beast.

If you're from New England, you probably love New England.

The people that I met there did not want to leave.

It was their home.

It was their place to be.

It just wasn't ours."

And so Tessa and I decided at this point in our lives, we need a new adventure, a new place to call home, a new place to start our future lives.

In 2009, we were about 24, 25 years old and we were getting ready to start our lives as career professionals, as people wanting to do something with our possible talents and skills and interests, but where would we live?

What would it look like?

Well, our criteria for this move was we wanted to be sort of close to home because both of our families are from Columbia, Missouri, right in the middle of the United States.

And so we drew a circle around Columbia and said, within an eight hour drive or so, what are the major cities we would choose to live in so we could visit home as needed, but still have our own independence and our own place to call our city.

And so among this big circle were towns like Kansas City, Missouri, St.

Louis, Chicago, Memphis, Little Rock, and we decided upon Nashville, Tennessee.

Now the funny thing is that at the time, neither one of us had even been to Tennessee, even to visit, even for a vacation, never once driven through it, zero trips to Tennessee.

And so to choose Nashville was a very interesting choice.

Some might say stupid or weird or why?

All good questions, all good comments.

What we decided though, was that we wanted a fresh start somewhere that was warmer, cheaper, more friendly, fun, possible, uh, had opportunities for employments and all these great things that a big city could offer.

And by the way, this is before Nashville really blew up, really became this amazing it city with lots of people that moved here.

This town has expanded so much since Tessa and I got here about 14 years ago.

And yes, we are still in Nashville, which is part of the story as well.

So let's back this up to, we've never been to Nashville.

We're currently living in Boston, but we have no connections to Nashville, right?

Never visited.

We don't know anybody.

We have no prospects, no people, no jobs.

We have nothing.

So what do we do?

We signed a six month lease on an apartment over a fax.

Oh yeah.

Fax machines.

Love those things.

No, I don't.

But we used to use them back in the day.

I sound like a 90 year old man now.

We used a fax machine and we signed a lease for an apartment with no jobs.

We had to get a co-signer to make this thing happen.

It was a ridiculous thing to attempt because there was just no reason for it.

And so we just wanted to do it though, right?

We decided this is our next big move.

Somehow this is going to happen.

And so we signed this lease, we moved to Nashville and we find jobs right away as best we can.

I got a job as a waiter and then eventually I worked at a Crocs store.

Oh yeah.

I sold Crocs.

Those weird shoes.

Yes, I sold those.

That was funny.

So we both found some odd jobs until eventually we got settled into some more career opportunities down the road.

Six months later, we had figured that part out.

But the way that this unfolded was that we had this short term lease with the intention of leaving, not staying.

Our goal was not to stay in Nashville.

The assumption was it was possible that we would explore.

We'd find something that would vibe well with us and we'd stick around.

But the intention was not to stay.

It was an experiment.

It was a grand adventure to find out, can we move to a random new city, start a new life and make it work?

And worst case scenario, we head back to our hometown, we live in our parents' basement and we just rebuild our lives from there.

As the story unfolds, that did not happen.

We did manage to secure some good employment.

We stayed in our apartment.

We renewed our lease for much longer and we began to build our lives from there.

And so why do I tell the story?

Why is our kind of mid-twenties stupidity being highlighted here?

Well, I'm not advocating for bold and risky insanity, but I kind of am.

Here's the point.

The episode this week is about backup plans and specifically this belief that we need them and that they are valuable.

And I'm not going to lie.

Backup plans are a huge part of my life and have been forever and will be forever.

This is not that backup plans themselves are bad.

It is not that having a plan B by itself is bad.

The question we're asking is, are your backup plans an obstacle to your success?

Let's use this as a good example.

Had Tesla and I said, we're going to move to Nashville.

We're going to sign a six month lease and we're going to leave after six months.

If we don't have phenomenal success, we're gone.

And not only gone, we've already arranged to move back to our hometown.

We've already decided ahead of time, this is not going to work.

So there's a big difference here.

The mentality and the mindset of walking into a big adventure, a new project, a new pursuit with mindset A or B.

Mindset A is you're saying, this is our path.

This is it.

We're going to make this happen.

We're going to figure this out.

