Speaker 1: 0:00

Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the further your lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hassles. My name's Chris, i'm your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Episode 117 today. And have you ever seen those videos or those blogs? or they're kind of cliche and they're going around quite a lot these days where it says five things or 10 things I wish I knew in my 20s or my 30s or my 40s or whatever the time period was, and it usually comes from someone who's you know they're now 40 and they wish they knew this at 20, or they're now 16, they wish they knew this at the 40, all those kind of things. Well, we're going to be dabbling in something similar to that, in a similar fashion, but I'm going to change it up a little bit because I don't want to be doing exactly the same thing. But what I want to do is touch on some of the points that I wish I knew earlier and some of the ones that I think that are relevant for anyone listening to this. But I also want to give the perspective and I'm putting this as the caveat upfront of that you know it isn't too late to apply these, you know whether you're 20, whether you're 30, whether you're 40, 45, 60 and beyond. A lot of the time it's not actually too late. A lot of the things that we wish we knew when we're younger, because we would have been able to apply them over a longer period of time. Yeah, that would have been great. Hindsight is great like that. But that doesn't mean you don't put the action in now, you don't take action today and start putting things into place.

Speaker 1: 1:19

So, going into this I'm going to talk about I think it's seven different points I really want you to really consider and really think about. Can I start applying this to my life today? Can I start applying this to make the difference? And look, some of these you might already know, some of these you might already be doing, and that's great, really happy for you. But even thinking about, when you hear other people talk about these kind of things, what's stopping you from actually, you know, making the difference? Because so many times I'm going on a bit of a rant here I hear people say, oh, i wish I knew this when I was 20, you know, i would have been doing it for the last 20 years. It's like great, you're 40. Well, let's do it for the next 20 years, and then you'll be 60 and then you will wish you would have done it then if you haven't now. So you get my point.

Speaker 1: 1:58

So, trying not to get too worked up. So that's really what we're discussing today. We have time to apply these principles and reap the rewards. That's the idea. Obviously, the sooner we can do it, the better, as time is what enables the compounding effect. Well, time and consistency. So that's what we're talking about today. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1: 2:21

So here are seven things that I wish I was informed of earlier, and not just told but actually taught, i think a lot of the time. Sometimes we're presented with information but we do not understand it. We cannot comprehend it until we've practically experienced it. Now, some of that's my own fault, because I didn't, you know, have the curiosity or didn't see the understanding of why should I be doing this? But I think that's why it's important is when we can apply these things to our lives with a better perspective, or have someone talk us through why they're important. And look, i'll do my best job at this. I might, i might be a bit too fluffy, and if you think there's something here that I haven't covered, then do let me know in the comments If you're here watching on the YouTube, or do reach out and call it out, because I'm kind of talking from my own perspective. But I really want to make sure people have taken this in their own shoes and walking the path to be able to get the stuff you know in their own life that they want, that I potentially didn't get till later in my life. Now I'm not some old fella. I don't have all the wisdom figured out, but you know, i've been doing this for 31, 32 years and there's a lot of things that I have learned and there's a lot of things that I wish I had known earlier, but I've been able to apply over the last 30 years or so. So that's really where I'm coming from. It's coming from a place from the heart that I really just want to give back to you guys. Now, as I said, some of this has been a lack of my own curiosity, or because I just didn't put myself in the position to actually learn the information, or I did learn it eventually, but through the experience of just growing up. I'm here to hopefully save you some time with that and leave you some breadcrumbs, because success leaves clues, or you want to follow other people's breadcrumbs to that success. So number one is you do not have to wait for retirement to live the life you want Now.

