There's a phrase I use all the time. With my kids. With my wife. I even say it at the TV when a pundit is losing their mind about something that clearly has nothing to do with what they're actually upset about.

Remember what you're mad at.

Because most of the time when someone is angry, they're not actually angry at what they're reacting to. The partner who gets snapped at about something small. The friend who catches a reaction way bigger than what they said. The kid who's standing right there when something goes wrong.

That last one is personal. I have a story about my oldest son, a toddler, and a flight of basement stairs that I've been carrying for a long time. And somewhere in the middle of recording this episode I realized the apology I gave him wasn't complete.

This episode is about where anger actually belongs versus where it lands. What it quietly does to the people closest to you when it keeps going to the wrong place. And what it actually means to own it fully, not just enough to move past it.

This one connects to two FOPICA pillars, Ownership and Intentionality, because fixing this takes both.

And yes. I'm calling my son after this.

The FOPICA Principle is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
How Long Do I Wait to Honk? is also available on Amazon.

I'm going to tell you something I have never said on a podcast before.

I cannot poop anywhere but my own bathroom. Not a hotel. Not a friend's house. Not a four hundred dollar vacation rental with heated floors. My bathroom. That's it. That's the only place it happens.

And I travel for work constantly.

This episode started as a confession and turned into something I didn't expect. Because when I really looked at what was going on with the bathroom situation, I realized it had nothing to do with bathrooms. It's about control. Familiarity. Waiting for conditions to be exactly right before you do the thing.

Sound familiar?

We talk about the guest bathroom version of your dream. The comfort zone and what it actually is. The question you need to ask yourself about what you're holding onto and why. And why the hotel bathroom being perfectly fine is the whole point.

Oh, and I'm recording this on a Friday. Monday I leave for a three day shoot in Hocking Hills, Ohio. Staying in a cabin. With my whole crew. No my bathroom anywhere in sight.

Does a bear shit in the woods? Yes. I will not be joining them. But I'm going anyway.

This episode connects to the Ownership pillar of FOPICA.

The FOPICA Principle is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
How Long Do I Wait to Honk? is also available on Amazon.

You say it all the time. Well, you know what they say... They say you're supposed to. They say you shouldn't. They say people like you don't do things like that.

But here's the question nobody ever asks: Who is they?

They doesn't have a name. They doesn't have credentials. They has never met you, doesn't know your circumstances, and has no authority over your life whatsoever. And yet you've been living by their rules.

In this episode we break down exactly what they actually is. It is a composite of every voice, expectation, and unspoken rule you've absorbed over a lifetime. Your parents. Your culture. Social media. A teacher who said something offhand twenty years ago that you were never supposed to carry this far.

And then we get to the part that's harder to hear.

They is you. At some point you stopped needing the external voice because you built your own. You became the enforcer of your own limitations. And that internal they, the one that sounds like wisdom but is actually fear... is the most expensive employee you've never fired.

This episode connects to the Clarity and Ownership pillars of FOPICA, and includes a five step practical process for identifying your specific they belief, tracing it back to its source, and doing something about it today.

The FOPICA Principle is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
How Long Do I Wait to Honk? is also available on Amazon.

We lie to ourselves every day. And the most ridiculous part? We know we're doing it.

Not complicated lies. Simple, comfortable, convenient ones that give us permission to stay where we are. We call them excuses. We call them timing. We call them practicality. But when you start looking at them honestly, they're lies. And the moment you call them lies instead of excuses, something shifts that you can't undo.

In this episode we talk about why we lie to ourselves, what those lies are actually protecting us from, and how to identify the specific one that's costing you the most right now. I'll give you a three step process you can use tonight to name your lie, test it, and replace it with something true.

This connects directly to the Ownership pillar of FOPICA. You cannot own your life while lying about it. Real ownership starts with real honesty. Not the comfortable version. The actual truth.

You already know which lie is yours. You've known for a while.

The FOPICA Principle is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
How Long Do I Wait to Honk? is also available on Amazon.

You complete me.

Three words from a 1996 movie that quietly broke a generation's understanding of what love is supposed to look like. It sounds romantic. In practice it might be one of the most damaging ideas we've normalized in relationships.

In this episode I'm making the case that completion is the wrong goal entirely. Two half-people don't make a whole relationship. Two whole people make something better than either of them could build alone.

We talk about the difference between completing and complementing. Why your partner should be the insurance policy, not the gas in your car. What it actually looks like when two complete people choose each other. And how to start doing the quiet, unglamorous work of becoming whole so you have something real to bring to the table.

This one connects to the Intentionality pillar of FOPICA. You don't become complete by accident. It requires deliberate choice.

The FOPICA Principle is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
How Long Do I Wait to Honk? is also available on Amazon.

Welcome to the FOPICA Podcast.

I'm David Jones: filmmaker, writer, director, producer, and the guy who wrote a book about taking action while waiting for the perfect moment to start a podcast. The irony was loud enough that I couldn't ignore it anymore.

This is the introduction episode. You'll learn who I am, what FOPICA stands for, and what this podcast is... and isn't.

No hype. No motivation that wears off by the end of the week. No guru on a mountaintop telling you to manifest your best life. Just a real conversation about six principles that actually work when you actually use them.

F — Focus. Pick one thing. Give it everything.
O — Ownership. Stop blaming. Own all of it.
P — Persistence. Show up even when you don't feel like it.
I — Intentionality. Stop living on autopilot.
C — Clarity. Get clear on what you actually want.
A — Action. The one everything else is useless without.

That's FOPICA. And this podcast is what happens when I apply those six principles to real life. The messy, complicated, beautiful, frustrating real life that most of us are actually living.

The FOPICA Principle is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
How Long Do I Wait to Honk? is also available on Amazon.

New episodes dropping soon. Stay close.