Latest / The You Project / #1792 An Unambitious Life - Harps

Transcript

#1792 An Unambitious Life - Harps · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get at Welcome to another installing the new project.
0:02
Speaker 1: It's me. I hope you're great. Hope you're great. Now,
0:07
Speaker 1: before we kick off, I wanted to tell you we're
0:11
Speaker 1: doing a We're doing a thing called the typ seven
0:15
Speaker 1: day Kickstart. It's free. It starts on our next Friday.
0:21
Speaker 1: I'm recording this Sunday night, which I think is tenth, eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth,
0:25
Speaker 1: all enter this month. I should off top of my head,
0:27
Speaker 1: but I don't. For fourteenth it's a week of me coaching, coercing, educating,
0:37
Speaker 1: probably being a little bit silly. Any of you who
0:43
Speaker 1: feel like you need a little bit of momentum, need
0:47
Speaker 1: a little bit of a kick in the but Tom,
0:49
Speaker 1: I need a little bit of support to get the
0:52
Speaker 1: wheels turning, to get the wheels of change turning, to
0:57
Speaker 1: start to get a little bit of focus, to start
1:00
Speaker 1: to perhaps step into some kind of process structure, accountability.
1:07
Speaker 1: There's no hooks or catches, there's no on sell upsell,
1:12
Speaker 1: you don't pay anything. The way that it works is
1:15
Speaker 1: every day I'm going to put a video. Starting on
1:17
Speaker 1: Friday Friday, I'm going to put a video which is
1:21
Speaker 1: going to be fatty Harp sitting in his computer like
1:24
Speaker 1: right now, talking into the camera and the microphone, setting
1:29
Speaker 1: a range of different kind of tasks or goals or
1:36
Speaker 1: challenges for the day. There'll be different levels, so some
1:40
Speaker 1: of them might be physical, some of them might be
1:43
Speaker 1: more cerebral, cognitive, psychological, but there'll be there'll be something
1:48
Speaker 1: pretty much that everyone can do and it's not really
1:53
Speaker 1: somebody asked me today about it and they're like, how
1:57
Speaker 1: much can you change in seven days? Well, that's a
1:59
Speaker 1: good question, and there's I actually wouldn't mind doing an
2:02
Speaker 1: episode about that because the answer is you can change
2:05
Speaker 1: a lot in seven days. But there's a few variables
2:09
Speaker 1: around that, but it's not so much. Or we're going
2:12
Speaker 1: to get in shape, or we're going to completely you know,
2:15
Speaker 1: drop ten kilos, or we're going to reinvent our mind,
2:18
Speaker 1: or we're going to change all of our nasty habits
2:20
Speaker 1: or destructive habits, or we're going to overcome that thing
2:23
Speaker 1: that we haven't mean able to overcome for ten years.
2:26
Speaker 1: It's really about can you just do something for seven
2:29
Speaker 1: days and do it? Can you commit to something and
2:34
Speaker 1: just show up every day, whether it's fun or not fun,
2:37
Speaker 1: whether it's painful or painless, whether it's sexy or not sexy.
2:43
Speaker 1: Can you just go I'm going to do this thing
2:46
Speaker 1: and then every day turn up, watch the video, figure
2:51
Speaker 1: out which one of the challenges or tasks you're going
2:54
Speaker 1: to do, and then go away and do that. So
2:57
Speaker 1: for me, I'm way more interested in your a bity
3:00
Speaker 1: to just stick something out for seven days, even if
3:04
Speaker 1: you get to the point where you're like, fuck it,
3:06
Speaker 1: I'm not loving this or you've lost motivational focus, because
3:10
Speaker 1: this is kind of a metaphor for life. You know,
3:14
Speaker 1: if you can't do seven days, by the way, you know,
3:18
Speaker 1: if you want to jump in, good, If you don't,
3:20
Speaker 1: also good. But for those of you who do want
3:22
Speaker 1: to jump in, it's really your first goal. Your main
3:26
Speaker 1: goal is about just completing the seven days, because what
3:30
Speaker 1: we're trying to do is we're trying to create a
3:33
Speaker 1: little bit of psychological and emotional shift so that we
3:39
Speaker 1: just do something that maybe sucks a little bit and
3:43
Speaker 1: we don't throw in the towel anyway. I'm rambling. So
3:48
Speaker 1: if you want to get involved, go to the you
3:51
Speaker 1: Project Facebook page, you Project podcast facebook page and you'll
3:58
Speaker 1: see a little ad for it. Yesterday's podcast, which came out.