Speaker 1: 3:58

I remember going through high school and this was something that I now realize was pretty bad that we had to choose a pathway career from grade 10. You know you had to pick out what do you want to be studying, and if you study this, then you'll be able to get into university. What are you going to apply for? I think we had to pick like 10 or flippin 20 different things that we wanted to do. I mean I'm 16 at the time. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I mean I had ideas that I think one stage I wanted to be a marine biologist and wanted to be a video game developer, but there was so much pressure And then I remember them saying well, if you don't get your top preferences, what's your fallback plan? And I'm like, well, i don't know. And they made me pick out these really weird education streams of going to study something else which was in no relevance to anything that I wanted to do. Like, yeah, but if you do this, then you can get into that and then you can go follow the rest of the sheep to their slaughter.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And I say that with a bit of tongue and cheek because we're kind of told to you know, get an education, go do career, and that's a happy life And look, there's nothing wrong with having a corporate career or going to follow a pathway. I think it's great that that opportunity is there, but it's very overwhelming. It's very, very it's overwhelming now that I realize it. But at the same time, back then, it's great to be able to have that opportunity. You know, don't take it for granted, but it's. I think we get it so drilled in that in today's age we have so much opportunity, right? You know, people say to me that they can't do this or they don't know how to make money. The opportunities we have I mean we have the rise of AI at the moment that is just enabling us to be able to do things that that I did only 10, 15, 20 years ago that would have taken me 30, 40, 50 minutes, even 3 hours, and you can now do it within literally 30 seconds. So opportunities out there.

Speaker 1: 5:37

So, kind of digressing off topic here, having a plan makes sense, right, but you know, having a such a detailed plan that doesn't even make sense to what you want doesn't make sense. It does not. You should not be defined by that. You now get to decide what you want to do And you can change this at any point in time, right? I mean, you could be a full-time Uber driver. You could be a door-dash delivery driver. You could be a rock climber. You could stay at home, mum or dad, or you could be self-employed a banker. You could travel around backpacking, doing fruit picking in seasonal times of the different fruits. It's up to you, right? Do not let other people define what you have to be doing. You get to take the journey where you want it to go. You also got to be responsible and accountable for it. So I want to try and push that as much as possible, and that's really what this podcast is about. Further your lifestyle, build the lifestyle that you want, and if there's something there that you want to dabble in a bit more like have a conversation about, let's have it.

Speaker 1: 6:32

Number two is taking care of your mind and body is crucial. Now, this one would seem very straightforward, yet we tend to neglect it As adults, we know. Oh, i wish I'd started doing that earlier, because I would be in much better shape now. There you go, start doing it today and you'll be in better shape soon enough. But the point is, look, i've been running for about eight years And I think about and I'm almost 32, i think about well, imagine if I had started earlier, imagine if I'd started when I was 20. And how much further I would be with the mentalities that I have around running. Because I use running more so for a mental fitness game, not just for exercise. Originally it was for exercise, but now I'm using it for more of a, you know, a place to escape, you know, and it helps me grow and gives me a bit of confidence, and things like that. But the same for fitness. When we apply these regular routine things over a long period of time, we build stamina, we build resilience, we build a mental fit mind, we build the ability to be able to execute or to do things.

Speaker 1: 7:29

I'm not just saying you need to go out and do running. I'm saying you need to find ways to look after your body and find ways to look after your mind. This comes down to food, this comes down to you know, whatever it is that you're doing. So find ways to manage your mind and set it free. So this could be like running, it could be exercise, it could be yoga, it could be meditation Heck, it could be just playing video games, I don't care. Find something that enables you to switch off. And also same for your body as it ages, it gets harder to manage. So how are you managing your food intake? You know, how are you exercising? They sang, fit and nimble. How's your agility? How's your mobility? All these little things, you know? I'm not saying you need to go out and spend three hours at the gym every day, but find a way to do this over a period of time.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Again, you don't have to be 20 to be doing this. You're 45, you're 50. Go do it. What's stopping you from doing a push-up challenge? What's stopping you from going for a walk? What's stopping you? Look, i know we all have our different. You know, issues, disabilities, problems, things that get in the way. Work around it. Find something that works for you. Do not leave this opportunity on the table.

