Optimizing Beyond

160 phone pickups in one day. Josh found out the hard way — and built a system to fix it.

No digital detox, no flip phone — just small, permanent decisions that add up.

🎧 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

• Why Screen Time is your starting point — and what "data before decisions" really means
• How to find your lowest hanging fruit: the easiest notifications and apps to cut first
• The swipe-left trick that kills future notifications without ever opening Settings
• Why red badges are designed to keep pulling your attention back
• A weekly app-store habit that clears out apps you forgot you had
• The one-button email unsubscribe trick that saves hours over time
• Why texting STOP to marketing texts is a simple, permanent time-saver
• What grayscale icons do to your brain's pattern recognition — and why some people swear by them
• How to throttle specific apps and categories with Screen Time limits and Focus modes
• The psychological cost of a face-up phone at the dinner table
• Why every pickup should be on purpose, not autopilot

⏱ CHAPTERS:

00:22 Intro: Recording Live from MCO Airport

00:36 Why This Isn't a Digital Detox Episode

01:16 The Moment Your Phone Starts Using You

02:14 Step One: Turn On Screen Time and Just Look

03:17 Data Before Decisions: Finding Your Lowest Hanging Fruit

03:50 Making Permanent Micro Decisions That Compound

04:22 Clearing Red Badges and Notification Traps

05:13 The Swipe-Left Trick to Kill Notifications for Good

06:02 Weekly App Store Audits: Deleting What You Don't Use

06:39 The Email Unsubscribe Method That Saves Hours

07:34 Texting STOP: Cutting Off Marketing Texts for Good

08:23 Grayscale Icons: Making Your Phone Less Fun on Purpose

10:04 Throttling Time: Screen Time Limits and Focus Modes

11:41 Phones at the Dinner Table: Face-Down vs. Face-Up

12:32 Recap: Practical Step After Practical Step

14:04 Final Word: Every Pickup Should Be on Purpose

🎧 LISTEN/WATCH NEXT:

Ep 3 — The Discipline of Focus ft. Solo Episode

Ep 38 — The Discipline Trap ft. Solo Episode

Ep 5 — Discipline Versus Motivation ft. Solo Episode

🔗 CONNECT:

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🎙 All Episodes

#OptimizingBeyond #PhoneHabits #DigitalWellness

Show Notes:

England was winning, went defensive, and Argentina smelled blood. The same shift happens in your health, your marriage, and your career every single day.

The England vs. Argentina World Cup semifinal wasn't just a soccer match — it was a masterclass in what happens when you stop playing to win and start playing not to lose. England pulled their best attackers, packed in five defenders, and tried to bleed the clock. Argentina, famous for late-game comebacks, equalized and took it. Josh and Ashley use the match as a lens to look at the same pattern in real life: the diet that stalls after a few good weeks, the recovery plateau where good enough feels like enough, the hard conversation you keep postponing. Three principles from the game apply directly to your goals: the job isn't done just because you have a lead, never invite the competition to your doorstep, and courage — as Winston Churchill put it — is the quality that guarantees all the others.

In This Episode:

• Why a 2-0 lead is actually "the most dangerous score" — and what that looks like in health, relationships, and your career
• The England mistake decoded: why going defensive when you're ahead is exactly how you hand momentum back to your opponent
• Ashley's elbow recovery story — what finishing well actually looks like when the mandated PT is done but full recovery isn't
• The difference between intentional rest and sloth mode: why they feel similar in the moment but produce completely different outcomes
• Matt Frazier's CrossFit Games secret: he hid an injury from every competitor and coach in the building — and won by the largest margin anyway
• Winston Churchill on courage: "the quality that guarantees all others" — and what it looks like in the conversations you keep avoiding
• Why hard conversations feel kind to delay but aren't — and how your management team learned to just go ask the question
• The distinction between playing offense and being reckless: why rest and Sabbath are commands, but fear-based conservatism is something else entirely

Related Episodes:

• One Wrong Move: The UTV Accident That Changed Everything (Ep 42)
• The Trap of Comparison: Thief of Joy and Cause of Complacency (Ep 41)
• Optimizing Rest & Fun (Ep 40)

Resources:

• 📚 I Choose Joy by Danelle Delgado
• 📚 The Legacy Titles by Glenn Lundy
• ⌚ Whoop Strap

*This description contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Show Notes:

Only 3% of people pay for AI — but you don't need a subscription to transform how you work, learn, and create.

