Get Curious, Not Relentless: The ‘Unfancy’ Way to Start

Written By Rhonda Lavoie

Show Notes

Have you ever had a "What If" idea that you immediately killed with "How?"

How could I possibly start that business? How could I write a book? How would I find the time?

That "how" is just overwhelm in disguise. It traps us in analysis paralysis, often leading us right back to the "mind-numbing pit" of doomscrolling to escape the pressure. In this episode, I’m sharing the origin story of the Paced App. It wasn’t a lightning strike moment, and it wasn't a result of a relentless, sleepless hustle.

The truth? I sat on the idea for six months. And that gap wasn't a failure—it was marinating.

Join me as I break down how a random podcast episode and a $6 coffee helped me stop worrying about the "how" and simply get curious. We’ll talk about why you don’t need a five-year plan to start, and how shifting your mindset from "relentless" to "curious" can finally help you get out of your own way.

Tired of losing hours to the scroll? You're not alone. It’s not a moral failing; it’s a design problem. I'm building a tool to help us take back control. Join the 'Paced' app waitlist at getpaced.app.

In This Episode:

  • (00:00) - The "Pit of Despair" and the Facebook post that started it all

  • (03:07) - The six-month gap: Why delays are often "marinating," not failing

  • (03:54) - The Distraction: Building a Real Estate dashboard instead of the dream

  • (06:30) - The "Nudge": How a Mel Robbins episode connected the dots

  • (08:54) - The "UnFancy" First Step: Ordering a coffee and opening Gemini

  • (14:35) - The Lesson: Why you need to be "Curious," not "Relentless"

  • (17:00) - Why the "How" is just overwhelm in disguise

  • (18:13) - Recap & Your Weekly Challenge

Resources Mentioned:

This Week's Challenge:

The 10-Minute Investigation. I don't want you to be relentless this week; I just want you to get curious. Identify one recurring idea—that little "what if" that keeps popping up. Give that idea the "unfancy respect" of a 10-minute investigation. Go to a coffee shop, open a document, or ask AI one question. Don't commit to building it, just get curious and see what happens

🔗 CONNECT WITH RHONDA

Music for The Rhonda Lavoie Podcast: "Sunny Days" by Jimmy Gunnarsson via Descript.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Back on January 14th, 2025, I posted something on my personal Facebook page and I wanna read it to you word for word I wrote. I have an idea for a phone app. What if there was an app that would lock you out of an app after a set time? Or if you wanted back in sooner, you'd have to get a minimum amount of steps or activity.

[00:00:26] The flaw in the limit apps is that you can use all your daily time at once, which is often too much time at once. Does this make sense? Does anyone have or know of such an app? And then in the comments, I replied to a friend, Sherryl, and I want to read that part to you too because I think it's even more important.

[00:00:45] I wrote, we want to be in social media. But also do not want to be sucked into the mind numbing, endless pit of scrolling, despair. Let's face it, the social media platforms are really good at keeping us on the platform. They have spent millions of dollars perfecting the algorithm to keep us there. So what really isn't our fault that we get stuck there?

[00:01:10] , And I believe if we can just be forced to step away, we will reduce the amount of time lost in it. Reading that back, that mind numbing pit, that wasn't just a figure of speech. I was describing exactly where I was.

[00:01:27] I felt that numbness in my bones. I knew logically that the algorithm was designed to trap me, but emotionally I was letting it happen because I needed the escape. I was using that pit to zone out from my to-do list to hide from the pressure. And if I'm being honest, it was just pure overwhelm. I checked my phone for a minute and bam, 45 minutes were gone.

[00:01:53] And I'd feel even more behind, which just made everything worse. But the key to that post, to that comment I made to Sherryl is that I knew it wasn't a moral failing. It wasn't a me problem, it was a design problem. The tools were flawed or technically working perfectly as planned, but it was just an idea that app.

[00:02:21] And I let it sit for six whole months.

[00:02:26] Welcome to The Rhonda Lavoie Podcast. I'm your host, Rhonda Lavoie, and each week we dig into the real stories and the unfancy systems for personal growth. We explore the real reasons we get stuck, like overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and exhaustion. And we learn how to get out of our own way.

