Latest / The On Purpose Podcast / Ep. 369 - Being Ready Is A Decision
Transcript
- The On Purpose Podcast: You are listening to the On Purpose Podcast. What's up everybody? Welcome to this week's edition of the show and happy October. We're officially in fall pretty much around the country. I love that season. I love the cool mornings, still the fairly warm days and ⁓ the slowness that comes after a busy summer, right? Of just kind of settling in and the days are a little shorter so you have more time. darkness, which I think to me it allows me to think, allows me more space for quietness in my life. And it's kind of what got me to today's topic. I want to talk to you about something that's been on my mind and maybe it's been on yours too. And that is the idea of our moments. Right? There's a song I think Zach Bryan, there's a lyric in a Zach Bryan song that talks about life is just a series of moments. And As I've been reflecting, that word just keeps coming up to me as as Andrew and I embark on a new project, and life is always in movement and changing, and there's so many things we can't control. I want to just dive into what it really means in our moments, to be ready for our moment and explore, explore that concept. So Hope this interests you. Please do me a favor, get over to our YouTube channel, subscribe. Every Thursday the episodes come out full video there. And just a little thing like subscribing and liking, maybe throwing a comment in helps us reach more people around the world, helps it make it makes it easier for them to find us. And you never know, maybe they just need a story like today's or one of our guest episodes. So do me a favor, hop on YouTube, hit subscribe, and then let's talk about. The idea of being ready for a moment. Not waiting for it, not hoping for it. Dangerous slope is when we try to predict the moment. We try to forecast our future based on how we feel now. But being ready right now for the moment that you're in. Because so many of us spend the our lives waiting for that right moment, the perfect moment, the next moment. I'll get to it tomorrow. I'll get to it next week. I I need one more class. I need one more thing. I need this. I need that. And then I'll be ready. What we're doing is we're waiting. We're waiting around for a moment that may never come. You may never have all the information you need. You may never be in the perfect place financially, the perfect place with your business, the perfect place with your relationships. But all that waiting around for that next moment, whatever it may be, a lot of times causes us to miss the one moment we can control, and that's the one we're in. Right, we like to paint a picture in our head of what our moments are gonna look like, when everything lines up, when we feel confident, when we feel prepared, when the timing makes sense. But we know, if we look back on our lives, that moment rarely arrives the way we thought it would. It rarely shows up how we dreamt it would be and what we think we'd feel. And if it does, it doesn't last long, especially in relationship to all the moments we didn't engage in, all the the time we didn't spend where we were, waiting for that moment, waiting for that opportunity. The truth is. The moment you're in right now is the only moment I can actually use. It's the only one I can influence. And it's the only one I can live. Because the past is already done. No matter how much I replay it in my head, no matter how much I think I want to do it different, I'm not gonna be able to. I can only learn from it and go forward. And the future is yet to come. There's so many variables that are gonna change between today and tomorrow. Today, right now, and two hours from now. But if I skip all the moments in between, what have I lost out on? Conversations, watching the birds, embracing the dog fully, giving them your attention, that that time together. Maybe because I'm aging. Maybe it's because I'm I'm getting a little older, but my moments mean more to me. I don't want to waste them. I don't want to engage in conversation about silly things that do nothing to spark thoughts, ideas, or or convey to me how you feel. I want my moments to matter for me and for you. I wanna create space so that when you sit and we have a chance to talk, whether it's texting, social, you know, through social media, on the phone, in person, you know you have my attention. And I know you have yours. Right, because that is a moment that we'll never get back. If I go through it half-assed, half paying attention, one, I miss out on what what maybe you brought to the table, what I could have learned from you. And two, how many more times do you want to be in that space if you knew that the moment you just gave up wasn't fully valued? Right. And and so I want to say is being ready for a moment doesn't necessarily mean action. It doesn't mean everything's perfect. Sometimes being ready for the moment is a presence that you're in a moment. Awareness that somebody else is sharing theirs with you. Showing up fully and staying there. Not rushing to the next to do, not rushing to the trivial thing that later in life you'll never remember. But embracing that moment, that small conversation, learning something about somebody new. See, here's what I've learned over and over. Readiness isn't a feeling. You'll never feel ready enough to slow down and be fully present for somebody. You'll never feel ready enough to take the big leap in life. But it's a decision. You see, as we wait to feel ready, to feel it, it almost never comes. Because readiness doesn't show up based on how we feel, it shows up in what we do. It shows up because we took action. Right, maybe that action is I'm going to intentionally slow down. Maybe that action is when I'm around people, I'm gonna intentionally put my phone down so I don't look at it and I'm gonna engage in what's happening around me. Because the moment you choose to act, it becomes the right moment to do whatever you're doing. Not because it's perfect, but because you committed to it. Because you committed to it, because you it mentally and physically said, I'm going to enjoy this moment. Right? Because sometimes being ready for the moment is simply being still