Gregg Hull returns to Optimizing Beyond for a wide-ranging conversation about the three places AI is already changing what's possible in daily life: productivity, learning, and creative fun. Gregg is a first-year teacher and self-described tech nerd who makes it his mission to squeeze maximum value out of free and cheap tools. Josh brings the opposite energy — optimistic early adopter, power user, paid subscriber. Together they cover the full spectrum: managing 4,500 unread emails without a paid plan, building apps and Unreal Engine game worlds with zero coding knowledge, and why avoiding AI right now isn't a neutral decision — it's a competitive disadvantage. The point isn't to overwhelm you. It's to show you that wherever you are, there's a next step more accessible than you think.

In This Episode:

• Why only 3% of people pay for AI — and what the free tier can actually do before you spend a dollar
• How Josh drafted a full business email using AI voice mode while driving, and why one-question-at-a-time prompting is the key
• Gregg's strategy for AI email triage using a Gmail MCP server — no subscription required
• The "thought partner" framework: prompting AI to interview you, challenge your blind spots, and play devil's advocate instead of just agreeing with everything
• What Gregg saw as a first-year teacher: why AI is making traditional assignments obsolete, and how to flip the tool into a learning accelerator instead of a shortcut
• Vibe coding in action: how both Josh and Gregg built real apps and game environments with zero prior coding knowledge
• The 18-minutes-a-day rule from Glenn Lundy — and why picking one AI model and committing beats juggling three subscriptions
• LM Studio, local models, and API billing — free and low-cost paths that deliver 80% of paid AI capabilities

Related Episodes:

Optimizing with AI (Ep 33)

Build an AI Mirror: 5 Prompts to Turn AI Into a Contrarian (Ep 44)

Optimize Your Words with Gregg Hull (Ep 31)

Resources:

• AI Driven Leader by Geoff Woods
• Superhuman (AI-powered email client)

This description contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Everyone's building an AI that thinks like them. The bigger unlock is building one that fights back — a contrarian that exposes your blind spots.

Most people use AI as a faster version of themselves: an assistant that agrees, validates, and executes. This episode makes the case for the opposite. When emotions run high and you're certain you're right, the last thing you need is a machine telling you your idea is brilliant. You need a mirror — one you build in advance, when your ego is out of the way, so it's ready to hold the line when you're frustrated and reaching for validation. Josh walks through why a pinned project or custom gem beats a one-off chat, how to feed it your personality assessments and meeting transcripts so it knows your patterns, and how to make it coach you forward instead of just calling out your BS. Then he hands you five specific prompts to build it today.

In This Episode:

• Why AI's built-in "politeness protocol" makes it a yes-man — and why stripping the fluff still isn't enough to get real pushback
• The case for building your contrarian ahead of time, before high emotions make you crave validation
• Why a custom project or gem holds its core purpose while a long chat forgets it
• How making the AI ask questions first sharpens its challenge
• Why this honors your mentors' time instead of replacing the humans in your life

The 5 Prompts:

1. Extreme Ownership Auditor — "Act as a radically candid executive coach. I'm going to provide a transcript or summary of a stressful interaction. First ask me one to two clarifying questions to ensure you have full context. Once I answer, don't validate my feelings; completely ignore the faults of the other people because I only control me. Tell me exactly where my ego got in the way, where my communication broke down, and give me three things I could have done better to lead this interaction."
2. Bias Extraction Engine — "Analyze the following thought process, argument, or journal entry. Before giving feedback, ask me questions one at a time to clarify my core intent. Then don't agree with me — list every cognitive bias, unverified assumption, or logical fallacy I'm making. Point out what I'm assuming to be objective truth that might actually be a subjective emotion."
3. The Red Team — "I'm going to pitch a decision I'm about to make. Act as a red team and completely dismantle it. First ask any questions you need to understand the stakes and context, then give me the three strongest, most brutal arguments for why this plan will fail, what my blind spots are, and why my logic is flawed. Don't soften the blow."
4. The Contrarian Persona — "Act as an expert mentor with the exact opposite strengths I have. [Describe yourself — e.g., fast-moving, visionary, big-picture.] Read this scenario, first ask what my ideal outcome is, then respond as someone hyper-analytical, risk-averse, detail-oriented, and skeptical. Show me the angles my natural personality completely missed."
5. Say the Quiet Part Out Loud — "Read this conflict I'm having. Before analyzing it, ask me to define what I think the other person's true motive is. Once I answer, look past my justifications. Tell me what I'm actually afraid of, what I'm trying to avoid, and what hard truth about myself I'm pretending not to know."

