Further Your Lifestyle

EP.103 Find Success Through The Hard Stuff | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast

March 05, 2023 Your Host: Chris Furlong Episode 103
Further Your Lifestyle
EP.103 Find Success Through The Hard Stuff | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast
Show Notes Transcript

The Role of Easy and Hard Work in Achieving Success

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Success is usually an end result we have in mind, but the journey we take to get there is always going to have MANY highs and so MANY LOWS. You need to be willing to ride them both as they will be both necessary and crucial to you making it.

2-3 Interesting Things Listeners will Learn:

The meaning of easy and hard work
How easy and hard work contribute to achieving success
How to embrace and learn from both easy and hard work in their journey towards success
Compelling Reason to Listen: Listeners will gain insights on how to handle problems, gather experience, gain insight and wisdom, and learn how to adapt, pivot, and make hard decisions through embracing both the easy and hard work in their journey towards success.


▬▬▬▬ CHAPTERS ▬▬▬▬

0:00 - Episode 103 
1:50 - overview of the episode
2:19 - what is the easy stuff?
6:48 - what is the hard stuff?
8:47 - some examples… 
16:27 - what is the point… there is a BEAUTY from all this
18:53 - my final point
19:57 - what does this all mean?
21:38 - what about you?

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[00:00:00] Chris Furlong: Yo. Yo yo. Welcome back to the Further Your Lifestyle Podcast, conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris Furlong. I am your host, and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you, episode 103 today. And today we are talking about the easy stuff and the hard stuff, and we've both come success.

[00:00:22] Chris Furlong: I'm not here to say that I've got it all figured out. I will get that straight off the table. But what I will say is that over the years there's been a lot of easy things that have occurred that has enabled me to get to where I am today. But there's also been a lot of hard things that have occurred too.

[00:00:37] Chris Furlong: And that's why it's important that we, we do need to do the easy stuff, but we also need to do the hard stuff too. And that's really what I want to address today, and that's the conversation that we're. Now as cliche as it is, I guess success usually comes with an end result in mind, which of course, you know, we have these big ideas, we have these big ambitions.

[00:00:56] Chris Furlong: Sometimes they start to change and they adapt or they evolve over time. But Over time as well. There's this journey that we have to take. There's this journey that we have to embark on and a lot of the time you'll find there's always going to be many, many highs, but but as many lows as well. And that's what I like to call the rollercoaster ride in, in many areas of life.

[00:01:16] Chris Furlong: Especially in business, I've, I've experienced a lot of roller coasters, but I think in life, we all go through things which bring us down and we go through things which get us up on a top of a wave, and we're riding the high life and we, we want to just live that life forever. But the reality is that that's not always the case, and we can't always do that.

[00:01:34] Chris Furlong: You need to be willing to ride both the moments when it's really, really high and when it's really, really low, they both build character and they both will get you further to where you want to be and then necessary and crucial in helping you make it. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today.

[00:01:51] Chris Furlong: And just to give you a quick little overview of what we will be touching on is how the easy stuff contributes to the success that we chase and how the hard stuff just as much is important. But then also we're gonna touch on why we should actually embrace these things, like the easy stuff, the hard stuff, and well, we'll touch on a few other things in between.

[00:02:10] Chris Furlong: So let's get into it. Let's dive in. Let's roll the.

[00:02:18] Chris Furlong: So what is the easy stuff now? The easy stuff is the things that that come straight off the cuff. Now what does that even mean? While if you're still not picking it up? It's essentially the tasks and the actions which come naturally to you that just roll off. I guess roll off the tongue in that sense.

[00:02:34] Chris Furlong: But they come with minimal effort. They're things that you've always been good at. A lot of the time. We could refer to this as your unfair advantage. There's a lot of things that we do that we probably take for granted that we don't realize we're actually really, really good at, but we've always done it, so we just assume everyone can do it.