This is going to work.

It's going to be goofy.

It's going to be weird.

We're going to sacrifice, but we are committed to this idea.

But the second mentality, mentality B, plan B is this assumption that plan A is going to fail.

Plan B assumes the failure of plan A.

And if you assume failure.

If that is your mentality going into something that you care about, I don't see plan A working.

I see plan B becoming plan A.

I see the backup becoming the thing because the original idea was never fully committed to.

It was never fully part of the process.

It was kind of flaky.

So the question becomes in this pursuit of grand ambition, big goals that you want to change your life, a new path, pivot yourself, pivot your business, pivot everything to something grand and new and amazing.

Will a plan B become an obstacle in that pursuit?

Let me use a second example here, a second story, one that I have told before on this podcast, but one that plays into this perfectly, which was my pivot from a full-time employee to a full-time entrepreneur and all the goofiness that happens in between.

So we take this story I just told about Tessa and I had moved to Nashville and we had these kind of odd temporary jobs for a little while.

Well, eventually Tessa settled in as a teacher full-time here working for the city of Nashville, teaching eighth grade math.

And she had a great job, very difficult, but a very fulfilling job.

And I found a job at a career college here in Nashville.

So we're both working in education and my job was good, but it wasn't my future.

It was one where I had some stability built in, but it wasn't really driving me forward.

I knew I was destined for other things.

And so this is when this podcast came about and I had this side business and I was doing some work with it.

And I had this plan in the back of my mind of, wouldn't it be great if I could be a full-time entrepreneur?

And so this is actually very interesting, that Crocs job that I mentioned before.

What happened with that very funny job was basically I got fired.

I wasn't actually fired, but I was told very clearly, if you don't quit, we're going to fire you.

And so basically I was fired.

I did quit just voluntarily just to make it easier, but I left that job abruptly and had probably six to eight weeks from the end of that job before I started my new job at the career college.

And in that six to eight week period, it was over the summer.

And what I ended up doing over the summer was hanging out at the pool at my apartment.

I would take naps.

I was, yes, applying for jobs, but I was also building this side business.

This idea that I'd already started, I was blogging, I was working on these different online ideas.

And so most of my time was spent basically living my life however I wanted.

I would work out every day, lay by the pool, work on my blog, and then occasionally apply for jobs.

I was really not interested in having a full-time position.

I didn't want a nine to five.

What I wanted, and this is what I discovered in this process, I wanted freedom.

I wanted something I had never really had before, especially as an adult who had to take care of himself and build a life.

What I had was a little glimpse of what my life could look like, a little small window into my possible future if I chose to jump into that direction.

This little six week period of the summer where I had the opportunity to control my time in full.

I could choose what I wanted to do all day, every day, know where I had to be.

And so I did whatever I wanted.

Now, as it turns out, I'm a pretty ambitious guy.

I use the time wisely for the most part.

But the freedom I experienced was enticing.

It was an incredible thing.

It really said, "Okay, wait a minute.

Yes, I will apply for a job.

Yes, I'll go take a full-time position.

Yes, that's the wise thing to do, but with the full intention of leaving that position so I could start my business as an entrepreneur and make that my future."

So the funny thing is, I didn't, at least not intentionally.

The way the story plays out is I stayed at that day job, the one that I was not committed to, the one that I knew was not my future, the one that just simply paid the bills, and really not that well, barely paid the bills.

I stayed until the company went bankrupt and closed their doors and kicked me out.

Had that company not gone out of business, it is completely possible I would still be there today.

It's been over 10 years, actually exactly 10 years, since that day.

I left because they kicked me out, but what if they didn't do that?

What if I had never pulled the trigger to say, "This is where I'm going"?

In other words, we can reframe this conversation.

I was living out plan B the whole time.

The entirety of that employment was plan B.

The entirety of that job was my backup plan to my dream, my future, my vision, my plan A of being an entrepreneur.

Now fortunately for me, I got laid off.

Luckily for me, they kicked me out and then I had the opportunity then to ask the question very acutely, "Is this my chance to go full-time or not?"

I said, "Yes," and then I began to make that transition to figure out, "Here's how I'm going to make the money.

Here's how I'm going to make this business profitable and successful.