4:04
Speaker 1: What's Today's podcast? I record it yesterday, so Sunday's podcast.
4:09
Speaker 1: Just go below the promo for Sunday's podcast and right,
4:14
Speaker 1: I'm in, Right, I'm in, and then we'll know you're in.
4:17
Speaker 1: We're all going to start this Friday. Yes, we're starting Friday.
4:20
Speaker 1: Why are we starting Friday? Because fuck it, No one
4:22
Speaker 1: starts on Friday. Everyone starts on Monday. Monday's bullshit. Fuck it.
4:26
Speaker 1: We're starting Friday. Anyway, that's there. If you want to
4:29
Speaker 1: get involved, all right, Today, I want to talk to
4:31
Speaker 1: you about something that I've been thinking about for quite
4:36
Speaker 1: a while and I've been talking about for quite a
4:38
Speaker 1: while with clients, but I really haven't opened the door
4:43
Speaker 1: wide on the podcast, and that is to talk about
4:50
Speaker 1: ambition and whether or not ambition. And you think about
4:55
Speaker 1: the way that we operate. And I'm speaking generally and broadly,
5:00
Speaker 1: but in our culture very much, we are encouraged to
5:05
Speaker 1: be ambitious, be all you can be. You know, hustle, grind,
5:11
Speaker 1: make lots of dough, build a brand, build a business,
5:13
Speaker 1: build a career, do all that stuff. Get ripped, get jacked.
5:19
Speaker 1: I don't mean ripped as in off your head on drugs,
5:22
Speaker 1: I mean, lean and fit, get strong, you know, all
5:25
Speaker 1: that stuff. And of course there's nothing inherently wrong with that,
5:30
Speaker 1: but I think sometimes a good thing to do is
5:34
Speaker 1: to consider whether or not having that default setting of
5:39
Speaker 1: being ambitious and continually striving and wanting to grow and
5:45
Speaker 1: to push and hustle and keep climbing and keep climbing
5:50
Speaker 1: and keep climbing climbing. I wonder if that's always a
5:53
Speaker 1: good idea. I wonder if I wonder if for some
5:57
Speaker 1: people that's a good idea, but for some people it's not.
6:02
Speaker 1: And maybe for some people that hustle and the grind
6:04
Speaker 1: and the being wildly ambitious and driven and focused, maybe
6:09
Speaker 1: that's great for a period of time, and then maybe
6:12
Speaker 1: it's not. You know, there was a time in my
6:14
Speaker 1: life where I would say I was very ambitious and
6:21
Speaker 1: I built, you know, multiple businesses and did lots of
6:24
Speaker 1: cool things and made a few bucks and employed lots
6:26
Speaker 1: of people. And I don't think it was bad. I
6:29
Speaker 1: don't think it was bad. There were lots of boxes
6:34
Speaker 1: that got ticked. I helped people, I successfully launched multiple
6:42
Speaker 1: independent businesses, my career blossomed, my bank balance when okay,
6:48
Speaker 1: all of those things right, but there was for me
6:52
Speaker 1: a period of time where that worked, and then emotionally,
6:56
Speaker 1: psychologically and even dick practically experientially, for me, it didn't.
7:03
Speaker 1: I got to the point where, even though I was
7:06
Speaker 1: ticking all the success and ambition boxes and from the
7:10
Speaker 1: outside looking in, this is really important, from the outside
7:14
Speaker 1: looking in, it looked like I was doing great. And again,
7:18
Speaker 1: this is just my personal experience and my personal story.