in the moment. It's about stopping. Maybe I have 10 things on my to-do list. Maybe I have so much stuff that I think I gotta get done today. That I get a chance for a conversation with somebody I haven't seen in a while. That I get a maybe somebody in need, somebody that's that's down on their luck crosses my path. Sometimes being ready for the moment means of being able to recognize it. And maybe I stop. Because how many of those to do list items that have to get done today, that can't wait for tomorrow, are so much more important than stopping and being there for another human? Very few. Look at your to do list. Most of those things could be done tomorrow or next week, or some of them don't even ever be d need to get done. You don't have to reply to every email that comes in. Sometimes being ready for the moment means recognizing and stopping, pausing, breathing, letting yourself actually be where you are. If you've come to any of my classes, that's one of the first things I ask of you, whether we're talking for two hours or two days, be here. Don't be down the road. Don't be at five o'clock version of yourself if it's nine in the morning. Be the nine o'clock version. Because as much as we live in a world that pushes us to constantly move, to plan, to anticipate, I will tell you that some of the moments that I can pull off the top of my head if you ask about my kids or my wife or Otis or something that means a thing to me, like that that brings out the joy I wanna have in life. It's when I just stopped. When I wasn't in action necessarily, but I was appreciating what was what was around me. Because one of the most powerful decisions I've made and I think we can make is to go, wait, I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna enjoy what's right here. I'm not replaying what already happened. I'm not rehearsing for what might happen. I'm not trying to control every possible outcome. I'm just gonna be here. Right now. This breath. This step. This moment. 'Cause when I stop for a few seconds, you actually give yourself a chance to notice your life, to feel it, to live in it, and to respond to it instead of reacting. That's presence. That's awareness. That is being ready for the moment. Right, because what happens, what is the cost of not being in our current moments, of always having to be somewhere else? Whether you're waiting for that next moment. Or thinking about what already happened, you lose the moment you're standing in, you're losing connection, you're losing the momentum of what you've built. Quite honestly, you're losing a chance to grow, to heal, to try, to fail, to learn because we're replaying something that already happened or we're trying to forecast something that hasn't happened. We're missing where we are. In my experience, life isn't dramatic moments. My life has very few big dramatic moments. It's small ones. Those are the ones that are easy to postpone or to overlook or to push off to another day. Being ready for the moment means I stop postponing my life. I live right now. I stop delaying my growth because I'm not worried about growing tomorrow. I'm gonna grow right now. And I love this when I thought of it. I stop outsourcing. my courage to live today to some future version of myself that may never come. I may not make it to where I think I'm supposed to be. But if I'm only focused on that, I miss all the opportunities to be where I am and to be with the people I'm around right now. So you show up now, show up now for yourself, for the people around you. So let's flip it. What does it look like when we're ready for the moment we're in? What does that look like? To me, it looks like we're choosing presence over perfection. I'm taking one small step instead of waiting for some giant leap. It looks like I get to breathe deeply. instead of rushing in blindly on emotion. It means I get to notice what's real instead of chasing some ideal that I've seen. So I want to ask you in this in this week, what can we focus on? Is what can I do in this moment? The moment I'm in right now. Not the next one, not the last one, right now. What can I do that moves things an inch forward? Not a mile, not a giant leap, just an inch. Because that inch is everything. The inch is momentum. The inch is identity. The inch is choosing me, choosing for us to live. Instead of waiting to live. But before we wrap up, I wanna I want you to think about one place in your life where maybe you've been waiting for the right moment, whether that's a a business, a conversation you need to have, something at your job, or just simply to sit and be. Find a place where you've been waiting for this right moment, just one, where you already know where it is, and ask yourself what would it look like to be ready for that moment now? Not perfectly, not completely, just honestly. What's the imperfect step I can take? What's the next breath I can slow down? What's the next moment I actually give myself permission to inhabit instead of rushing past? Because I don't need certainty. I don't need all the stars to align. All I need to know is that I'm going to pay attention to the moments around me. Cause you know what, my friends? Life isn't waiting for you. It's moving. And you don't need to wait for your life. We need to be ready for the moment we're in, because the moment is yours. So let's use them well. Have an awesome week, everybody. Honored to be here with you. Like, subscribe, share, comment over on YouTube. Help us reach a thousand subscribers. We're getting really close. We can't do it without you. So thank you so much. Have an awesome week. Hey everybody, if you've been tuning into the On Purpose Podcast, you already know we don't do a lot of fluff. My excellence on the leadership course is built on tactical coaching that transforms how you prepare, connect, and lead. Whether you're building a business, leading a team, or leveling up personally, we focus on deliberate actions, strategic relationships, and decisions that create lasting impact. If you're ready to lead with purpose and precision, book me for a class or a speaking engagement at teamhardy.net. And remember, team, life is far too short to live any other way than on purpose. We will see you all again next week.