Here's my chance to do that."

The funny thing is I was offered the chance to go back and work in the industry I had just left.

I had multiple opportunities to go get another full-time job, another plan B to replace the income and go back to the lifestyle I was just living.

I had that chance and I turned multiple opportunities down on purpose each and every time intentionally because I knew in my gut that it was the only call I could make.

I knew it was the only decision because if I did not reject those opportunities, if I did not simply say, "This is who I am now," I might still be there.

There's a very good chance that the things I've done since then would never have happened.

The successes that I've had in my business, of course, the failures along the way as well, but the thing that I set out to do, the thing I wanted for so long was only going to be possible by taking a big risk, making a big leap, really committing to the idea that if I believe that plan B is necessary, plan B becomes plan A and then the dream is gone.

On the episode this week, I want to talk a little more about this concept that I'm calling by any means necessary.

This full commitment of saying, "This is going to happen."

If it feels extreme, if it feels intense to reject a backup plan, it's going to mean a couple of things.

Either A, you need to use the backup plans because it's an important component for what you're working on and what you're doing needs that kind of security or B, another B.

Number two, the other possibility is it's fear.

Fear is a very loud thing.

Fear is going to tell you that your idea is not going to work.

You should just give up on your fantasy, take the surefire, easier, safer path that you already have access to, take that and make that your next move.

Fear is going to tell you to take the easy path every time because the harder path might fail.

Now, fear is going to show you all the ways your plan could fail and probably will fail.

It will show you the worst case scenarios and how likely those are to occur, that little voice in the back of your head, the little devil on your shoulder, that vision of fear, however you want to pursue that.

That vision of fear is going to be very, very loud in your ear and it's going to yell louder and louder and louder the closer you get to that right next move.

Fear is actually pretty quiet when you're not doing risky things.

No one's really scared of something bad if they're not pursuing something that could go bad.

Fear is only really going to get loud when you're looking at that difficult thing right in the eyes and you're saying, "Yes, I'm going to pursue this now."

If I have to explain to you the emotional roller coaster I went on at this time that I was kicked out of my job, laid off from my job, and chose to go full-time as an entrepreneur, this season of my life was filled with fear, filled with anxiety.

I had many sleepless nights, many times I would wake up in a cold sweat.

That was true for a while until I began to put together the pieces and run the numbers and find some solutions and get creative and all the things that entrepreneurs do just to figure it out.

The skill set of an entrepreneur, the mantra is, "I'll figure it out.

I don't know how.

I don't know when.

I don't know who.

I know nothing.

All I do know is I will figure it out."

That's the mentality you go in with and that's what allows these things to work because you know there is no plan B.

You know there's no backup.

You know that you're going to figure it out and you'll pivot as needed, but a pivot is not the same thing as a backup plan.

A pivot is making the next strategic move.

A backup plan is freaking giving up.

It's just saying, "No, it's over."

Now yes, sometimes things fail.

Sometimes things fall apart for reasons that are outside of your control or maybe you took a big risk and it just didn't happen and you're going to try the next thing on the list, but that doesn't mean the dream has died.

It doesn't mean the vision has gone away.

It just simply means you're going to try the next thing on the list.

You'll just continue on and keep pivoting.

The old saying, I forgot where I heard this from, but the idea that if you get knocked down seven times, you get up eight.

That's what this is.

You get knocked down seven times, you get up eight because every single time that "failure" happens, it's just feedback to learn and move on to the next thing.

Yes, the fear in this conversation is going to be very loud.

It's going to be very persistent.

It's not going to give up until you directly face it, address the issue, solve the problem, and you move forward with more confidence than before.

Backup plans by themselves equate to fear.

The plans in and of themselves are just a bunch of fear wrapped up in something that looks pretty and looks like a solid solution.

But that's not what it actually is.

It's actually just simply saying, "I am afraid that plan A is doomed, so here's what I'm going to do instead."

But what you're going to do instead is not what you really want to do.

In most cases, it's probably something that just feels like, "It's the surefire thing.

It's the safer thing.

It'll make things work.

I just lost that pizzazz.

I lost that spark.

I lost that vision.

Now all of a sudden, my life is not what I really wanted it to be."