Related Episodes:

• Optimizing with AI (Ep 33)
• Remaining Human: A Book Review (Ep 35)
• Take Responsibility (Ep 13)

Show Notes:

Waiting for the perfect version before you start is why most habits never get built. Here's the framework that fixes both ends of that problem.

Josh's Good, Better, Best framework works from two directions: as a habit-building hierarchy that helps you actually start, and as a decision-making filter that keeps teams from settling too fast.

On the habit side: perfectionism is the enemy of execution. Doing the best thing inconsistently will always be outpaced by doing a good thing every single day — the same logic behind James Clear's pottery class example in Atomic Habits, where the group with the most reps always beats the group chasing one perfect piece. Josh's own proof: he started his gratitude practice with three per day instead of the recommended ten. Not the best version — but it's what got him to the 4G journal he's maintained for years.

The 67-day threshold (from University College London research, popularized by Glenn Lundy) is the rubric for when to level up: once a habit is easier to do than not do, it's time to evaluate whether to move from good to better. But getting from better to best isn't usually about more effort — it's about finding the right fuel. Identity-based habits and purpose-driven anchors are what carry you to the top tier.

On the decision-making side: the same three-word question — "good, better, best?" — becomes a powerful leadership tool. A good solution stated in the room will often end the conversation before a better one ever gets voiced. This framework keeps that from happening.

Three challenges this week: start one habit in its simplest form, audit one existing habit for refinement, and run one major decision through the filter.

In This Episode:

• Why "good" beats "best" when best never gets executed
• The tortoise and the hare applied to habit building
• James Clear's pottery class example and the power of reps
• Josh's gratitude habit origin story — 3 instead of 10
• The 66/67-day threshold and when to level up a habit
• Evaluating your habit's fuel source: ego, streaks, or purpose?
• Identity-based habits and why they supercharge long-term follow-through
• Using good, better, best as a decision-making filter in leadership

Related Episodes:

• Progress over Perfection (Ep 4)
• The Four G's (Ep 21)
• The Discipline Trap (Ep 38)

Resources:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Legacy Titles by Glenn Lundy

This description contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Show Notes:

One moment in a sand bowl changed everything. Josh and Ashley revisit the UTV accident, Ashley's road to recovery, and what suffering revealed about their marriage.

The last morning of what had been the best weekend of Josh's life — and he rolled the UTV. Ashley grabbed the door handle as it went over. By the time the machine was righted, she was in more pain than she'd ever felt. What followed was a 90-minute drive to the hospital through railroad crossings, with Josh white-knuckling the wheel and communicating with his inner circle — telling on himself before the guilt spiral could take hold and swallow him whole.

The hospital visit was its own story: COVID protocols, X-rays ordered before pain meds arrived, vitals too high to medicate, and an elbow reset under ketamine with no pain relief beforehand. Dislocated, not broken — and the doctor said two things saved her from fractures: strength training and being double-jointed.

Then came the longer journey. PT four to six months, three times a week, with the compliance of someone who'd run a marathon and knew she could do hard things. Six to nine months later, an MRI revealed a grade one ulnar ligament tear driving nerve pain that nothing traditional could touch. Two PRP injections, a 90-day peptide protocol, more PT — and eventually, a new normal in the gym. No pull-ups or toes to bar. No snatches or anything else overhead. Modified everything. And that's okay.

Josh and Ashley share both sides: the guilt and intrusive thoughts he had to fight daily, the trust he had to extend without being able to verify it, and how showing up to serve — from love, not guilt — kept bitterness from ever taking root for Ashley.

The episode closes with a reflection on Eric Dwyer's episode and his wife Sarah, who passed away from cancer — a reminder that daily mindset work is preparation for storms, and that fighting every day doesn't always produce full restoration. But you fight anyway.

"Don't marry someone you can have fun with. Marry someone you're willing to suffer with."

In This Episode:

• The UTV accident at Little Sahara — what happened and why Josh held on
• The hospital: COVID protocols, X-rays before pain meds, and a ketamine reset
• Josh's guilt spiral — telling on himself, community support, spiritual warfare framing
• Why Ashley's PT compliance beat the norm — the marathon mentality that carried her through
• Grade one ulnar ligament tear, nerve pain, PRP injections, and peptide therapy
• Finding a new gym normal when full restoration isn't the outcome
• Serving from love, not guilt — and why it made all the difference
• Trust without verification: doing your inner work so your partner can do theirs
• Relationships are forged in the pit, not just in the fun
• Why daily mindset work is preparation for when the storm arrives

Related Episodes:

• When Life's Not Optimal — Eric Dwyer (Ep 15)
• https://youtu.be/18uFYARRKyQ — Trae Frisbee (Ep 25)
• Optimize Friendships (Ep 20)

Resources:

• The Expectation Effect by David Robson

*This description contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Comparison can steal your joy — or quietly kill your momentum. Here's how it traps high achievers from both sides at the same time.