Speaker 1: 8:28

The next one is never stop learning and investing in skills, even if you get your dream job. Now, really, what it's trying to say here, or what I'm trying to say more so is don't get complacent, because a lot of times when we get things that we want or we're seeing results that we want, we kind of sit back and cruise mode. It's like, ah, i figured it out, got it all figured out, it's all good. Well, that's not the case. It will be for a period of time, but you know, we don't know what we don't know Now. If you can be better at your dream job, then why wouldn't you? if you can learn beyond your dream job, because you might realize that that dream job isn't not all that you wanted once you started doing it for a period of time. If you can become a better version of yourself, this has nothing to do with the dream job. So find ways to continue to improve yourself, because it will open up new doors for you that you had never imagined were possible.

Speaker 1: 9:16

The next one is not utilizing the power of compounding. Now this one in a traditional sense or a cliche sense. We can talk about saving money, and that really is what I'm trying to get a push here. When we can save, the earlier we can save, or put money to work over a long period of time, we get a compound effect. Now I remember when my grandpa or my mom also, you know back when I was like nine or something, he said look, every dollar that you can save today will be worth like $5 when I'm 20. Now whether that percentage has actually worked out that case, he wasn't technically wrong because you know inflation and the cost of living goes up and also the compounding effect over a long period of time and you continuing to save, we can see some really, really rewarding results.

Speaker 1: 9:55

You know people just say oh, i just put it in an index fund. If you're trying to invest money, put it in an index fund in the stock market and leave over 20, 30, 40 years right And watch it compound, because the average return per year over that long period of time is about 9%. It sounds good, sounds great, cool, just got to wait 50 years. But the reality is, yeah, we do, we have to wait time. There's no secret path of just getting rich overnight. That's not how it works. So if you can find ways to do something today consistently that's going to continue to provide compounding results over a longer period of time, then why wouldn't you be doing it? And I understand that it's easy to say this, because we have to find our groove. We have to find our way of being able to do this and see what sticks. But it's with results. As we can start to put results into play, we can compound those results.

Speaker 1: 10:43

So the first time you learn something, it's hard, it takes a lot of time. The next time you do it, it's a little bit easier. By the 100th time you've done it as a rinse and repeat process. It's now second nature to you And it's just something that you would do every single day And, look, you might even take it for granted. So it compounds into something that's just normal And that's the power of putting in the practice, putting in the reps, since they're inconsistent.

Speaker 1: 11:08

And again, you don't have to be doing this over 60 years necessarily. Obviously, if you do 60 years experience or something, you're going to be very, very knowledgeable and wise in that area. But if you can do this just consistently over a year, that's going to change your life. And I'm talking about with. It could be with saving, it could be with exercise, it could be with habits, it could be with just having conversations with people. You know, setting out date nights with your loved one, with your partner. That that effect, that compounding effect? right, because you get into a routine, you learn more about each other, you're having deeper conversations, you're going to places you haven't gone before. Right, i think you get what I'm trying to say here, and if it's not clear, go try it yourself. Right? Spend the next 30 days doing something consistently. See what happens.

Speaker 1: 11:50

The next one is expecting toxic people to change. This one, yeah, look, it's like banging your head against a brick wall. The sooner we can change our expectations around this, the better. Meaning, the sooner We stop expecting people to change, meaning the sooner we stop expecting people to change especially toxic people Then the better we will be off. You know I'm talking about negative Nancy's, debbie Downers and all that jazz, the people that are bringing you down, the people that have Limited beliefs, set ideas that will not change, and I'm not here to say that these people are stupid. I'm not here to say that these people, you know, should not be around. What I'm trying to say is, like, there's certain people that aren't going to enable you to get to where you want to be and you thinking that you can fix them, that you can change them, or That they are going to be a better version of themselves Because it's going to make your life better than you've got the wrong idea.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Firstly, focus on getting yourself right. You know, if you've got your own little issues, whatever, work on you, you know, be selfish in this sense, right. Don't go around looking and trying to get other people fixed and what their problems are And what they should be doing. We've all got problems, but don't also let problems and I'm digressing at the moment, don't let your problems be reasons why you don't do things like people will say you need to fix your own problems Which is true we do but don't let it stopping you from going out and doing what you want to do.

