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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 104 today. And today I want to get real. I want to I wanna make things a little bit interesting and.

[00:00:20] Chris Furlong: The way I want to do this is I wanna put, I want to challenge you to put some skin in the game and I'll, I'll do the same, but this is an episode where I'm gonna be pretty blunt because I really want the best for you, and essentially it just comes down to something that's probably gonna be. It's actually a bit of a pet peeve, and we'll get into that in a second.

[00:00:37] Chris Furlong: So if you are ready to buckle up and go on a bit of a raw, rocky ride, but you actually do wanna make some really serious progress over the next one year. Well yeah, let's, let's dive into it.

[00:00:52] Chris Furlong: All right, so over the last two years, I guess being on a journey of myself to create the life that I want and building out this podcast, building out a business, it's, it's been a crazy journey and I talk about this all the time, and I've learned. A tremendous amount of things. So many things, but if there was one thing that I guess I could choose or that I was only able to give, if I could only give one lesson, if I could only give you one thing that I believe gives you the ability to find yourself in a better position within the one.

[00:01:21] Chris Furlong: Well you know, I guess in the next one to two years or just in the future anyway, it would be, this time will pass anyway, so make the progress count. Now I talk about this so much and as I said just before, this is a pet peeve to me cuz it frustrates me so much. And it may even be a frustration at myself cuz I know that maybe I could have done better earlier, or maybe I could be doing more now.

[00:01:43] Chris Furlong: So I'm being completely honest here. But the reality. I get very frustrated when people explain to me or share with me that one, they have these intentions, they have these exciting plans for a new idea or something, which is going to make all the difference, or they've got it all figured out, or this year's gonna be their best year or all these different things.

[00:02:02] Chris Furlong: But as time passes and they. , whether they start or not, sometimes they start and it just withers away and it becomes a dramatic stop. Or they just continue to kick the bucket down the road. They never actually take the action. They never actually get any momentum. They never actually allow progress to take a snowball effect.

[00:02:20] Chris Furlong: Meaning they'll start for a couple of weeks and like, ah, I'm not getting the results, or It's too much hard work, and they give up. Now, I'm not trying to point the finger at anyone. I've done this before and I've done it with certain areas of things that I said I'm gonna do, and I've never. And you know, I'm, that's why I'm challenging you and me in this episode, but the reality is you can say all the things you want or all the things you want to do or all the things you will be, but your actions will prove you right or wrong.

[00:02:46] Chris Furlong: That's the reality. So back to my challenge, , back to the idea to make things a little bit interesting him. Right Now, as you are listening, do this little exercise for me. Is there something on your mind which I. Has been pulling at you to make progress in. Now, this could be so many different things. It might be some big dreams or some big intentions that you've always had maybe to start a business or to work for yourself.

[00:03:10] Chris Furlong: Or maybe it's to start that YouTube channel, or maybe it's to start a podcast, or maybe it's to train for an event. Or maybe it's you want to go on a solo trip or maybe, I don't know what it is. Maybe you wanna start painting or you wanna learn a new skill, or you want to go to university, or you want a new job, you wanna apply for a new job.

[00:03:25] Chris Furlong: I don't know what it is. You know what it is. It's thinking in your mind right now. What is. All right. Now, maybe you are lacking progress in this area. Maybe you are lacking the ability to progress, or heck, maybe you're even lacking the idea to even start. You're just, you're just too scared or there's something stopping you.

[00:03:43] Chris Furlong: Well, let's make this happen. Let's make it a reality and let's make it something that you can keep yourself accountable to by coming back here in a year's time and seeing. You did it. Now, you don't actually have to tell me anything. You don't have to share with me or anything, but I want you to think about what can you achieve in the next one year, and let's see how much progress you can make.

[00:04:05] Chris Furlong: Yes, we can check in, we can, we can have a conversation about it and, and you can even leave me a message on SpeakPipe, that's www.speakpipe.com/further your lifestyle. And you can tell. What it is that you want to do, but I don't wanna scare you with this, but before you say, I dunno how to do it I'm not, not sure if this is for me.

