2634: What's the Way Forward? How to Take Action in Uncertain Times

LifeBlood: What’s the way forward? For starters…it’s forward. You cannot change the past, reclaim lost years, or undo what happened to you. You can forgive, learn, accept reality, determine your next best move, and start moving. This episode explores why victimhood is a losing strategy, why maintaining the status quo isn’t enough, the importance of gateway actions when you feel lost, and our responsibility to steward and strengthen the things that matter. Good things require good people to continually invest in them. The future is being built whether you participate or not. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of You’re Money Isn’t the Problem- You Are here: https://amzn.to/4uDYFRz Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live http://lifeblood.live/, Twitter https://twitter.com/ourlifeblood, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lifebloodlive, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeblood.live/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ9Gc4mMwCHZKUHjbt0-qA and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifebloodlive or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates https://george-grombacher.aweb.page. Copyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  What's the way forward? Big question, that is a big question. What's the way forward for your life, for your career, for your community, for our country, for civilization? What's the way forward? Well, for starters, the way forward is forward. It's not backwards. You cannot go back and undo what happened. You cannot un-say what was said. You can't un-make that mistake. You cannot reclaim the years. You cannot change your childhood. You can't choose different parents. You cannot rewrite history. And you cannot build a meaningful life while spending all your time looking into the rearview mirror. At some point, you've got to move forward.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  And that's what I want to talk about today. The past, it's a seductive thing because it's known. The future obviously isn't. And when something bad has happened to us, that's an understandable, there is an understandable temptation to keep returning to it, to replay it, to relitigate it, to resent it, to wish with all our heart that it had been different. Sometimes, we even begin to build an identity around it. I was wronged. I was cheated. I was abandoned. I was discriminated against. I didn't get the opportunity. The system rigged against me. And that might all very well be true.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I'm not, I'm not asking you to pretend that it wasn't. But here's the problem. You can be completely right about what happened to you and completely wrong about what you should do next. And that is a critically important distinction because victimhood can describe something that happened. But it's a terrible strategy for what's going to be happening next. And yet, here we are. We argue all the time for our limitations. We protect them. We collect evidence supporting them. We explain all the reasons why we can't possibly move forward. And maybe, maybe, just maybe, we've been conditioned to doing that. Maybe we've been rewarded for doing exactly that.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Maybe there are entire institutions reinforcing that line or that way of thinking. Doesn't matter. It's still a losing strategy. One that must be abandoned at all costs as quickly as possible. Because eventually, the question does become, whether we like it or not, now what? Here we are. What are you going to do next? That's one of the reasons that I know forgiveness is so important. Forgiveness doesn't mean we're pretending that something didn't happen. Doesn't mean that we're approving of what somebody did. Doesn't even require reconciliation. It just means refusing to continue carrying the past into the future.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  It's putting down something that you've been carrying that no longer serves you. Resentment keeps you tethered to what happened. Forgiveness, well, that's creating a possibility of moving forward. You forgive, you learn, you adjust, and you move. Because the goal isn't to win an argument about yesterday. The goal is to build tomorrow.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  There's also another mistake that we make. Because sometimes we think the answer is simply protecting what we've already got, conserving it, maintaining it, keeping everything exactly as it is. But that's not moving forward either. Because nothing ever stays exactly as it is. Time is constantly working on everything. Your body, your relationships, your skills, your knowledge, your organization, your community, civilization as a whole, everything deteriorates without investment. Your physical strength declines unless you challenge your muscles. Your cognitive abilities diminish unless you continue using and developing them. Relationships will weaken without intention, without attention. Organizations become horrible bureaucracies.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Institutions become complacent. And cultures forget why their civilization, their customs and traditions even existed in the first place. Entire civilizations decay. Entropy is undefeated. Which means maintenance itself requires work and progress. Well, that requires even more. So the way forward isn't merely holding on to what you've got. You've got to keep things going. You've got to keep good going. And that happens through investment, through the investment of time, through the investment of attention, energy, the investment of money, so your most valuable resources. Whatever you value, that requires stewardship.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Famous line from Winston Churchill said that, "When you're going through hell, keep going." And that's pretty good advice. Because what would the alternative be? Stopping in hell? Posting up right here for a little bit? No, thanks. Keep moving. And I think that the same principle applies when you're lost. Imagine you're lost in the woods. You realize you don't know where you are. You don't know exactly how you got there. And you're not entirely sure which direction you need to go. So what do you do? Simply sitting down and obsessing over every wrong turn is not going to get you home. Another is blaming the person who gave you bad directions. Another is pretending that you're not lost.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  You've got to assess your situation. Got to get your bearings, determine your next best move, and then start moving. I've talked before about these gateway actions. And that's simply the thing that gets you moving again. It's not the complete solution. It's the next best useful action. If your finances are a mess, maybe it's opening every account that you've got and figuring out exactly what it is that you owe. If your health has deteriorated, maybe it's putting your shoes back on, taking a little walk around the block. If your marriage is struggling, maybe it's initiating the conversation that you've been avoiding. If your career is stagnant, maybe it's making that phone call. If your community is struggling, maybe it's showing up to the next meeting.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  You don't always need the entire map. Sometimes you just need the next coordinate. Because movement, that creates information. And action is going to give feedback. Feedback is going to start you on the path towards clarity. And clarity allows you to adjust your course. And that's how you get out of the woods.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  And here we are. I understand why people feel disenfranchised. I understand why people feel they've been dealt, been dealt a bad hand. And sometimes they have.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. Cool fall nights always make me want to entertain more. A few friends around the table, maybe a fire outside when the sun goes down. Before everyone comes over, I stop at Total Wine & More. Right now, there's a cranberry flavored wine, a crisp apple wine,