7:21
Speaker 1: It won't be for everyone. But I kind of got
7:25
Speaker 1: to the point where I thought, I don't know that
7:28
Speaker 1: opening another gym and another business a different business, and
7:34
Speaker 1: writing another book necessarily or working on another media outlet
7:39
Speaker 1: not bad. But I don't know that that will necessarily
7:41
Speaker 1: equal more happiness, more contentment, more joy, more fulfillment. I
7:50
Speaker 1: don't know, this is what I was thinking. I don't
7:54
Speaker 1: know that there's a direct correlation between more achievement, more ambition,
8:01
Speaker 1: more success, and more joy. I don't know if all
8:06
Speaker 1: the boxes that I'm ticking in my external world are
8:10
Speaker 1: really ticking any or many boxes in my internal world.
8:15
Speaker 1: And I don't know for you either. So I think
8:20
Speaker 1: you know, things happen in our life, and there are
8:22
Speaker 1: times when something will work, and it could be a diet.
8:26
Speaker 1: It could be a relationship, it could be a job,
8:28
Speaker 1: it could be a certain operating system around something. A
8:33
Speaker 1: certain lifestyle will work, and then it won't because you've
8:36
Speaker 1: evolved or you've changed. You're different now, and so you
8:39
Speaker 1: need to employ some different kind of protocol or create
8:43
Speaker 1: a new operating system, or change your lifestyle, or change
8:47
Speaker 1: your career, or change the way that you do certain
8:50
Speaker 1: things because you're now different. And that's not good or bad.
8:53
Speaker 1: That's human. But as an observer of other people and
8:58
Speaker 1: a coach of other people and working with lots of
9:01
Speaker 1: people over the years, I'm pretty confident that being ambitious
9:07
Speaker 1: isn't always a great idea. I'm pretty confident that ticking
9:13
Speaker 1: all the boxes and even earning more and more money
9:17
Speaker 1: and building a bigger and better brand. While I don't
9:20
Speaker 1: think it's in and of itself a bad thing, of course,
9:25
Speaker 1: but I don't know that it always equals joy or
9:28
Speaker 1: happiness or contentment for the person in the middle of it. Now.
9:34
Speaker 1: I'm being presumptuous here because I'm assuming that the person
9:37
Speaker 1: in the middle of it doesn't want to have sleepless
9:41
Speaker 1: nights and doesn't want to be a chronic overthinker, or worrier,
9:44
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be anxious. And because we know that
9:48
Speaker 1: those things can coexist, we know that that external practical
9:53
Speaker 1: reality of success can coexist with an internal reality of mayhem,
10:01
Speaker 1: of psychological and emotional mayhem, mayhem and even devastation. We
10:08
Speaker 1: know that from the outside looking in someone's life as
10:11
Speaker 1: as an as an appearance or as a representation, somebody's
10:18
Speaker 1: life could appear to be bloody awesome on an external level,
10:23
Speaker 1: but we know that on an internal level, their life experience,
10:26
Speaker 1: that is how they experience life in the middle of
10:29
Speaker 1: all the stuff that we see, could be somewhere between
10:33
Speaker 1: average down to horrible and depressing and self destructive. So
10:43
Speaker 1: as I've gotten older, and again this is just me,
10:47
Speaker 1: but I'm less ambitious. I want to do things, I
10:52
Speaker 1: want to change things, and I have goals, but I
10:59
Speaker 1: for me, I'm I'm more about building I guess different,
11:05
Speaker 1: a different kind of bank balance. And yeah, it sounds
11:07
Speaker 1: nath maybe and it sounds I don't know, cliche. And
11:12
Speaker 1: of course I'm not allergic to making money, and of
11:15
Speaker 1: course I need to make money. I have people that
11:17
Speaker 1: work for me, and I've got bills to pay, just
11:19
Speaker 1: like all of you. But it's not my it's not
11:22
Speaker 1: my overarching goal. I'm well aware that I can make
11:27
Speaker 1: and there's been times in my life where I've made
11:30
Speaker 1: lots of money, way more money than I needed. I've
11:33
Speaker 1: made way more money than I needed. But I can
11:37
Speaker 1: absolutely say that those in those times, I wasn't exponentially
11:43
Speaker 1: happier than when I made less money. Again, this is
11:46
Speaker 1: just my experience. And so when I got clarity about
11:49
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, which was I didn't want
11:54
Speaker 1: to be an entrepreneur. I didn't want to have fifty businesses,
11:57
Speaker 1: I didn't want hundreds of people working for me, And
12:00
Speaker 1: this is just my revelation and my journey. And I
12:03
Speaker 1: figured out that, you know, what I wanted to do
12:05
Speaker 1: is essentially what I do now. I wanted to speak,
12:08
Speaker 1: I wanted to mentor, I wanted to coach people. I
12:11
Speaker 1: at the most wanted to have one or two employees.