Speaker 1: 13:10

On the contrary, if there is people in your circles that you are trying to Help them help themselves and they're not willing to be helped, if there's people in there that are toxic in terms of negative or you know They think in a way which doesn't align with you, then they're not people that should be really aligning to your values in. What I'm trying to say is is they shouldn't be the ones Putting the input or giving you know their opinions in that area, because it's not relevant. It's not relevant. So stop expecting people to change that's going to suit your lifestyle. If those people aren't willing to change, of those peeling don't, of those people don't want to change, then that's got nothing to do with you. You need to move on, just like. Then they're expecting you to change to their side or to come to their your opinion, to bring your opinion to their side. It gets a bit messy, right? so what I'm trying to say is like it's not that people can't change, right, but stop expecting people to change. Why don't we just focus on ourselves and the changes we need to make and move forward? But also let's not surround ourselves with tox, toxic people, people that aren't aligning to where your values are or where you're trying to go.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Now, i've spoken about this a few times in a number of different episodes around you know, finding your values, finding your purpose, building your north star, you know, having that plan of where you want to go and how to do that. There's plenty of episodes on this kind of stuff. The next one is stop stopping. So this one Again we have to be very mindful and I'm not trying to just say this because I've got things I have to fix, but we tend to get to this point where we've we're very capable of. We tend to get to this point where many of us or few of us, more so, actually few of us are capable of actually finishing what we start. We tend to get excited about an idea, we tend to get excited about a new process or a new progress or a new goal that we have, or 30-day challenge, or I'm going to be consistent, that I'm going to change the world. Yet the excitement soon wears off and we don't actually put in the work and we move on to the next shiny thing or the next best thing. Stick it out. See what happens, right.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Coming back to the point around the compounding lessons, right, the first time we do something, it's hard, it sucks, it's, it's horrible, like if you had to make coffee for the first time. It's not going to be easy. The second time you do it, it's, it's very easy. The third time Okay, now I know how to do it. And then usually you come to the point where you're just walking up with your eyes closed And you're pressing a button on the machine. It's all good to go. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 15:33

But the point is We need to see things through, like I'm not saying to just do things for the sake of it, because you know we do need to cut our losses in some senses too. And that's more understanding, you know, risk mitigation, also understanding. Have we gone too far, you know? is this, is it not real? Is it? are we past the point of no return, kind of thing. But what I'm saying is like, don't give up so easily. Just because things get tough, that doesn't mean that they're going to continue to be tough.

Speaker 1: 16:02

Running as a good analogy of this you know, you, i can have runs where I've done 2k, 5k, and they feel like they are the toughest things. Yet I've gone and done 21k or a 50k and they feel like they were easier than the 2k or the 5k. It doesn't make sense, but that's the reality of it. The results will be different for everything that you do. You're gonna have good days, gonna have bad days, but you got to ride and roll with the punches. You need to see it through right. If you, if you're excited about something, be excited about seeing it through. Don't be excited about just the results You're gonna get, because most of the time you won't even get to the result because you give up right. So Try and see things through more right.

Speaker 1: 16:42

I think, over the years I've given up on a lot of things Which I think probably were better ideas, that that could have been turned into bigger and better ideas. But I gave up too early, right, and that's okay, like you learn from it, right. But that's why I'm imparting this, this lesson from my own learning, to you whoever's listening. And it's not too late to put This into practice. Right, it's not too late Time you can make some big changes in in some little time, and I might say one year, two years might seem like a long time, but you know, in theory it's not really that much. Compared to 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years, it's not. And the other thing is, when we see through the results of things, like when we see through and we get the results, you'll feel better about yourself. You'll also learn something about yourself and you'll learn something, but you, you might actually be amazed with the progress. So that that's my encouragement to you.