[00:02:51] Chris Furlong: Now that's called an unfair advantage. Now, I've spoken about this a few times on the podcast. You can go jump over to further your lifestyle.com and do a quick little search and you'll find something. It also means what your natural skills and talents are. We're all born differently. We're all born with different things, which for some might be easy and for some it might be hard, but there is easy things that you do because you've always done them, and you're just naturally good, good at them.

[00:03:17] Chris Furlong: The other one is things which are common to your life and your lifestyle. Now, this might be from things within your upbringing, you know, how you were taught where you lived, how you developed yourself, all those different areas. And that sometimes is it's, it's not about that you got a better serving when you were born.

[00:03:36] Chris Furlong: It's a matter of, you know, sometimes. We're brought into a world on ecosystem of our own existence, which is different to everyone else. And just because you have maybe lots of money, people think that's easier. That doesn't necessarily mean that's the case. It might mean you're able to access anything at any time, but that doesn't mean you've got it all figured out, and that doesn't mean it's easy.

[00:03:56] Chris Furlong: So all these different things that we're just, I've just mentioned, they're all, they're all things that can enable us to get quick wins and they can all help us build confidence. I guess elevate our ability to see that we have what it takes, but sometimes we don't actually realize we've got the easy stuff already figured out that we've already got the stuff under our nose, and that's where it becomes very, very crucial to understand that we are self-aware.

[00:04:21] Chris Furlong: We need to make sure that we are self-aware, but sometimes it takes a little bit of a, a kick or a push to actually make that. An example, maybe you are a a skilled artist or maybe a sketcher and you can create content. You know, you can do it like it's nothing to you. You do it without thinking about it.

[00:04:39] Chris Furlong: Now, if you wanted to, you could leverage this to build an audience and a following and a community. And you know, this community or audience would love what you create, and they would want to be part of it or even own a part of that, but we must not forget. Sometimes with the easy stuff, we can find ourselves becoming complacent or losing touch, or even being oblivious to the abilities or the skills or talents that we have.

[00:05:05] Chris Furlong: At the same time, we become complacent and we start to lose touch with, you know, the important things such as rules or things that enable us, or the important things such as keeping us on the right path. And the problem with out setting rules or without being I. Convicted or having some level of discipline or even self-awareness.

[00:05:28] Chris Furlong: we, we, we tend to lose our path and it will hinder our progress to move forward and towards where we want to be. Now, this is where it comes a bit of a catch 22. And this is all just coming in my head as I, as I speak through it. But essentially I get very frustrated when I see people with so much potential and they have the ability to exercise and a skill or a talent, which they've always been naturally good at, yet they don't.

[00:05:54] Chris Furlong: So there's that example, but then there's the example where we kind of get arrogant and. Full of pride because we think I, I've got this figured out. I already know how to do this. And we don't actually become, I guess, humble or we don't have any grace with it. And we just assume that because we are talented, that we are better and bigger than anyone else.

[00:06:14] Chris Furlong: But then there are people that are, they, they share it, they give it out. give it away. Or they, they, they build something which is bigger than themselves to give back and to create, you know, an audience or a community. And that's what I was just kind of talking about in that, in that last bit of fluff. But with all that, you understand now what the easy stuff is.

[00:06:34] Chris Furlong: It's the stuff that just comes natural, the things that you do that maybe you take for granted or it's the stuff that you've always done because that's how you've been brought up. It's, it's the simple stuff, right? Let's, let's compare to the hard stuff. What is the hard stuff? Well, the hard stuff refers to the tasks or actions that challenge us.

[00:06:53] Chris Furlong: Makes sense, right? It makes us uncomfortable and it requires more effort and more time. These are the things that maybe you might want to avoid or you tend to procrastinate with because you know, it means you're gonna have to do a little bit of hard work. You know, the ones, you know, the ones I'm talking about.

[00:07:10] Chris Furlong: But the hard stuff is also the things which we. , which don't only just challenge us, but it, they throw us in the deep end. They, they, they put us in places where we think, oh, I can't do this. It might stress us out, it might overwhelm us, but some of these hard things, they do come out of nowhere as well, and a lot of the time when they first appear, they feel like a big slap in the face.