12:13
Speaker 1: I wanted to write books. I wanted to be a
12:16
Speaker 1: lifelong student, which I am. I wanted to put myself
12:20
Speaker 1: in the middle of an ongoing learning and teaching journey.
12:25
Speaker 1: And I did that, and for me, that's been for me,
12:31
Speaker 1: that's been almost like the toning down of the ambition
12:36
Speaker 1: and the leaning into kind of that inner voice rather
12:41
Speaker 1: than that external kind of cultural voice where we're taught
12:46
Speaker 1: that success is about what people can see. Success is
12:50
Speaker 1: about what you know, what you have, and what you earn,
12:53
Speaker 1: and what you own, and what you drive, and where
12:55
Speaker 1: you live, and what you look like and what people
12:58
Speaker 1: think of you. And it's fair to say that we
13:02
Speaker 1: have something of a societal and cultural obsession. Well in
13:06
Speaker 1: Australia where I am anyway, we have something of a
13:09
Speaker 1: cultural success obsession, I should say with success, and that
13:14
Speaker 1: is generally focused on the stuff that I just mentioned.
13:18
Speaker 1: It's about it's about wealth and status, and it's about
13:22
Speaker 1: this constant growth, and it's about career and it's about
13:27
Speaker 1: ticking boxes. But I think it's good to pull back
13:30
Speaker 1: the curtain behind that when we look past the success
13:34
Speaker 1: and we look at the person behind it to see
13:37
Speaker 1: how they're traveling. And I think it's the same with
13:40
Speaker 1: us to be able to do something of a psychological
13:45
Speaker 1: and emotional and perhaps depending on your belief system, spiritual
13:48
Speaker 1: self audit where I'm like, well, in one way, my
13:52
Speaker 1: ambissi is producing results and my energy and my inspiration
13:55
Speaker 1: and my drive and my motivation, and I'm doing all
13:58
Speaker 1: of these things that are on a level good, But
14:01
Speaker 1: does that equate to the existence, the internal and external
14:06
Speaker 1: existence that I want to inhabit. I know for many
14:09
Speaker 1: people that I work with, the cost of ambition is anxiety,
14:14
Speaker 1: is stress, is burnout, is lack of satisfaction is the
14:22
Speaker 1: never enough mindset for some people, you know, no matter
14:29
Speaker 1: where they are, what they have, what they've achieved, what
14:33
Speaker 1: they're doing, it's never enough. It's not wherever they are,
14:38
Speaker 1: either literally or financially, or physiologically or professionally in their
14:44
Speaker 1: career or their business. Wherever they are, there's no contentment.
14:51
Speaker 1: And I don't know we've spoken about this before, but
14:56
Speaker 1: that relationship between contentment and ambition, it's an interesting one.
15:02
Speaker 1: I don't know too many ambitious people who are particularly
15:06
Speaker 1: content and I can't tell you whether or not I
15:09
Speaker 1: think they can coexist, but in certain circumstances, and I
15:14
Speaker 1: think that, you know, like, there can be not only
15:17
Speaker 1: an emotional and a mental cost, there can be there
15:22
Speaker 1: can be a relationship cost where and I've seen many
15:26
Speaker 1: times I've seen relationships destroyed and families destroyed. And you know,
15:31
Speaker 1: best friends who go into business together and that doesn't
15:36
Speaker 1: work out well. I've had I've had relationships myself professional
15:40
Speaker 1: personal relationships that became professional relationships that didn't end in devastation,
15:46
Speaker 1: but didn't end great. If I'm going to be honest,
15:48
Speaker 1: and so I don't know that that's always a great idea.