That's what a backup plan can then—I mean, for me personally, that's what I feel.

The idea of something that I really care about collapsing, it can be okay.

I can rebuild.

But if I'm going to give up, if I'm going to quit, if I'm going to just simply say, "Not only did it fail, but I am out," that's a different conversation.

It's one where the backup plan feels much more emotionally traumatic.

It feels much more like, "I just said yes to something I never thought that I would."

Now not all projects you're going to pursue will fit into this criteria or this conversation.

What I'm talking about is fairly specific.

There are going to be plenty of projects that require backup plans, plenty of goals that require plan A, B, C, D.

No problem.

Life is complicated.

There's a lot that can happen.

What I'm really talking about are these bigger conversations of where do I work?

Where do I live?

Who is my preferred partner for life?

What big things will I take on?

What personal projects matter the most to me?

I'm talking about core elements of when you're doing something that is just in alignment with your best self and you know it and you feel it and you want to pursue more of that, then you do and you have the success over time and it works.

But if in the pursuit of this ideal life, at some point you walk away to pursue a second opportunity that feels like a backup plan, that is a backup plan, that is not the primary objective, that is a tangent, it is a safer bet, you have to ask the question, "Are you making a cop out here?

Is that what you want or not?"

It is a harder path to pursue things without a backup.

It is a more difficult challenge to say, "I'm going to do something hard and I'm going to do something that induces fear, that forces me to face my demons, that puts me in that difficult position."

It is hard to intentionally, purposefully choose that path.

I'm there all the time.

I know how it feels.

It is emotionally crazy.

So you have to take these things in small doses or you'll go kind of nuts.

It is the kind of thing that when it is appropriately mapped out, you can face these fears one at a time.

You can address these issues piece by piece.

You can say yes to the things that bring about your best self one thing at a time.

You can build your ideal dream as a side hustle.

Plan B might be your day job today.

It might be the main activity, whatever the thing is you're pursuing.

Then your dream can be a side hustle that grows over time.

Also very good.

But at some point, there's going to have to be a decision made about, "Am I fully in or not?

Am I committed to this or not?"

That step, that leap you take to be fully committed will be a line in the sand.

You'll know it when it happens.

It'll be a very clear distinction that yesterday was a different day.

Today, wow, brand new thing happening.

You know it.

You feel it.

It's in your bones.

Those steps, those leaps forward that can change your entire life overnight.

Now in my case with the job loss, I was forced across that line.

But of course I had the choice to pivot and go back to it.

So what really happened was it was not the layoff that changed my life.

It was not me being forced out of the job.

It was my decision to not return.

It was my decision to stay with this new path.

That was when the choice was made.

You may have a similar opportunity for you in your life where there's a before and after.

There is a line in the sand.

There's a distinct difference between who you used to be and who you are now.

And that future then changes because of this new, clearer, more vibrant future.

Maybe it's more risky.

Maybe it's a bit crazier.

But maybe it brings out the best in you.

And that's the kind of future we're looking for.

Now along this path of pursuing this primary objective A, what you're looking for, what you're really striving for, I believe, is a goal that would kick you out of bed at 5 AM.

It doesn't do that.

If your goal, your mission, your objective, your ambition is too weak to do so, if 5 AM sounds too early, your goal may not be strong enough.

It may be kind of uninspiring, kind of a loosey-goosey kind of goal.

If it doesn't have your full attention, if the goal is not that important to grab ahold of you and say, "I want to commit to this thing," then it probably doesn't matter that much or it doesn't matter enough yet or, and this is the other reality I've learned as I've gotten busier with two kids, life gets complicated.

It may not be that the goal doesn't want to grab your attention.

It's just you've got a lot going on.

And so for you to be able to get to a point where this vision can become your reality, it's going to require some cuts first.

So one of the big kind of strategies here to guarantee that your plan A can happen and plan Bs are not necessary, that backup plans don't need to be there, is to clear your calendar.

To spend quite a bit of time asking the question, "How do I guarantee I have the capacity, the margin to pursue this dream?"

Whatever this thing is, even just a side hobby or whatever the case may be, you have to have time and energy and focus to spend any kind of quality time on it to make that kind of progress.