[00:04:23] Chris Furlong: I need to, I need to think about it. Let's have a quick chat about some things. I've got five insights or more, so five analogies of sorts, which. May actually help you see the importance of why starting now and figuring out how to make the progress is going to be the best decision you make, that you may ever make, and it enables you to move forward.

[00:04:42] Chris Furlong: Let's dive into these five different analogies. Number one is time is like a river that never stops flowing. You can either swim against the current and exhaust yourself, or you can jump in and start swimming towards your destination. Now, to me, this just makes sense, but if it doesn't make sense to you, and I'm sorry if I'm being too candor, you know, the reality is we're not salmon.

[00:05:02] Chris Furlong: You know, salmon swim upstream when they need to go spawn basically lay eggs and spawn. They swim upstream up to the top of the stream. So that way. young links, their hatch links come out, they go all the way down the river, and then they make that journey back again. We are humans and we naturally are, I guess, drawn towards the flow of progress.

[00:05:21] Chris Furlong: We wanna take the easy route. We wanna do things that is going to make our life easier. We're also drawn to seeing results, whether you like it or not, it might be big results, small results, easy results. Usually not hard results, but we like to make things easy. So why don't you do yourself a. and leverage the momentum you have right by our side.

[00:05:40] Chris Furlong: And that is time. You see. It can, it can be insanely crazy to see the progress we can make when we start to leverage the time that we have, when we make a dedicated commitment to show up on a regular basis and to learn to put in the reps. at first. If, if it's something you've never done before, it will suck.

[00:05:58] Chris Furlong: There will be lots of things you need to learn. You'll be lots of things you need to figure out, and there'll be new ways of doing things, but give it four weeks. You'll have a groove, you'll find a flow, and you'll have a process which you enjoy, and then you can start swimming in the direction which makes sense.

[00:06:13] Chris Furlong: Forward towards your goals. . That's analogy number one. Number two is this time is like a camera that never stops clicking. You can either stand still and wait for the perfect shot to happen, or you can keep moving and snapping pictures until you capture the perfect moment. You see, when we wait for the perfect moment, it may only come around once every blue moon, and the chances are you're not going to be ready to sweep it up.

[00:06:36] Chris Furlong: It's very, very little chance that you will actually, we need to make. We're making the process of progress easier, and what I mean by that is if you wanted the opportunity for a new job, but you didn't reach out to new jobs or didn't put any offers out there, or you know you didn't put your resume or whatever, or you didn't make a call or you didn't send any emails, or you weren't even out there asking if there is opportunity, then how many opportunities are you going.

[00:07:02] Chris Furlong: Likely none unless someone reaches out to you. But if they don't know you're looking, how are they going to know that you're looking ? You see, when we wait around for that one thing to come to us, it may be we don't want it, we don't need it, or we miss it. Right? And that's the reality of it. We need to start making the opportunity for opportunity odds in our favor.

[00:07:23] Chris Furlong: Meaning let's, let's make this a possible. solution for ourselves. Let's make it tangible. Let's make it feasible. Let's make it actually actual liable. Does that make sense? You get my point. Let's don't, don't work. You know, there's this funny saying, and I'm not, this is not financial advice whatsoever. You know, people say it's like, ah, you know, I want to win a million dollars.

[00:07:43] Chris Furlong: I can't wait to win a million dollars. Or, what if I could spend a million dollars? And you know, they usually talk about this when a lottery is on. And and I, you know, I might ask him, he's like, oh, did you sign up for the big, big lottery? He's like, no, I didn't. I'm just thinking about it, . But the reality is, you can't win a million dollars if you haven't signed up for a million dollars.

[00:07:59] Chris Furlong: Now, I'm not saying go out and sign up for the lottery. What I'm saying is you can have all these amazing ideas, but if you're not taking the steps to actually make these things come to life or give you the opportunity to come, Nothing's going to change. You need to be making progress as the time moves because the time's gonna go on without you anyway.

[00:08:19] Chris Furlong: So make sure that you're putting out these things that you want. Searching for new jobs or taking action, putting in the reps because the time's gonna move on without you regardless. If you reach out to 10 people, that's 10 chances of you getting a job response. Like when we take 10 photos, we have more, we have 10 more chances to learn or to get that perfect moment.