15:51
Speaker 1: And I think also, you know, there's this there's this
15:56
Speaker 1: concept called the you know, the identity trap, and that
15:59
Speaker 1: is like when all of our sense of self and
16:05
Speaker 1: who we are and self worth is tied into being
16:11
Speaker 1: that high achiever, like the box ticker, the super ambitious.
16:18
Speaker 1: You know, I'm always on the journey, I'm always climbing
16:20
Speaker 1: the mountain. What happens when the goals are met? What
16:24
Speaker 1: happens when we get there? And what happens if our
16:29
Speaker 1: identity is really tied in strongly with our ambition and
16:34
Speaker 1: our sense of achievement or our ability to achieve. What
16:39
Speaker 1: happens to our identity and our sense of self if
16:43
Speaker 1: all of a sudden that stuff's not there? What if
16:45
Speaker 1: we're not achieving and doing and creating the way that
16:49
Speaker 1: we were, who are we? Then? And I think, you know,
16:54
Speaker 1: I think sometimes, look it's a bit of a dance.
16:59
Speaker 1: I think I was going to say, sometimes the more
17:01
Speaker 1: we chase it through external achievements, the more elusive it becomes.
17:05
Speaker 1: And I do think that, But I also think that
17:09
Speaker 1: we can do both, Like we can we can build
17:12
Speaker 1: this business and brand and bank balance and image and
17:17
Speaker 1: body and relays. We can do all that. But I
17:21
Speaker 1: think the pendulum needs to swing. I think that there
17:24
Speaker 1: needs to be for most of us to be truly
17:28
Speaker 1: happy over the long term. I feel like there needs
17:32
Speaker 1: to be real attention paid to the stuff that doesn't
17:37
Speaker 1: come under the banner of ambition and striving and the
17:43
Speaker 1: typical kind of definition of success, Like what if what
17:49
Speaker 1: if you just what if you're not making lots of dough?
17:53
Speaker 1: What if lots of people are not following you on
17:55
Speaker 1: social media? What if you're not crushing it and grinding
17:58
Speaker 1: and hustling. But what if you're just really fucking content?
18:03
Speaker 1: What if you've got just good friends, And what if
18:06
Speaker 1: you've got safety? And what if you've got clean sheets?
18:09
Speaker 1: And what if you've got cold water and a hot shower,
18:12
Speaker 1: and you know, what if you're you know, what if
18:15
Speaker 1: you just live in a place that's like do we
18:18
Speaker 1: have to be driven? And does that drive? Does the
18:23
Speaker 1: person who's driven end up ahead psychologically or emotionally, or
18:28
Speaker 1: financially or practically, do they end up ahead of the
18:32
Speaker 1: person who's just not that I don't know. I don't know,
18:36
Speaker 1: and I'm not giving you direction today. I'm not trying
18:39
Speaker 1: to give you direction anyway, and I'm not trying to
18:41
Speaker 1: tell you what to do and what not to do.
18:43
Speaker 1: But I'm just I just think that there's a real
18:45
Speaker 1: case for an unambitious life. I'm trying to be more
18:50
Speaker 1: of this. Like I think there's you know that, like
18:55
Speaker 1: there's freedom in needing less. It's psychological and emotional freedom
19:00
Speaker 1: in wanting less. And I think when we're all about
19:05
Speaker 1: getting more and doing more and having more and being more,
19:08
Speaker 1: when we're only about that, we're always projecting into the future,
19:14
Speaker 1: and we're never in the now. We're never in the moment.
19:17
Speaker 1: We're never in the present. Because right now, I just
19:19
Speaker 1: have what I have. Right now, I just have mentally, emotionally, socially, relationally, financially,
19:25
Speaker 1: profession I just have what I have. And the only
19:28
Speaker 1: moment I can ever really live is in the present. Obviously,
19:33
Speaker 1: when next Wednesday comes, as you've heard me say before,
19:36
Speaker 1: but I won't be living in the future. Next Wednesday,
19:40
Speaker 1: I'll be living in just another installment of right now,
19:43
Speaker 1: because right now, this moment, what I call this moment,
19:48
Speaker 1: the never endingness of this moment, it's the only place
19:51
Speaker 1: we can live. I think there's a real beauty to
19:57
Speaker 1: finding joy in the ordinary, not the extraordinary, finding finding
20:05
Speaker 1: joy and meaning in daily rituals, in nature, in quiet,
20:10
Speaker 1: in simple pleasures, in putting your feet in the grass.