So if you feel as though at this point you're not fully committed, part of that could simply be you're just too busy.

And if you slow things down, you free up some time, you take a breather, and you reassess, "Okay, where am I now and what do I want next?

What's the thing that's going to grab a hold of my future?

What's going to send me forward?

What can I really dig into?"

Oftentimes it's going to require really taking a big step back, really asking the question, "Can I free up enough time to think, to dream, to brainstorm?"

And then of course, to act.

Now if in this process you discover that you're not willing to give up your current lifestyle for this goal, you may not care about this goal enough or it may be the wrong goal itself.

Risk is part of this process.

Giving up things you currently have to pursue a new unknown future is part of this.

That's what risk is, right?

To give up what you have to pursue something where you don't know what's going to happen next.

It's kind of fun.

It's also very scary and crazy.

And that's what we're talking about here.

We're talking about a lifestyle where sometimes you say yes a little bit blindly, where life's a little bit of an unknown.

Maybe you move to a brand new state with no experience.

I have a friend who moved across the pond over to Portugal from the United States and did so with a lot of that same mentality.

A lot of, "Let's just see if this works.

Let's just try."

And he's been there for over a year and he's making it happen.

And that's a big step to take you and your family to a whole new country.

It's a big move.

Big risk.

Huge upsides if it works well.

Possibly catastrophic failure if it doesn't.

But that's what makes this so much more fun.

That's what makes life exciting are these kinds of choices where you can say, "Yesterday I played it safe.

And today I am willing to do something that puts it all on the line."

Maybe not everything, but put something on the line, some kind of investment here.

Some kind of a vision that once cast and once pursued, it brings out a part of you that's been hiding.

A part of you that's been squished by stress and busyness and all the chaos of regular life.

A part of you that maybe just needs some breathing room.

And when it comes out, oh my gosh, there's creative spark.

There's energy.

There's this vibrance that just pops out of you.

Because it's been there the whole time.

And it's just waiting for the opportunity to express itself.

So you want to connect with that vibrance.

Connect with that creative energy to pursue this finish line that really is a thing that will be life changing.

One of my clients I'm working with went to a gym recently and on the wall was the phrase, "Don't wish for it, work for it."

And I have really connected with that recently.

I love that phrase.

Don't wish for it, work for it.

One of the things you're going to experience when you're pursuing big goals is just what I'll call fantasizing.

We're dreaming about a better future.

We are thinking about things that could be possible.

But the problem, a problem that pops up in this scenario is we spend all the time fantasizing, dreaming, wishing, thinking, and no time actually taking action and working for this vision.

If the goal you'd like to see happen stays in this status of a dream, a fantasy, a possibility, but it never gets more than that.

It never converts over to an active project.

What's the difference there?

Because in my life, I have a thousand ideas I will never have time to pursue.

So many things I could do.

And that's fine.

I'm totally willing to have a lot of possibilities.

But a few of them, I'm going to make that transition from dream to project, from an idea to an active, ongoing pursuit that I am making progress on and tracking those steps every day to move me forward to that end result.

Only a few select projects will get my attention with that level of intentionality.

And so when you're imagining this plan A, this big dream, what we're talking about is that transition from dream to project, from idea to active pursuit.

And once it's in that active pursuit and you're working on it, well, it's no longer a thing you're wishing for.

It's a thing you're working on.

It's a thing you're actively bringing to life.

And once that happens, you don't care about plan B anymore because you're doing the thing that's going to lead to the result.

And all you're asking is those questions of how do I make more of this possible?

How do I pursue the next step and the next vision and bring about the next possibility of what this could be?

You're in at that point.

You're actively in the middle of the pursuit.

And frankly, once you're in the middle of that, plan B seems silly.

Now you still may need to pivot.

There still may be things that go wrong.

Yeah, it's complicated sometimes.

But you don't care about it nearly as much, especially as much as you would before you would start when you're planning or thinking or considering the worst possible scenarios.

That's a dangerous place to be.

It's dangerous to plan like that too much because that fear, that little devil on your shoulder, that's when that guy gets really loud.

That's when he yells the most and that's when you back off the most.

And so the trick here is to move into action as quickly as you can because action is going to squish that voice faster than anything else.