Most people know the quote: comparison is the thief of joy. But Josh makes the case that comparison is also the cause of complacency — and both operate simultaneously.

Looking up: you see someone more successful and get pulled into envy, regret, and the mental spiral of what you should've done differently. Joy goes out the window. Looking down: you see someone who's not as far along, tell yourself you're doing pretty well, and quietly take your foot off the gas. The 1% daily improvement stops.

The bigger pond advice is right — but only partially. Just being in a room with wealthier or more accomplished people doesn't automatically help. Successful people are miserable all the time. The upgrade is being selective: filter for people who have what you're actually after — the fulfillment, the values, the mindset — not just the external markers.

On the self-critical spiral: the antidote is truth on quick draw. When envy or regret creep in, interrupt it with something you know is real — "I cannot change the past. I can only focus on my decisions and my actions in the future." You can't build forward momentum while staring backward.

On going it alone: two solutions. The fastest is paid mentorship — it establishes accountability that a free arrangement never quite does. The second is finding a running mate: someone at a similar level with complementary strengths who grows alongside you. Josh references the visionary-integrator dynamic from Traction — where one plus one stops being addition and starts being exponential. But it requires tension, commitment, and — critically — being worth choosing first.

In This Episode:

• Why comparison traps high achievers from both sides simultaneously
• Looking up: how envy, regret, and inadequacy steal your joy
• Looking down: how relative success quietly produces complacency
• Why the bigger pond still requires discernment
• Speaking truth into the daydream — a quick-draw replacement for envy
• Paid mentorship: the fastest path out of isolation
• Running mates: the visionary-integrator dynamic and exponential growth
• Four-part audit: joy thief check, truth replacement, pond filter, corner check

Related Episodes:

Progress over Perfection (Ep 4)

Olympic Pressure (Ep 24)

Start Your Side Hustle (Ep 32)

Resources:

Traction by Gino Wickman

This description contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

High performers optimize everything — except rest. Josh and Ashley unpack what a Navy SEAL's book revealed about the power of scheduled fun.

Josh spent over a decade building discipline — and quietly developed a superiority complex about it. No gaming. No unstructured time. Always something else to do. The problem: he'd systematically removed all fun from his life and dressed it up as optimization.

The wake-up call came from The Elite Leadership Blueprint by Brandon Thornhill. A dense, practical leadership book — and the chapter that hit hardest wasn't about strategy or execution. It was about scheduled, non-productive fun. Fifteen to twenty minutes a day. No exceptions.

In this conversation, Josh and Ashley trace the full arc: from gaming sessions and garage car projects that brought more frustration than joy, to the hustle phase where fun kept getting pushed to the bottom of the list until the list never ended, to where they are now — three to four months into experimenting with small, intentional doses of rest and play.

They talk about the fear of backsliding that makes high achievers allergic to unstructured time, Ashley's ongoing wrestle with Sabbath and faith-based rest, and the real cost of losing spontaneity in a marriage when productivity fills every hour. Plus Ashley's real-time "I choose joy" moment when a surprise Saturday shift demolished her plans for the weekend.

What they've landed on: sleep is the foundation. After that, the challenge is to schedule 15-20 minutes of something genuinely fun — not as a reward that comes last and never arrives, but as its own block. For Josh that's sim racing and fiction audiobooks on the commute. For Ashley it's Formula 1 and choosing gratitude when the week goes sideways.

If this episode resonates, go back and listen to Episode 38, When Discipline Becomes a Cage — it picks up right where this one starts.

In This Episode:

• Why high performers build a superiority complex around productivity
• Josh's gaming and car-work era — and why he quit both
• Ashley on watching the discipline shift from the outside
• The Elite Leadership Blueprint's case for 15-20 min of daily scheduled fun
• Why the fear of backsliding makes rest feel dangerous
• Sabbath, faith, and intentional grounding vs. "balance"
• Losing spontaneity in marriage — and what to do about it
• Ashley's live "I choose joy" moment when Saturday work happened
• Three challenges: sleep, daily fun, and intentional connection

Related Episodes:

Optimizing Sleep (Ep 29)

Over-optimization (Ep 28)

Optimize Friendships (Ep 20)

Resources:

The Elite Leadership Blueprint by Brandon Thornhill

I Choose Joy by Danelle Delgado

Atomic Habits by James Clear

This description contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

In this episode, we explore four execution frameworks — and which ones moments call for.