20:15
Speaker 1: And I don't mean to sound like Deepak Chopra or
20:18
Speaker 1: bloody air cart toole, which I realize I am, but
20:22
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's like sometimes for me anyway, I
20:25
Speaker 1: go I have this weird ritual that I do. I
20:28
Speaker 1: go sit in my front yard. I have a couple
20:31
Speaker 1: of big comfy chairs, and I pull the chair up
20:35
Speaker 1: in front of a tree, and I kind of sit
20:37
Speaker 1: with shitty posture. I slide down in the chair and
20:41
Speaker 1: I put my feet on the tree. I put my
20:42
Speaker 1: bare feet on the tree. I put my bare feet
20:45
Speaker 1: on the tree. I put all my shit down from home,
20:46
Speaker 1: and I put my phone down, I put my whatever
20:48
Speaker 1: I've got down, and I just kind of do my
20:51
Speaker 1: own little version of a Craig meditation, which is not
20:54
Speaker 1: really There's no mantra, there's no focusing on a particular thing.
20:57
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm trying to not focus, But I don't know.
21:02
Speaker 1: There's something that for me in that extremely unambitious moment
21:07
Speaker 1: of just being still and just putting my feet on
21:10
Speaker 1: that tree and just feeling nature literally between my toes.
21:15
Speaker 1: For me, there's something for the guy who spent so
21:18
Speaker 1: much of his life being ambitious and striving and having
21:21
Speaker 1: to write another bloody book or having to open another
21:26
Speaker 1: business or make more money, or be more popular or
21:29
Speaker 1: be more seen or you know, all that. Not that
21:33
Speaker 1: it's all ego driven, but a bit of it was
21:36
Speaker 1: insecurity driven, ego driven, love me, please, love me, look
21:40
Speaker 1: at me, want me, approve of me? All that shit
21:43
Speaker 1: for me anyway. But what if, like what if success
21:49
Speaker 1: isn't about more? What if success is about enough? And
21:57
Speaker 1: what if what if in a piece, what if that
22:02
Speaker 1: inner calm is a bigger achievement than any professional milestone.
22:09
Speaker 1: What if creating that internal wealth Some might call it
22:13
Speaker 1: spiritual wealth, but let's just call it in could be psychological, emotional, spiritual,
22:17
Speaker 1: whatever all that stuff means to you. But what if
22:20
Speaker 1: being rich internally is a better achievement for us? As
22:26
Speaker 1: humans than anything we might create build grow in our
22:30
Speaker 1: external world. Or maybe it doesn't need to be one
22:33
Speaker 1: or the other. Maybe it can be maybe as we
22:36
Speaker 1: maybe as we build the whatever it is that we're
22:38
Speaker 1: building in that three dimensional space, maybe we're also building
22:43
Speaker 1: something spectacular in that place that nobody ever sees or
22:49
Speaker 1: experiences except that. So I won't bang on for too long,
22:54
Speaker 1: because even I get sick of me. But a couple
22:56
Speaker 1: of I don't know, reflections or thought. For you, Am
23:03
Speaker 1: I chasing something because I truly want that something? Or
23:08
Speaker 1: am I chasing that something because I think I'm supposed to?
23:14
Speaker 1: And that for me was really powerful because I was
23:19
Speaker 1: And I don't blame anyone for this. In fact, nobody's
23:21
Speaker 1: at fault except me, and even me. I'm not throwing
23:23
Speaker 1: me under the bus. It's just it's a result of
23:26
Speaker 1: my programming and the people that I've been around, and
23:29
Speaker 1: my conditioning, so my you know, obviously, you know that
23:34
Speaker 1: whoever we spend a lot of time with, eventually they're
23:36
Speaker 1: thinking becomes our thinking. Maybe not in totality, but certainly
23:40
Speaker 1: there's a percentage. Certainly there's an influence. And I was
23:43
Speaker 1: around people who thought a lot about building and striving
23:48
Speaker 1: and Craig, if you've got one gym that's working, you
23:51
Speaker 1: should have too, because that's growth. If two are working,
23:54
Speaker 1: you should have three, and so on and again, it's
23:57
Speaker 1: not bad, it's not bad. But I was more inhabiting
24:02
Speaker 1: that paradigm because I thought that's how it worked, and
24:05
Speaker 1: I was meant to do it the way that it worked.