[00:07:32] Chris Furlong: The reality is it's usually not that bad, even though it does feel painful and annoying and frustrating as much as it is. These are very, very important things, and it's important to recognize that this hard stuff is going to help build the character. It's going to be as equally as important as you know, basically the easy stuff in our role towards a journey to success.

[00:07:57] Chris Furlong: Because when we face these challenges, when we push through these difficult times or these difficult tasks, we can build resilience, we can learn new skills, and we can adapt and become a better version of ourselves or grow as individual. Ironically, we, we usually actually learn more when it comes to facing challenges or doing the hard stuff because it leads to breakthroughs and ways for us to think differently, gives us fresh perspectives, and it helps us to evolve into a better version of ourselves, as I just said, and it propels us forward.

[00:08:29] Chris Furlong: Whereas when we are just doing the things that keep us comfortable, the easy stuff, a lot of the time we just, as I said, we get complacent and we don't actually develop the ability to grow. We just keep. But consistency also pays off too. So to give you some perspective of the easy stuff in my own life versus the hard stuff and the context of, you know, a journey to, to build out, you know, whatever it is that I want and my success and the perspective of.

[00:08:56] Chris Furlong: My now versus your Now again, I wanna be very frank that you know, this is my journey. I don't have it all figured out, but there's been periods where I've been able to go from A to B and they are successes in terms of I've been able to achieve a lot and get to a higher place or a better version of myself.

[00:09:13] Chris Furlong: And I'll give you a couple of examples that we're gonna go through now. The first one is running. Now. If you've been following me for a while, you know that I love running. Running is my escape. It's where I get to really. Be myself, get to push myself and grow myself. Now I've been running for, oh, it must be about eight years now.

[00:09:29] Chris Furlong: Maybe it could be a bit more. And I've done way over 5,000 kilometers. And I think if I was to reflect, and again, I'm just pulling this out of my head I've probably done over 20 half marathons, done two marathons, and I've also done an ultra-marathon as well. And there's been so much in between and so many different types of runs that I've done.

[00:09:46] Chris Furlong: But running in general now comes as an easy effort. Requirement, meaning compared to when I first started or when you May 1st start, or someone when they first start, it's a bit of a struggle to even fathom doing a marathon. Now people, when they start, they've looked, they look at me and think, how do you, how do you do this?

[00:10:03] Chris Furlong: You make it look so easy. But the reality is, well, . It's not, it's, it's taken eight years to get here, but it's still hard. It's just easier for me cuz I know what to do and I've got the experience and the wisdom or the knowledge to know how to execute better. As I said, it just becomes a lot easier for me.

[00:10:19] Chris Furlong: It's taken me eight years to get here, don't forget. Right. So I, I've been able to use that eight years experience and that's, that's just one example right now for. Just in the last week it's been a bit of a quiet start to the year when it comes to running, and usually I try and last year I was doing two half marathons a month, to be honest.

[00:10:40] Chris Furlong: And so I've, I've done way over 20 half marathons, but the reality was this, this year I've had a bit of a slow start, been taking a bit easy, probably been a bit lazy to be honest. And what I like to do is challenge myself with doing regular half marathons. , that gives me a chance to check in with myself, set a baseline, understand where I'm at, and how things are progressing.

[00:11:01] Chris Furlong: Now, I hadn't been training for this and o obviously I've got my progress over time that's compounded and it's, it sits in the body anyway. But on Sunday I was able to go out and just get one done. And I was expecting I was gonna be doing this at a seven minute. Meaning seven minutes per kilometer worked out to be about a 6 26 pace.

[00:11:22] Chris Furlong: A lot more than expected. It was better than I expected, but the reality was it, it still took a lot of hard work. I had to push, I had to grind. I had to dig into some deep places to enable myself to get through and not just cave and just give up. And that's the reality of it. Even when I do a marathon, even when I've done an ultra-marathon, there's gonna be ups and downs in that journey.