Speaker 1: 17:35

The next one is blaming others. Yeah, the next one is blaming others and how. In the moment, it might make you feel good, but it doesn't actually solve your problems. There's been a lot of things in the past, or a little in times in the past and look, i still do it today where we quick to blame or we blame it on other people or we blame it on other circumstances. One if you really want to be successful, start taking some ownership of your life and stop waiting for someone else to fix things for you. It's great and easy to be able to quick to blame because it gets rid of the problem at this point in time, but it doesn't actually solve the problem. And the other thing is We can be quick to blame But what's worse is we're quick to project to others as well and we put our own problems on other people. It's another whole conversation Now. We can blame others, even if they did make the mistake, but what difference does it make in actually Fixing the problem or solving the problem? It May direct the consequence to the person that needs to have the consequence at the end of the day, but it doesn't solve the problem.

Speaker 1: 18:40

Once again at hand, if someone spilled a bucket of water all over someone's painting or mum's painting You know mum's asking who did it Lighted up people arguing Does it actually change the fact of the matter, that the painting is wet and that it needs to be dry? No, it doesn't. It still needs to be saved. Doesn't matter if Bob did it or if Tommy did it. It really makes no difference whatsoever. Now we can argue that that person did it, this person did it or the person that did do it should be the one cleaning it up, but at the end of the day, that's not going to make Mum feel better and it's not going to fix the painting. So just get fixing the painting and then the consequence can come afterwards. Right, because the consequence is not going to solve the problem.

Speaker 1: 19:21

The consequence is, you know the consequence of doing something That was a mistake in the first place. So the consequence might just be like you know, no more water in the house. Buckets of water in the house. I don't know why there's buckets of water in the house. I'm just using this as an example. You see my point.

Speaker 1: 19:35

So stop blaming other people. Take flip an action. Take flip in responsibility and accountability of your own life. And, you know, if you see someone in need, help them, right. Don't think, oh, he can do it, oh, i shouldn't have to do that, or I'm too important for this, or it doesn't make sense for me to be doing this, or whatever. Look, there's a time and place where it makes sense for other people to be doing things, it really does. You know, like you know saving someone's life, for instance. You know, if you don't know CPR, look, you can probably still as assistant aid. But it's better that the person that knows what they're doing to do that right.

Speaker 1: 20:09

But that's not really about blaming. It's talking about you know people's roles and responsibilities, but when it comes to blame we are so quick. I know I do. The same thing is like oh, you know, it's because of this. It's like well, if it's because of that, how do we get into that in the first place? Most of the time it's probably because you did something or you didn't do something And we blame it on something. That makes it sound like it wasn't our fault, but in theory it was just because we were late, or we couldn't be bothered, or we were too lazy, or we didn't tell someone, or we forgot to communicate. The list goes on. I think that was the entire list.

Speaker 1: 20:43

So all these things, all these things, let me. Let me kind of just recap all this. Yes, it would have been great to know these earlier. It would have been really good to be able to apply them earlier in my journey of life. I mean sure, hindsight's great like that. But the other thing is, some of you might already be doing these things. Some of you already might be aware of the things that you have to fix or that you need to start putting in the action, going forward. So that's on you. But the other thing if you haven't, if you haven't been doing these things because you've been putting them off, what is stopping you from acting today? What is stopping you from taking action today?

Speaker 1: 21:20

You know, i worked my first job, you know from, after finishing university for eight years And then I did two years of unpaid leave and then I quit. So 10 years at that job, or eight years working. Now I work for myself, right, and I thought that job was going to be like my long life career. I was going to be there a lifer Hopefully I'll make it to manage a director, i'll get to country director and who knows right, i had big ambitions, as you do, and here I am now running my own business, almost actually. It's two and a half years now and I'm seeing results which I didn't expect so quickly. I'm seeing a lifestyle that I've been able to create which has still got its challenges. You know I've had to take up a lot of, obviously, sacrifices and things like that, but I'm seeing that there's a lot of opportunity ahead of me And I haven't even compared to a peer level of doing eight years in this business to what I did at my previous career. So I have a long way to go to. I can start comparing apples to apples. So I haven't even touched the surface of breaking even, of working for someone else.