24:10
Speaker 1: But when I started to think for myself, I had
24:14
Speaker 1: a different awareness. I had a new awareness, a new awakening.
24:19
Speaker 1: Think about this. Think about when in your life have
24:22
Speaker 1: you felt the most content, whenever you felt the most piece,
24:29
Speaker 1: whenever you felt the most joy, was it tied to
24:33
Speaker 1: an external achievement maybe it was, or did it come
24:38
Speaker 1: from somewhere or something else? And would what would your
24:47
Speaker 1: life look like if you stopped trying to prove anything
24:51
Speaker 1: to anyone, If you stopped trying to prove anything to anyone,
24:56
Speaker 1: including yourself, what would that look like? And I won't
25:02
Speaker 1: bore you with all the different theologies and philosophies and
25:06
Speaker 1: religions that talk about, you know, just being, but you know,
25:12
Speaker 1: it's probably not the worst idea to open the door
25:16
Speaker 1: on some of those ancient philosophies and spiritual traditions that
25:21
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, being present, and I don't think
25:26
Speaker 1: that being ambitious and being present need to operate in
25:31
Speaker 1: isolation in a person's life. I think we can have
25:34
Speaker 1: periods where we're driven and working and ambitious, but also
25:37
Speaker 1: periods where we're not doing that, where the striving has
25:42
Speaker 1: been put on a shelf for a period of time,
25:44
Speaker 1: whether that's an hour or two, or whether that's a
25:46
Speaker 1: week or two. But I think, I think maybe the
25:51
Speaker 1: question for today is not what do I want to achieve,
25:54
Speaker 1: but how do I want to feel? Not what do
26:01
Speaker 1: I want to achieve? But how do I want to feel?
26:05
Speaker 1: And maybe a life well lived is less about climbing
26:10
Speaker 1: and more about grounding. I don't know just where I'm at.
26:14
Speaker 1: I thought i'd share that with you. I think I'm
26:16
Speaker 1: becoming less ambitious. Still want to do stuff. I'm not
26:21
Speaker 1: without ambition, but I'm definitely I don't know if this
26:24
Speaker 1: is a good thing, but I feel personally it is.
26:27
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's great for business, but personally.
26:30
Speaker 1: You know, here's another thing. I wasn't going to say this,
26:32
Speaker 1: but quite often the less I strive and the less
26:37
Speaker 1: ambitious I am, by the way, the more work I get.
26:43
Speaker 1: And as I'm kind of heading into this stage of
26:45
Speaker 1: my journey where I'm still going to keep working for
26:50
Speaker 1: as long as i can because I love to work,
26:52
Speaker 1: and it's not really worked for me. But as I'm
26:55
Speaker 1: entering this phase where I'm less ambitious and I'm less
26:58
Speaker 1: focused on and growing you know, brand and bums on seats,
27:04
Speaker 1: and still want to do all that, but it's not
27:06
Speaker 1: it doesn't hold the same fascination or excitement for me.
27:09
Speaker 1: But interestingly, I'm recording this Sunday. Last week I had seven,
27:17
Speaker 1: seven speaking gigs from seven different organizations booked. Now, in
27:22
Speaker 1: a typical week, I might get one or two, and
27:25
Speaker 1: I probably do around one hundred a year, But to
27:27
Speaker 1: get seven gigs booked in a week, it's quite weird,
27:31
Speaker 1: quite fascinating, and it's funny. I'm like trying less, but
27:38
Speaker 1: things are happening more so, maybe the secret to success
27:44
Speaker 1: is not to chase sixcess. Yeah so yeah,