[00:08:39] Chris Furlong: Now, nine of those might be really fuzzy, but one of them might be absolutely perfect. That's the reality of it. Number. Is this time is like a train that never stops moving. You can either stay at the station or watch it pass by, or you can hop on board and enjoy the journey towards your destination. Now, maybe this one will make a little bit more sense to you, but really it's just saying the time will pass anyways from now to next year.

[00:09:03] Chris Furlong: So either you get on the action train or you don't. Either you be left behind or you. Either you be left behind or you become closer to your end destination. Essentially, that's what it's saying. Short and sweet. I hope that spells it out for you. The next one is, time is like a tree that never stops growing.

[00:09:21] Chris Furlong: You can either watch it grow and marvel at its height and you know how big it is, or you can plant your own seed and watch it grow into something that is just as magnificent. Now, without trying to repeat myself here, take a moment and think about someone who you knew 10 years ago maybe think about.

[00:09:39] Chris Furlong: since you saw them 10 years ago, or maybe it's five years ago, or just let's just say 10 years. Where are they now? What are they doing? Have they progressed? Have they gone backwards? Now I know, and I do this myself. That's why I say I know is there's people that I look at and see, wow, they took action and look where they are now.

[00:09:58] Chris Furlong: Now I'm not saying this is jealousy, what I'm saying. . It gives you motivation. If you can see someone and they're really, really ahead and it's successful, from our perspective, it looks successful. Cuz they might have all the traits that might define that from a society perspective, but they might give you some conviction of thinking, wow, if they can do this and they've done that in 10 years, I wanna be able to do that.

[00:10:18] Chris Furlong: And the only way to get there is to go through the same motions, the same process of putting in the reps over a long period of time. Now this is the same thing. You can sit around. and watching others move or not. But if you're not planting your own seeds, if you're not planting your own things to grow you, YouTube will see not much change.

[00:10:35] Chris Furlong: So you really need to ask yourself, do you want to see someone else's tree grow or see yourself grow? There's this saying, it's like, you know, it's too late to be planting a a tree for shade today. Like you can't plant a sapling today and expect you're gonna have shade tomorrow. That's not the way it works.

[00:10:51] Chris Furlong: You need to be planting way. You know, it's also the saying is, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago because it's gonna take that long to grow. The next one is time is like a book that never stops turning its pages. You can either read someone else's story and live through them, or you can start writing your own story and live a life filled with adventure and success.

[00:11:12] Chris Furlong: Now this one becomes a trap with the, the amount of things that we can see online, on YouTube, on social media. Highlight reels. We do, we fall into a trap. You. What others are doing, and you get attached to their journey and you get excited. I mean, people are always following me and they, they, you know, I document my journey because I wanna share the progress, but this can be a trap because we can get stuck on other people's journey, on their experience.

[00:11:36] Chris Furlong: And we feel like we are getting to dabble in their wins and their progress, like we are part of their journey Now, I appreciate every single person that's been part of this podcast, that's followed this podcast that's commented on this podcast. On this podcast and also in my own business journey as people have documented and, and you know, they've been able to encourage me, keep me accountable, but also come along from the journey since day one.

[00:11:57] Chris Furlong: I really appreciate it. It's really, really good. But the reality is this, you become a victim or you can become a victim of being a fan and building on their success, which makes you feel like together you have been successful with them. Now it's great to be able to be a part of someone else's journey.

[00:12:14] Chris Furlong: You can learn from them. You get to, yeah, there is some really good rewards and their journey to be, to be where they want to be. But do not let this become your train to success as unfortunately, you'll find out the hard way as as you get to the destination that they are heading towards, you'll get there with.

[00:12:33] Chris Furlong: But then you'll realize that all your luggage was left way back at the station that you hopped on . And then the reality is they will continue to progress, but you'll need to go all the way back to the first station that you jumped on, where you followed them from their progress, and you will need to.