[00:11:44] Chris Furlong: Now another example and in a similar fashion, is my own business now. I started my reselling business when I left and stepped away from the nine to five basically to build a business, which meant I didn't have to go back. In some cases. The reselling business has been a bit easy for me in some areas.

[00:12:00] Chris Furlong: I'm not saying it's easy. There's areas where it, it just, I've had some unfair advantages. I've always done flipping since I was younger. I did it as a bit of a side hobby, so I had some experience up my sleeve. I, I have over 10 years of project management experience. I'd been working prior to doing this, so I've got experience with working with numbers, how to basically run a business because I was running small projects for up to 150 million in project value.

[00:12:26] Chris Furlong: And, and I've had a number of businesses over the years for myself. A lot of 'em have flopped, but some of them have been pretty good. And I have an idea of how to run one. Because of all this, I've been pretty good with my numbers. I know how things operate, but again, I don't have it all figured out. But there was areas here that has made it easier for me to be able to go in and get started and execute.

[00:12:47] Chris Furlong: And again, that doesn't mean that I'm an overnight successor, anything like that. I mean, I'm, I'm doing really, really well, but there's, I want to be so much further ahead. I want to get to new levels. I want to be hitting new milestones, but it takes time to get there. The point here is that there is going to be those moments where it's very, very easy.

[00:13:05] Chris Furlong: Now, it makes these things easier to execute in some theory. However, just because you have the skills, you have the talents, it doesn't mean that it's always going to be easy to be frank, and again, this is not too, you know, look at me or anything like this. I'm being fully transparent and sharing my numbers to help you have a perspective.

[00:13:22] Chris Furlong: But for the first 50 weeks of my business, I average $996 in revenue. And Sales Weekly, right? So, which wasn't too bad. I was pretty happy with that. But now, Over the next 50 weeks. The second 50 weeks, I was averaging $1,526, and then in the last 11 weeks that has just gone, I've been averaging 2,221. So you can see over time it's gotten better.

[00:13:46] Chris Furlong: I've had to overcome things. I've had to obviously work through different challenges. I've gone through the process of. Buying a storage unit, renting out a storage unit, changing my business, expanding my business. I now have a, a, a worker for me. They're actually a helper at this point, but I'm looking to do you know, get that as a, a full employment and I've had to develop new skills.

[00:14:05] Chris Furlong: I've had to show. Up and make progress over time. However, between all this, there have been weeks where I've been down 43%, but I've had weeks where I've been up 95%. So literally going through those waves of rollercoaster emotions where things are like, yeah, I've got this all feed out, and then it's like, what is going on?

[00:14:24] Chris Furlong: what am I gonna do? And almost panicking. The point is we always will start at the bottom when we start out on anything, but there is going to be times where you're going to go down again and you're gonna have to dig deep. You're gonna have to challenge yourself. You're gonna have to figure it out and we'll have to work our way back up.

[00:14:40] Chris Furlong: I've had to back to back growth weeks where, you know, it's, it's been just amazing to see how much the business is growing. But then I've had weeks where it drops so quickly that you seriously, do you challenge everything and you think. Am I doing the right thing? Was this the right decision? How will I continue to progress?

[00:14:58] Chris Furlong: And then a following week, you might have your best week ever. And it, it, it happens that way, not just in business, but in life. You need to continue to progress forwards. Taking on the hard stuff. Leveraging the easy stuff because new opportunities and new things come around the corner each and every day, and each and every week, and each and every month, and we need to be willing to ride that during the process of going in the ups and downs and a lot of the downs.

[00:15:22] Chris Furlong: Sometimes it's been from my own fault, you know, I've made mistakes. I've had to do things which to fix my own errors, or it might have been due to the lack of my own effort, or sometimes there was things that occurred that were outta my control. These are times when things make it hard because it's from my own doing or it's outta my control, which means you still have to adapt and figure out how do I progress forward?

[00:15:44] Chris Furlong: How do I push through this? The easy stuff means sometimes we can just fall back into cruise control mode and just let things roll on. Where is the hard stuff? . These are the times when things don't go as planned, and these are the times where we have to take a detour of. Sometimes it might be time, sometimes it might be mentally a challenging moment or a physically challenging moment, or an emotionally challenging moment.