Standard productivity advice says tackle the hardest thing first. But that's one tool, not a system. Josh breaks down four execution frameworks he personally uses — and why the goal isn't to pick the best one, but to know when to deploy each.

Low-hanging fruit first: not a cop-out. When you're elite in business but starting from zero in health, the method that builds momentum beats the one that's theoretically optimal. Dave Ramsey's debt snowball works for the same reason — a snowball you actually roll beats the mathematically perfect payoff plan you eventually abandon.

Hardest thing first (Eat the Frog): CrossFit taught Josh this. Doing something brutal early creates a psychological anchor that makes the rest of the day feel manageable. More importantly, it builds the muscle of doing uncomfortable things on a daily basis — one of the most transferable skills in any role.

80/20 Prioritize and Execute: identify the 20% of tasks that drive 80% of results. Within that, watch for the avalanche task — the one thing that unlocks everything downstream. If you're the bottleneck, you want to know it and move first. Also covered: always ask for a deadline when none is given, and get clear on what you can delegate vs. what only you can do.

Interest-led daily attention: the growth component of Danelle's Four G framework — 30 minutes of learning every day. Josh's case for letting it be interest-led: burnout is real, and the habit you stick with beats the optimal one you quit. One year he read 30+ books. Great — and occasionally a grind. Curiosity keeps you engaged, and the neuroplasticity benefits follow regardless of topic.

Challenge this week: audit your current goals and ask which of these four frameworks fits the season you're actually in.

In This Episode:

• Low-hanging fruit: when momentum beats optimization
• The Dave Ramsey debt snowball principle applied to habits
• Eat the frog: CrossFit, cold plunges, and doing hard things first
• The avalanche task — the linchpin that unblocks your whole workflow
• 80/20 execution: due dates, delegation, and the tasks only you can do
• Interest-led learning and how to prevent daily growth from becoming a grind
• Danelle's Four G's and the growth framework

Related Episodes:

• The Four G's (Ep 21)
• Discipline versus Motivation (Ep 5)
• Progress over Perfection (Ep 4)

Resources:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• I Choose Joy by Danelle Delgado

This description contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The habit didn't stop being useful — but the fuel behind it did. Josh unpacks what happens when discipline gets hijacked by ego, fear, and streaks.

For over a decade, Josh never missed a workout. Late flights, two hours of sleep, didn't matter. He was proud of that. But looking back, the fuel wasn't just commitment to health — it was fear of failure, fear of backsliding, and a perfectionism that wouldn't let him choose sleep over the gym even when sleep was the smarter call.

In this solo episode, Josh explores the line between discipline that serves you and discipline that controls you.

Three stories frame it: a trainer who told their client "no minimum sleep, no workout the next day"; a friend whose coach pointed out their streak was more about ego and bragging than the habit itself; and Josh's own water-tracking app confession — going back to fill in missed entries for a streak that nobody else could even see.

The deeper issue: when fear, anxiety, shame, and ego are the fuels behind good habits, breaking the streak for one day can trigger a full backslide. Josh walks through how to run an honest inventory on your motivators — not to drop the habit, but to clean up what's driving it.

He also shares how his sleep overhaul changed everything. Over 18 months, in 30-minute increments, sleep became the foundation. For the first time, when the math didn't work, the workout gave way. His Whoop data confirmed it: sleep duration and consistency have the highest net effect on his longevity metric — more than anything else he tracks.

The challenge this week: pick one habit, run it through the friction test, and ask — are you doing this for the benefit it gives you, or is something else driving it?

In This Episode:

• When a good habit stops serving you and starts controlling you
• The streak ego trap — and how a trainer called it out
• Josh's water app confession: tracking the streak, not the habit
• Good, better, best: a framework for evaluating your motivators
• How fear and shame turn one missed day into a full backslide
• Josh's 18-month sleep overhaul — and why sleep now wins over the gym
• What Whoop data revealed about sleep and longevity
• Showing yourself grace without producing laziness

Related Episodes:

• Progress over Perfection (Ep 4)
• When You Feed (Ep 14)
• Optimizing Sleep (Ep 29)

Resources:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Whoop Strap
• I Choose Joy by Danelle Delgado

Contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.