[00:12:50] Chris Furlong: Grab that luggage. You'll need to pick yourself up, and then you'll need to start that whole journey all over again. Now, my suggestion in this area is if there is someone that you're following along, whether it's you know, another person, or you know a company or whatever you are following along, and that you feel like you are part of that journey, make sure you're making progress on the regular basis in the same, I guess, repetitions that they are, that way you're growing together.

[00:13:16] Chris Furlong: You can learn from them. If they're a year ahead of you, you're gonna be able to get so many breadcrumbs and you can leverage that. But don't be a, don't fall into the trap of following someone else's success, but not doing anything yourself, because you'll get to the end. They will be happy, but you won't have any of the.

[00:13:36] Chris Furlong: I hope these analogies have really given you, I guess, a spark or a big, big reality. Check. Some of you, it might mean a slap in the face, and some of you might not wanna hear this, but this, that's the reality. We need to get out there. We need to take action. And sometimes there's times where you don't wanna take action.

[00:13:51] Chris Furlong: There's times where it just feels too much. Work with that, do a little bit less, but still continue to make the progress. So what are you gonna do over the next year? What are you going to. I hope these analogies have given you that conviction to go out and start to take that action. And I wanna know, are you serious about taking this challenge for me?

[00:14:10] Chris Furlong: Will you set a goal for the next year that you wanna see what you can achieve? And it might just be as simple as like, I want to just be running once a week for the next one year, or I wanna start a YouTube channel and I'll do one video a week. Or I want to, I don't know what it is. You need to define what it is, right?

[00:14:26] Chris Furlong: I don't wanna put ideas into your head, but if there's something there that you've been weighing off, start. and just make it that you're going to get it done. And let's see where you can get to within one one year. Because I guarantee you, if we come back in a year's time and you have not progressed, that's on you.

[00:14:42] Chris Furlong: That's not on me. But we're gonna be getting into that one year time regardless. So let's see what you can leverage with that time. You might be 30% better than where you are now. That's 30% more than you've ever. You might be a hundred percent, you might be two times, you might be 10 x where you are now, but you cannot get that if you just continue to do what you're doing.

[00:15:01] Chris Furlong: You always get what you've always gotten. If you always do what you've always done. That's, that's as simple as it gets. That's, that's the reality of it. So if you do wanna share with me what you're planning to do or if you've got some thoughts and opinions or comments, or you've even got a question, you can jump over to SpeakPipe and you can share with me a voicemail, leave a message, and I can add it into one of these episodes and we can talk about it.

[00:15:23] Chris Furlong: But essentially jump over to www.speakpipe.com/further your lifestyle. You can always. Also hit me up on YouTube. You can leave a comment. You can also send me a message on Instagram and all those details are in the description below. But I wanna know if you are seriously keen about this, because I'm keen I'm gonna be making progress regardless.

[00:15:40] Chris Furlong: It's gonna be with my YouTube, it's gonna be with my running, it's gonna be with this podcast, and it's gonna be with my business. That's, that's ultimately what I'm working on. There's a few other little things too, but they're not the things that are what's driving me to where I want to be with my big end game.

[00:15:53] Chris Furlong: They're kind of small little things that I want to try on the site. I'm talking about doing the things that you really, really want, and the best way to get those things is to take action and do it over the next year, over the next two years, five years, 10 years. I can go on and on, but I won't. I won't. So I really hope this has challenged you.

[00:16:11] Chris Furlong: It's challenged me, but let's see what you can do. Let's see if we can do something that we've never done before. And I believe if I can do it, then I think you can do it too. And I also believe that together we can grow and see each other succeed. So if you need help with this, you know, reach out. Let's stay accountable.

[00:16:27] Chris Furlong: I can help answer questions or, you know, send you a message of, yeah, you've got this, or just give you that little kick that you might need. Otherwise, that's what this episode is, a big kick in the butt to say, let's get Kraken. All right, team, really do appreciate you being here. As I said, if you do have any questions, chuck 'em down below on the comments section.

[00:16:44] Chris Furlong: If you are watching this on the YouTube or if you are here part of just listening, you know, send me a message later or you can leave a voicemail over at Speak Pipe. Thanks for watching. It's always a pleasure or thanks for listening. It's always a pleasure and you have a wonderful day. Cheers.