[00:16:08] Chris Furlong: But we need to weave through these to enable us to get to where we want to be. We have to ride out these situations regardless, and we have to make it work. So you're probably thinking, Chris, this is great. You've told us about all the hard times. You've told us about all the easy times, but what's the point?

[00:16:24] Chris Furlong: Well, the point is there is the beauty of all of this. There's some things that we can get from both the easy and the hard stuff, and. The beauty is lessons are forged by tackling the hard stuff head on, going through the tougher times, dealing with challenges, and navigating through the unexpected turns.

[00:16:41] Chris Furlong: We get to do this. We get to learn how to handle problems. We get to gather experience to upskill us for the next encounter or the next level. We gain insight, we gain wisdom, and we gain the ability to plan better. without the hard stuff. We're doing the work, which, which might be a bit of a grind, but we are pushing through with the hard stuff.

[00:17:01] Chris Furlong: Yes, we might have to go on a bit of a grind exercise and we have to do the work. We have to push through. We have to, you know, focus on being resilient. We have to learn how to adapt. We have to learn how to pivot. We have to work on making harder and tougher decision. But we wouldn't be able to broaden our easy stuff zones if we weren't doing this.

[00:17:22] Chris Furlong: Because when we, when we have our comfort zone, when you are in your element right now, this is, I'm, I'm holding up a circle for those that are watching you're basically in a box. You're in a comfort zone ne, but as you start to expand that comfort zone, more things come into that, which means the stuff that was hard becomes easy, which means now all of a sudden the easy stuff is bigger.

[00:17:41] Chris Furlong: You're able to do things a lot quicker. I went hard in going into Investing into some clothing into my business to learn about it. It was uncomfortable. I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't figure it out. But over time, over repetitions and over time boxing, I was able to get a better understanding and I was able to leverage that, and now it becomes a lot more easier.

[00:18:01] Chris Furlong: I don't have it all figured out. There's still a lot to learn, but now I'm able to generate more income. Now I'm able to execute differently. Now I'm looking for new stuff when I'm outsourcing, because I've developed that skillset, I've developed that under. At first it was hard, but now it's easy or easier.

[00:18:17] Chris Furlong: So when we go through this process, if we document our lessons, if we can learn even further from that, meaning take the documentation, reflect on it, we can learn even further from it, right? And by keeping tabs on the information that we gather and then rinsing and repeating, it means next time when we go through the process, we're able to execute, make decisions better, and.

[00:18:40] Chris Furlong: Make it a little bit easier. Which brings me to my final point, reflecting. Reflecting is key. And I talk about this all the time. Going through the easy stuff and going through the hard stuff. We want, we want to be reflecting, we want to be. Looking back and learning and understanding what have we achieved during the process or during the progress.

[00:18:59] Chris Furlong: And it will help us do a couple of things. It'll help us identify the persistence and the resilience that we have, and being self-aware of knowing what's working and what isn't. It also gives us the ability to become of aware of the ups and downs so we can start to pick up trends of. Is this going to happen again?

[00:19:14] Chris Furlong: Or the signs of when things might be happening again, and when you might be getting into a tough period or a null period or an easy period, we learn. That's as simple as it gets. As I said before, we really learn things, but it's also a chance to share and ask for help. It's a chance to build community support.

[00:19:29] Chris Furlong: It's a chance to. , you know, make yourself into a better version of yourself. And a lot of the time, we don't realize this, but we can do a lot of things as a lone ranger. But as we start to develop a community share with others, that builds us into a bigger and better version of ourselves. as well. So in a nutshell, what does all this mean?

[00:19:49] Chris Furlong: Well, this is the reality of it. In short, both easy and hard stuff is necessary for you to grow. It's necessary for you to be successful. If you want to be successful, you need to be willing to understand that there is going to be some really, really good, easy stuff times, and there's gonna be some high times where you feel like the top of the world.