[00:02:47] This is the show that's all about getting it done and keeping it real. Let's get into it. So today we're talking about that idea, the one from the Facebook post. This is the origin story of The Paced App. But it's not the story you might think. It's not this lightning strike moment.

[00:03:07] It was a slow burn. It was a pattern. Back when I wrote that post in January, I was deep in that struggle. I was procrastinating my to-do list. I was feeling overwhelmed, and I was seeing so many people around me who are maybe even worse off than I was losing 2, 3, 4 hours a day, just stuck in the scroll.

[00:03:31] And I just thought there had to be a better way, a way that wasn't about punishment or phone jail, but a partnership. But again, just an idea. And I'm a busy person. I'm a real estate agent. I'm a mom. I have this podcast. And to be totally honest, my brain was already focusing on another project between the January post and the summer.

[00:03:54] I, I actually built a different app. I know, but stick with me. It was a dashboard just for me, you see, in my real estate career. Uh, I was getting really frustrated with having to re-pull a bunch of data all the time just to find simple trends. I just wanted to get my answers faster without having to pull these 10 different spreadsheets and manipulate them.

[00:04:16] And I wanted to use AI to help me be more efficient. So I did what I do and I built this tool. And one day I was showing it to my wife, crystal, and it just so happened that her brother was there too, watching me walk her through all this. And that was kind of it.

[00:04:31] I was just excited about this new tool I had created. But a little bit later, crystal comes to me and she tells me that her brother had said something to her afterwards. She says, you know, my brother was so impressed. He told me he thinks you're the smartest person he knows. And he said, Rhonda should sell that dashboard.

[00:04:51] Other agents would find it so useful. They would no doubt be willing to pay for it.

[00:04:58] Now the smartest person he knows. Oh, that's a definitely a stretch and a little bit over the top, but I'm not gonna lie, I loved hearing it. My ego drank it right up. It felt really, really good. But jokes aside, looking at the actual idea, he wasn't wrong. I'm sure agents would pay for an app like that, but.

[00:05:18] Even with that validation, I had that instant gut check. In my heart, I knew that wasn't the dream, that wasn't the mountain I wanted to climb. The real estate dashboard, it just, it didn't light me up. It was a useful tool. Sure. Uh, but it wasn't a mission. It didn't solve that pit of despair. I was worried about.

[00:05:43] All this comment did this message from Crystal was act as a another flag, another signal. It wasn't a sign to build the dashboard app, it was a sign that I was supposed to build an app, and that app I was meant to build was Paced. So I just, I just kept the dashboard app to myself and I kept moving. But that Paced idea.

[00:06:09] It didn't let me go. It just kept popping up everywhere. Now let's fast forward. Um, it's July, I'm in my truck. Uh, driving back from a client appointment and I'm doing what I always do and listening to a podcast. It was a Mel Robbins podcast, and the episode was something like, do these three things and it will improve your life.

[00:06:36] And she was explaining how her and her team had gone back through all of the past episodes and the past conversations with guests, and analyzed everything and found the top three trends of those conversations. So the top three things that showed up in all of these conversations. And these three things, uh, if you did them, would change your life.

[00:06:56] And as she started discussing the first point, she had my attention, she said, point number one, you need to get more exercise, move more, get your steps in.

[00:07:07] And as she expanded on this point and started to get into the details and, you know, go into the ins and outs of it, I started thinking back to that post, that January post I was driving. But in my head I was seeing the, seeing those words again.

[00:07:23] That what if you had to get a minimum amount of steps. It was actually a little bit eerie how it all happened, and then she hit point number two. She said something like, we need to use our phones less. We need to take back the control. And as she went into the details talking about how the phones control us, et cetera, it didn't hit me like a shock. It wasn't like this lightning bolt. It was more of like this wave of acceptance of like, okay, this is like the last thing to pop up that I, I just, I need to act. It was actually kind of a quiet little Oh, okay.

[00:08:08] It was the universe or my subconscious, or whatever you wanna call it. Basically tapping me on the shoulder and saying, are you paying attention yet? I'm not going to be subtle anymore. I'm gonna start throwing this in your face. Those two things, the steps and the phone control , the exact two halves of the idea I had six months earlier.