• 8:14Speaker 00

  even a pumpkin spice cream that's perfect in coffee after dinner. And with the lowest prices, I can bring home a few different fall flavors for everyone to try. Find your favorite fall flavors at the lowest prices at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Must be 21.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  There are unfair systems. There are corrupt institutions. There are bad, misaligned incentives. There are dishonest people. Bad luck is a thing. Tragedy happens. There are many circumstances. In fact, most completely outside of our control. And here we are. I come back to something I say all the time. We have to interact with the world as it is, not as we want it to be. We have to interact with the world not as we want it to be. You don't have to like reality, but you do have to acknowledge it because only then can you begin changing it. Accepting reality, it's not surrender, that's orientation. So figuring out exactly where you are on the map so you can determine where you want to go next.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  This is where the conversation becomes a lot more than personal development. Because we're not just passengers. We're stewards. We inherited lots of stuff from the people that came before us. Families, communities, institutions, traditions, knowledge, infrastructure, norms, trust, freedom, opportunity, a constitution, a bill of rights, a mildly functioning government.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  And now it's our turn. Our responsibility isn't simply to consume what we've inherited. It's to steward it. We have to strengthen what deserves strengthening. We must repair what needs repairing and then discard what no longer works. We have to build what isn't even in existence yet and pass something worthwhile forward. Because here's something we all must remember. You're not the only person trying to shape the future. Other people are also working towards their vision of tomorrow at the same time. And maybe, just maybe, their vision is completely different and maybe even contrary

• 10:30Speaker 01

  to yours. And that's part of living in a free society, which means a high trust society doesn't maintain itself. It requires vigilance, participation, contribution, and stewardship. Good people like you and I can't simply assume that good things will continue indefinitely. Good things require good people to continually invest in them. So what's the way forward? First, forward. Stop trying to recover a past that no longer exists. It's gone. Forgive what needs forgiving, learn what needs learning, release the resentment, and

• 11:12Speaker 01

  refuse to build your identity around what happened to you. Accept the world as it currently exists. Figure out where you are, decide where you want to go, find that gateway action, take it, start moving, invest in what matters, protect what deserves protecting, improve what needs improving, and build what needs building. Contribute to the future by creating, contribute by creating the future that you want for your kids and your grandkids. As you were handed something, you will be handing your kids and my kids something as well. You don't need to know every step. You don't need certainty. You're not going to find it. You don't need perfect. You just need direction.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  And then you need movement because you can't change yesterday and standing still isn't actually standing still. Time is going to move on whether you do or not. So what's the way forward? Well, for starters, it's forward. What we're talking about here as always is doing your part by doing your best.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Cool fall nights always make me want to entertain more. A few friends around the table, maybe a fire outside when the sun goes down. Before everyone comes over, I stop at Total Wine & More. Right now, there's a cranberry flavored wine, a crisp apple wine, even a pumpkin spice cream that's perfect in coffee after dinner. And with the lowest prices, I can bring home a few different fall flavors for everyone to try. Find your favorite fall flavors at the lowest prices at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Must be 21.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  With the Amex Gold Card, you can earn four times points at US supermarkets because the best nights in start with the grocery run that makes it happen. And when meals come with four times points, moments around the table add up to even more. Apply today and find out your welcome offer, which could be as high as 100,000 points. Learn more at americanexpress.com/explore-gold. Terms and points cap apply.