Speaker 1: 22:25

My point here is what you can achieve in so little time is incredible, and it might not seem like little time at the time. I seem like a long time, like two years. I don't want to wait around two years, chris. Like well, no, no one wants to wait around two years, but there's no quick way to make these things happen. Right? I can't remember who the who the saying is, and I'm probably going to butcher this. I think it might have been Einstein, i don't know. But there's this quite around. Like you know, you can't have nine women pregnant in order to speed up the pregnancy of one baby. That doesn't work like that. It's still going to take nine months for a baby to be born. You can't speed that process up. So, yeah, you could have more people pregnant, but that doesn't speed up the process. It's still going to take nine months. Maybe it's a bad analogy.

Speaker 1: 23:11

The other thing is like, if you need to actually I spoke about this, i think it was just last week or the week before you know, if you need to do 120 hours of driving to be able to even enter the driving test to get your license, you can't do 100 hours to get 120 hours. It doesn't work that way. You have to do 120 hours. So the time, the time element to this is that that's got to happen anyway. Right, on average, it might take 30 days to build a routine, or 30 days to build a habit or whatever it may be. So you need to just get get down to the greedy of it and start working, because I guarantee you, when you look back now, you look back over the last 20 years, 15 years, five years, 10 years I don't know how old you are And think it's like, oh, imagine if I had done that. It's that moment when you realize that it's like that time's gone so quick.

Speaker 1: 24:05

In the moments as we're moving forward, yeah, things feel like a grind, but then all of a sudden you're like, oh, it's been two years, right, and that's why it's so important to take the opportunity. So do not be held back by, i guess, also the fear of things not working out, because things won't work out. Look as we, as we plant, they might work out better. But if we don't actually start progressing, like making the steps to make them count, then you're not going to get anything. You won't make a dent at all Just because you don't make progress in day one, day two, day three, like seeing big results, that's okay. You likely won't make a dent. Day one, day two, probably not even for a week. You're going to be sore, you're going to be tired, you're going to be like trying to figure it out, You're going to be restless trying to get into a groove. But if you can see through that, if you can pass through that, if you can see through that, you can get over that hump and you start layering in the daily inputs, the daily reps, day after day, lesson after lesson, you will be in a whole new world that you won't know yourself And you'll be happy. You'll be in a place that you can call your own, that you created. And it's not too late, it just starts today, all right. So pretty deep there, pretty full on.

Speaker 1: 25:17

I'm very passionate about this because I know that now, where I want to be, the only way to get there is I got to do the work. I can have people work for me, but I have to make the decisions. I have to be accountable for it. I have to be responsible for it. If I want to train for my 50K running training plan no one else can train for me I have to do it. It doesn't work like that. You can't just expect things to just fall and happen in your favor. You need to be start putting in the reps, putting in the steps, putting in the actions, putting in the plays for things to start coming into effect. So that's on you and it's on me for myself.

Speaker 1: 25:54

So I'm not here to say that I've got it all figured out either. I'm here saying that I'm still figuring a lot of things out. Like last week I don't know two weeks ago actually I spoke about my screen time and in there, how much time I'm wasting on social media, like watching TikToks or Instagram Reels and things like that. It's mind boggling. It's crazy. It's really really crazy to see how much time we spend doing things which we could invest in other areas. Now, if that's your downtime, if that's you hanging out, maybe you're creating videos. That might be your screen time, because you're creating videos and TikTok, that's fine. I'm not here to say you can't watch TikTok. What I'm here to say is, like it's your time, you spend it how you want, but don't come back crawling saying I wish I had done this because that's on you.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Take responsibility and try one thing, try two things. See what you can do over the next 30 days. Heck, see what you can do over the next week. I would really love to hear from you what it is you're trying to work on or where you've struggled or what you would have wished you'd done earlier. It's a great conversation to have. I would love to continue the conversation. You can do so by the comments in the YouTube, or read Jatsmeer on socials, or you can jump over to SpeakPipe That's wwwspeakpipecom. You can leave a memo, you can leave a voicemail and I can integrate it into one of these episodes and have a conversation of sorts. Anyway, really do appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day, cheers.