Moving directly towards your goal is going to make that voice very, very quiet, faster than anything else possibly can.

So if you want something and you're willing to fight for it, you're willing to make a project about it and be intentional about it, all of this is possible.

All of these finish lines can get closer and closer because you're doing the thing.

You're on the journey.

You're on the path.

It's happening.

So now let's imagine that you have said yes to all of these things I've just discussed, or at least in theory, you have said, okay, Jeff, I'm in, I want to attempt this lifestyle of pursuing big things, of rejecting backup plans, of attempting to live in a way that's more adventurous, perhaps more exploration, more possibilities, more entrepreneurial.

I want to pursue something that has risk as part of it, but I'm scared.

I think it's risky.

I think it's kind of crazy.

I don't want to move across the country with no money and no jobs.

This all sounds a bit nuts.

Okay.

I think that's where you are.

I get that sense in part.

Yes, you are right.

The emotional roller coaster of a life without backup plans is both exciting and scary.

It's fun and it's risky.

It's adventurous, but it's also dangerous.

It is fulfilling, but also freaky.

It's worth pursuing and worth the experience, even if the whole thing falls apart.

In other words, you can say yes to an entire lifestyle where everything fits into this kind of craziness, or take it one piece at a time.

Start small and scale as time progresses.

This is the best path.

It's highly unlikely that you want to jump in with both feet all of a sudden, quit your job and go change your whole world overnight.

Most people are just going to destroy their entire lives with these kinds of radical changes.

It's not about that.

These are slow things that progress over time.

These are choices that you make now to pursue a new lifestyle that does incorporate a little more risk, that does incorporate some more adventure, that does ask a little more of you to face your fears and pursue the things you feel destined to pursue.

But the decision can be an overnight thing.

You can say, "Yesterday I was playing it safe, and today I have decided to no longer live like that.

And so I will begin the process to analyze and assess and figure out where am I now, where do I want to be, and what's a reasonable path to get there.

And also, what's an unreasonable one?"

Go ahead, plan it out.

If you played it safe, here's what you would do.

If you went really intense, here's that option as well.

At least on paper, go ahead and play the game.

But if you tried the most extreme version, what would you do?

How could it work?

Ask those kinds of questions, and you may find it's actually not as crazy as you thought that it would be.

It's not as difficult as you thought.

The worst case scenario isn't as bad as you once imagined.

Most of this fear, almost all of it in fact, is just in your head.

It's not real.

It's not going to come to life.

It's not going to be realized.

Most of that fear is just in your head.

And if you start down this path, and you take this action, you pursue these things that sound crazy on paper, but aren't actually in real life, you can prove to yourself that what I'm saying is true.

Prove to yourself the fear is nonsense.

Prove to yourself this is possible.

Live that life.

Be that person.

Go down that path.

Open that door.

This is the thing you can say yes to.

And then what would happen if you did?

What's possible if all of that were true?

Wouldn't that be incredible?

Okay, if you want to begin here, four steps to make this happen.

Step one, decide what you want.

Step two, brainstorm all the various ways you could pursue this new goal.

Step three, choose the most obvious path that gets you moving now to take action.

And step four, just continue down that path and pivot as needed.

That's all.

This is very basic goal achievement, but applied at a much higher level.

At a level where you say this thing that I'm after, this thing that I want, is something that inherently is a risky, adventurous, crazy, awesome thing.

And wouldn't that be incredible if it were to happen?

We are up in the ante here.

This is not your common running half marathon goal.

This is an ultra.

This is a biggie.

These are the next big moves you're going to be making to push yourself into a whole new arena.

And for the action step this week, ditch your backup plan and just go for it.

I wish I could say that having a backup plan is a good idea, but it's often just a crutch.

And if your crutch has become a real obstacle to your future best self, well, it's time to try something new, something a little dangerous, something with a little potential.

Your goal is either worth pursuing or it's not.

And if your goal needs a plan B, your goal is probably not good enough yet, not inspiring enough yet, not life changing enough yet.

So upgrade your goal and it will be easy to walk away from any backup plan you once thought was necessary.

Also be sure to subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5am Miracle community by getting the premium ad free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

And that's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and all that fun begins bright and early.

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