[00:08:30] I knew right in that moment that this was the last sign I needed. The idea had kept popping up over and over and over and over again. It was just time to take this way more seriously. So I didn't drive home and I didn't add research app idea to my to-do list.

[00:08:54] I was just about back in the city and I was very near my favorite coffee shop, the TOT Cafe. So I pulled in. I walked in and I ordered my favorite coffee, a large caramel macchiato, extra hot. I grabbed my table number and I headed upstairs to my favorite spot.

[00:09:12] I opened my laptop and I opened Gemini, and I just, I, I needed to pause here for a second because I didn't sit down to build an app. I didn't know how to build an app. You know, the thought even, even now, is kind of terrifying. What I did though is I sat down to get curious to investigate, and that was the key.

[00:09:44] I was just giving myself permission to give this thought, this idea some space and, and treat it a little bit more seriously. So I literally opened a chat and I explained to Gemini basically what I'm explaining to you right now. I have this idea back in January. It keeps coming up. I just heard this podcast.

[00:10:10] I need to investigate what this means, what does it take to build an app? And we were off for hours. I sat there . And this, by the way, is exactly what I was talking about in, in episode six, how I use AI as my creative partner. So, you know, if, if you don't use ai, uh, and you want to get curious and you know, maybe do something like this, you can go back and listen to that episode six.

[00:10:40] It'll, it'll help you a lot. But, uh, back to the original story.

[00:10:45] So for hours I sat there. And with Gemini I told it. Um, you know, I told it about the comment I wrote in January, said, I don't want to build another app. I, I want to avoid the pit of despair. How do I build something that breaks the algorithm hold. I asked, what are the flaws in the current apps?

[00:11:06] What would a shame-free app even look like? Brainstorm some names with me, and we went back and forth, and ultimately, Gemini suggested the Paced name, so P-A-C-E-D. It suggested, uh, actually a bunch of names, but kept coming back to paced.

[00:11:25] It just felt right. It wasn't about stopping. It was about pacing, like pacing ourselves. And Gemini helped me define why it was a perfect fit. It helped me find the tagline, Paced your time, your pace. It was, it was all actually pretty amazing, but my computer died, my computer battery ran out, so I drove home, plugged in my computer, and I actually just kept going.

[00:11:53] I continued on with that conversation until 11:00 PM at night. Which is actually very outta character for me. I'm usually starting my bedtime routine by eight 30, sleeping shortly after nine. My wife, crystal, she knew something was up right away because I was, the lights were still in the office.

[00:12:10] Uh, but she's kind of used to that because when I start a new project, I get. You know, super hyper-focused. But anyway, and by the time I finally shut my laptop that night, uh, I had the name, I had the tagline, I had reserved URLs, I had, you know, a new email address. I had the first steps for, um, developer, um, how I was gonna go about doing all of that.

[00:12:36] And I had a plan. And honestly, I knew that I was gonna build an app. I was on that path. It all had started and it only started because I had that kind of, that pattern interrupt and I decided to pull over. You know, I could have just finished listening to that podcast and done nothing thing, but I chose to get curious.

[00:13:06] Oh, and by the way, you might be wondering, you know, what was point number three in the podcast? I honestly have no idea. I was so excited to get started. So fired up with these first two points that I didn't even pay attention to. What the third one was? It, it just didn't matter. I was curious and I was ready to get into it.

[00:13:24] Hey, real quick. We're talking about this story, about this why, and I wanna be real about how we all cope with that feeling. How many times when you feel that trigger, that overwhelm, that exhaustion?

[00:13:38] Do you just check your phone for a minute, only to look up 45 minutes later, wondering where the time went? That's the unconscious escape we talk about. We think we're scrolling for pleasure, but we're really scrolling to escape a feeling. That's the exact reason I'm building the Paced App

[00:13:58] It's not a punishment or a jail for your phone. It's a partner. It's a simple, non-judgmental tool that gives you a gentle pattern interrupt a pause. So you can be the one to decide, did I get the laugh I came here for, or am I just stuck? This podcast is where we talk about the why and The Paced App is the tool for the how.

