what is the difference between an excuse and a reason hmm kind of a good question
right sure okay and the reason it's a good question because there's there can
be legitimate reasons why things happen yeah right and so for instance you're in
a in a sailing race right in a sailboat er and the mast snaps in half now you
don't win the race yeah but I mean you didn't you know the masts snapped what
can you do about that or the weather's the horrible weather
rolls in and you can't launch your aircraft so you can't go on your mission
well you can't control the weather so you know like what's up how can that
that's a reason or you get really sick so you can't compete in a competition
that's a reason you know you were sick oh you do bad because you were sick and
yet it's a reason could be called you know now you could look at the situation
and say okay if I'm gonna take ownership of this did I properly test the mast did
I no let me ask you this did we have a ground-based plan for the operation in
case the weather came in we were gonna take vehicles instead mm-hmm right yeah
that would work if you get sick before the competition maybe you ask yourself
were you resting properly were you eating properly going into the
competition so you wouldn't get sick you could address that correct yes so you
can still take ownership of things even if the initial reaction is like olders
you can't control that well you can influence that you could mitigate it
right now can there still be legitimate reasons yes there can and for me the the
the difference the line between an excuse and a reason is a reason you have
zero control over right you just have zero control over something happening
well that's a reason Gallegos almost late the other day for
something known as this is borderline this is borderline huh huh I had an
appointment at 10 o'clock I left is a 20-minute Drive mm-hmm
I left an hour I left at well I left about 910 I left
50 minutes mm-hm to drive 20 minutes man it's just so gonna make it on time yeah
yeah I get on the road basically a couple roads out of my house and the one
entry way to get on the freeway is lockdown lockdown hmm like incident like
isolate some incident a guy trying to kill himself oh come on a bridge shut
the road down yeah so no one's going on the highway so what is it everyone's
being channelized into marginal what they called back side streets yeah boys
rear hour the clock is ticking and and I made it right I made it I was four
minutes I had four minutes to spare so instead of it taking twenty minutes it
took whatever 46 minutes took more than twice as long that that could be you
know a fairly legitimate reason now luckily I had I always you know I had
planned that there could be something out of my control it might take even
longer and that's why I leave early to go to an appointment or a situation like
that so I could have also checked the traffic prior to leaving and taking a
completely different route mmm that would have been I blame myself so even
in that situation I'm kind of I I was thinking the whole time what why did you
why didn't I check the traffic before I left I knew this could have happened
so anyways in my opinion and excuses when you blame something that you could
have controlled and a reason is something that you have absolutely no
control over whatsoever you know you think like a legit disease
I mean sometimes people have they just don't you can't control that it happens
but I think and I think this is the important part I think that what you
will find especially when you approach the world with an attitude of extreme
ownership and that's that you're not gonna make any excuses you're not gonna
blame it nots is that you actually have a lot more control over things than you
think you do mm-hmm we've talked about this before when I go
to the airport I get there really early because it's something that you have no
control over you're gonna stand in that TSA line and those people are gonna take
forever and that's the way it is and if you want to get mad at them it doesn't
matter you can't you can't control you cannot control it in any way you can
stand at the back of my flights leaving in 30 minutes and they'll be like
whatever you should have showed up earlier yeah you can't control it so in
those situations how do you control it you show up early you take ownership of
it you show up early you don't just I don't know what happened the traffic was
bad I mean it's just a million excuses you can give if you get that attitude
where you're not gonna make excuses and you'll actually take ownership of the
things and then you'll actually solve problems before they even happen if I'm
going to an appointment and I have the excuse in my back of my head that you
know what if I'm late I'll just say it was the traffic I have much more
increased chance of being late yeah all right so what's what that's that's one
of the things that makes extreme ownership hard is it hurt your ego they
hurt your ego it hurts your ego to admit that you have control over things that
went wrong that's that there it's your fault that hurts here you go
yeah it's also effective because of that it's effective because you solve
problems like I said before they even happen you solved them because you take
ownership but isn't this just a bunch of semantics though like excuses and
reasons reoccurs really when it comes down to it excuses like an excuse like
you're excused like the reason is a reason for sure but it's like well
that's what this whole conversation yeah it is about semantics and the semantics
are for me an excuse is something that you could have controlled and a reason
is something that you could not control aren't they all reason
so it's up to I mean again look you say tomato I say to I get it but come on and
you brought it up so you get okay so I remember when I when I was in elementary
school you you come late to school you get in trouble unless you have an excuse
now with its there's a difference between and I'm saying in the in the
field in spin class right you come you come into class if you have just your
own excuse like oh my you know dog ate it
that's for homework but whatever that's different than if you have an excuse
slip which is an official slip you know your parents are your whatever used to
the office another movement to get excuse slips change to reason slips
right right reason exactly kid had chicken pox can't come
to school yes you can't come yeah there's nothing you've got chicken pox
that's what that's what that's how yeah that's how so but now given that now
aren't we just talking about a very smooth like a standard from case to case
so like let's go back to your school Bret bear with me you want to get to the
bottom of this I'm telling you if you if your parents had car trouble right is
that an excuse for a nine-year-old for a nine-year-old yeah it is it is a reason
for so that falls on the hierarchy of standards but within the standards of
being a quote-unquote legitimate excuse rights cuz that's really what it is so a
reason in your case I mean your yeah a reason his language legitimate excuse
that's a reason in as far as this question goes absolutely in fact okay I
use the word legitimate yeah yeah yeah and so using the word reasons rather
than excuses just like okay let's make the language more simple rather than
because if you have an excuse if you have an excuse that's it by its very
nature by its very definition you're excused it's an excuse you're excused
from for mean late or being like to Europe or whatever but if it's it's
weird because if someone else gives it to you gives you the accede like you're
excused a hey the guy was about to commit suicide I get it man
your Excuse kind of thing it's like that's an excuse in this case a
legitimate one but if you give it to yourself that's the excuse that nobody
likes right like hey man traffic all you should have prepared for that yeah
hey man my you know whatever was going on and this and that y'all man you got
to prepare for that see I'm saying yeah I guess so there he
goes over there so reasons and legitimate excuses same thing yeah I'll
give you that you could have said that like four minutes ago I'm just saying
you gotta explain you see because sometimes I hard to understand I'm
telling you no see the more you talked about it the less I understood and said
the last thing I had to sum it up okay the summary was great
I'll give you extra a b-plus on the summary all right thanks I'll take it
thank you