[00:20:06] Chris Furlong: But there's also gonna be some really poopy times, too times where it's gonna be tough times where you're gonna have to gather your grit. And you're gonna have to gather your hustle. That's, that's the reality of it. If you can understand that and just take each day as it comes, but leverage some of these things that I've been speaking about, it's going to make it a bit easier.

[00:20:24] Chris Furlong: You need to embrace both. You need to embrace the easy, but also embrace the hard take, the ups and downs as a moment to learn, as a moment to progress. And in the long run, it's going to make you. And enable a quicker progress. Essentially, it enables a balance that allows us to move forward while also building, I guess a set of skills builds our confidence, resilience, and it shapes us.

[00:20:48] Chris Furlong: It builds character without some of those hard, difficult times. And I haven't even gone into detail of things, which. I, I think about them now, and they're not even big deals, but at the time you're trying to solve, how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna get enough sales? Or how am I gonna earn enough money for this week?

[00:21:02] Chris Furlong: Or how am I gonna conquer this? How am I gonna have that big conversation with someone? Or I need to do a presentation at work? Or all these different things that run in our heads. We think it's, it seems impossible. It seems too hard. Yet once you go through it with the support of others, once you go through it knowing that you've trained for it, or you've practiced for it, or you've prepared for it, it's usually not that.

[00:21:23] Chris Furlong: And you come out stronger, better, and the next time will be easier. So what about you? How do you go about handling the easy stuff? And have you ever found yourself becoming complacent and you've let things slip or you've. You had to then double down to play catch up and get back into a groove and, and how have you leveraged these moments?

[00:21:42] Chris Furlong: Maybe you've doubled down because things are getting easy, so you've like, this is so good. Let's, let's, let's make this even better. Like, how can I do this better because it's so easy. Can I replicate it? Can I duplicate it? Can I double down it? How's that worked for you? What about the hard stuff? How do you go about when you are pushed away from your easy stuff?

[00:22:02] Chris Furlong: And how do you go about when you aren't put into the deep. How do you go about it when maybe you feel like you're not getting close to your goals because the goalpost might move? Has it scared you off? Does it challenge you? Or do you become a finer, do you become someone that becomes resilient, a resilient monster?

[00:22:19] Chris Furlong: Are you one to leverage the lessons and enable them to slingshot you further ahead? Or do you curl up into a ball? There's no right or wrong answer. I'm here to just help you think, and I'm also curious to know if you wanna share the port, the most important thing that. We can do is that we become aware of these things.

[00:22:38] Chris Furlong: If we can become self-aware, it means we can acknowledge them and we can make a decision and execute accordingly. Now, before I wrap up, one thing I do wanna say is it's super important that we do ask for help to share with others our advice, to our experience, our, you know, wisdom, things that we've done, but also if you are struggling, Ask for help.

[00:22:58] Chris Furlong: Reach out to someone. There's a huge community out there of people willing to help you learn, willing to help you grow. Of course, we just gotta be willing to ask, and sometimes that ask is the hard stuff because we're too arrogant. We might be too proud or too scared to ask because what will people think?

[00:23:15] Chris Furlong: Don't be. It might actually change your life. Now if you would like to share, if you would like to continue the conversation, there's multiple ways you can use do this. You can leave a message over at SpeakPipe, that's speakpipe.com/further your lifestyle. Or you can leave a comment. You can send me a message over on Instagram.

[00:23:32] Chris Furlong: You can send me an email, all the details in the description, in the show notes below. , I would really love to have you reach out and do a speak pipe because I wanna continue the conversation. I wanna hear what you are thinking. And if you are thinking something, pause the video right now or pause the episode right now.

[00:23:47] Chris Furlong: Jump over to www.speakpipe.com/further your lifestyle. Jump over there and you can leave a voicemail. You can leave a comment, you can leave your thoughts, you can ask a question, and I can include it into this podcast and we can have a conversation. Regardless, really do appreciate you being here. Thanks for hanging out.

[00:24:06] Chris Furlong: It's always an honor and pleasure to have this conversation and yeah, you have a wonderful day. Cheers.