[00:14:21] To join the wait list and follow the journey, visit getpaced.cap. That's G-E-T-P-A-C-E-D doc A-P-P All right, let's get back to the show.

[00:14:35] Okay, so I wanna pause here because this is actually the most important part of this episode. This is the lesson I just told you the story about how I went hyper-focused until 11:00 PM at night.

[00:14:48] And look, I'm gonna be honest with you, that is just my wiring. When I set my mind to something, I can get pretty relentless, but I also know that can be really intimidating to hear. I know that for a lot of people, a story like that doesn't feel inspiring. It feels exhausting. It can trigger that little voice maybe and says , see, I'm not relentless.

[00:15:12] I don't have that kind of hyper focus. So I guess I'm not cut out for this. I need you to hear me. That 11:00 PM part, that is actually not the lesson. That's just my personality. That byproduct, if you will, the real lesson, the part of the story that anyone can have, the part that matters. It happened at 3:00 PM The win wasn't the eight hour marathon or whatever it was.

[00:15:40] The win was ordering the coffee. The win was opening the laptop. The win was giving myself permission to investigate The win. Was asking one curious question, and you know what else? It's okay that it took six months. I know that some of you were doing the math January to July. That's six months. Six months where I sat on that idea, six months where I built other things, six months where I worried about that pit of despair,

[00:16:12] but didn't have the solution yet, and that's okay. That gap wasn't failure, it wasn't procrastination, it was marinating. If I had forced myself back in January, honestly I probably would've built the wrong thing. I would've built another one of those restricting apps that feels like punishment. I needed those six months.

[00:16:36] I needed the idea to grow a bit. So don't look at the delay as failure. Sometimes that delay is exactly what the idea needs. The lesson today though is get curious, not relentless. So many of us, especially women, have these what if ideas and we immediately kill them with how? How can I possibly build an app?

[00:17:05] How could I ever start a business? How would I find the time? And that how is just overwhelm in disguise. It's the all or nothing trap that keeps us stuck. You don't need to be relentless. You just need to be curious. You don't need to have a five year plan. You just need one un fancy step. My unfancy first step was a $6 coffee and a single question. . This whole story is the perfect example of what this podcast is all about. This show, this is the place where we talk about the why, right? The real reason we get stuck. The overwhelm, the exhaustion, the imposter syndrome, and The Paced App. Well, that's the how.

[00:17:48] It's the tool that came from exploring that, why! It all works together. And it all started not with a burst of relentless energy, but with a quiet moment of acceptance and a single curious unfancy step. So your challenge for this week, I don't want you to be relentless.

[00:18:13] I just want you to get curious. What is one. Reoccurring idea. That little thing, that little what if that keeps popping up? You don't have to build it. You don't have to commit to it. You just have to investigate it. Give it 10 minutes. Open a document. Go to a coffee shop.

[00:18:34] Ask AI one curious question. Maybe it's an idea you have for a book. But you have no idea how to write a book. Or maybe it's, you know, idea for how to create meal plans for your family and you're not sure where to start. Uh, maybe it's something along the lines of, you know, an exercise plan. maybe it's some ideas for a new business that you thought you'd like to go into, or maybe you're looking to change careers, but you're not sure how to, how to start. Or maybe you wanna go back to school and you're not sure how to even do that. Or maybe you're having some troubles sleeping and you wanna come up with a new routine.

[00:19:21] There's just so many things, so just get curious. Take 10 minutes and ask some questions. That's it. Just give your idea that unfancy respect of a 10 minute investigation. Get curious and see what happens. Alright, that's what I've got for you this week. Thanks for hanging out with me. I really do appreciate it.

[00:19:47] Remember, this is The Rhonda Lavoie Podcast, and this is where we focus on getting it done and keeping it real. If today's conversation was helpful, the easiest way to make sure you don't miss the next one is to hit follow or subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday.

[00:20:04] You can find the show notes in the full transcript for this episode Over at rhondalavoie.com. And hey, if you're interested in The Paced App, my project, that's all about helping you take back your time at your pace, you can follow the journey at get

Rhonda Lavoie
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