EP.131 - 14 Rules for a good life? | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the further your lifestyle podcast Conversations on Lifestyle, passions and Huzzles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Episode 131 today, and we are talking about 14 rules for a good life. Now, obviously, this podcast is about furthering your lifestyle and over the last few weeks, I've really enjoyed going through in this different way of having a conversation and actually going through finding a few other different articles or different people's opinions or different people's write ups on things relevant to furthering your lifestyle or how to better your life. And what I like about this is it gives me fresh perspective and I actually go through it without kind of, you know, doing any reading of it in advance, so that way, I can have the conversation with you in a fresh perspective off the cuff and help you see how I'm thinking about it, but also maybe give you a chance to have the conversation with me, whether you're listening, whether you're watching we are on the YouTube. Otherwise, you can listen on Spotify or Apple podcast as well, which you're probably already doing because you're hearing this right now. So that's what we're discussing today. I will put the link of the article that I found this from in the description or in the show notes, so you can go check it out for yourself If you would like, and giving credit to the original owner, and I just stumbled upon this one. So that's why we're going through it.

Speaker 1: 1:17

But I think you know, when we think about life and I have spoken about this is there is some really strong value around having a set of rules to life. Now, I don't know if that's what this article is specifically about, but for myself, having rules or having values and things that kind of keep you rooted, things that keep you to a foundational baseline of like, is this going to get me to where I want to be? I think that keeps you structured and keeps you honest. Now, I think in this case, there are probably more just different points of views that I think we can leverage and take perspective on or really just give us some food for thought to really just help challenge the way we think and the way we go about doing things. So, rather than repeating myself, let's just dive in, right. So again, looking at these off the cuff, not really knowing what I'm about to jump into, but I'll be chucking them up on screen if you are here with the visual experience on the YouTube.

Speaker 1: 2:08

However, the first one is the first rule of the 14 rules for a good life is if you're anxious, slow down. If you're depressed, speed up. Now I think this is interesting and look, over the last couple of weeks I've actually been quite unwell. I had a cold and flu and I had a really bad ulcer and I was getting really bad headaches and getting nausea, and in those situations you have to slow down. Right, you have to slow down Now. That's not because I was anxious, but because my body needed to rest.

Speaker 1: 2:35

But if we, if we just play this back again, so if you're anxious, so if you're feeling stressed, worried, not sure about something, pull back, take a moment to breathe. That's what it's saying, right? But if you're depressed, if you're not feeling yourself in terms of not sure what to do, you know challenging everything you're thinking about Now I can't say I've ever experienced depression. Obviously we have bad days. It's saying to speed up, but I think we have to be careful here, because you know, if you were to walk up to someone and say, oh, if you're not feeling it today, just do more, I don't think that's the right answer. But I think there is this level of you know, understanding our emotional state and adjusting the pace that can help us manage those feelings, manage that experience. Now, slowing down can obviously provide a lot of clarity when you know you're a bit nervous, a bit scared, anxiety. Well, at the same time, I think what it's trying to say here around, if you're feeling a bit depressed, is engaging in more activities or making yourself busy or putting yourself in situations that can distract you from those depressive thoughts is probably a really good idea. I would encourage you to. You know, make sure you have people around you, make sure you have people there to keep you honest and you know it can be comfortable and, you know, to help bring in some joy and distract you from whatever you're feeling.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Now, this is a very interesting first one, straight into an anxious versus being depressed. But I think, when we talk about the elements of slowing down and speeding up, I think there's times to slow down, zoom out, understand what's going on. Is it actually that bad? This is a really good one for business For me. I get very stressed out when I'm not seeing the results I want to see. Zoom out. It's not really that bad. So slow down a little bit and, just, you know, take a breather. Whereas, on the contrary, when it comes to about speeding up, there is times that we need to speed up, times you need to put in more effort and look, I'll be the first one. When there's things not going to plan, I try to bury myself in something else. So, if business isn't going well, I'll go for a run and I can put my you know focus and energy there and feel good about it, whereas the running is not going well, I've got other things that I can lean on to to help me stay motivated, keep the momentum up and, I guess, happy in some sense. So that's a very good, interesting one.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Number two is never make big decisions when you're emotional. This is very true, right? I think sometimes some of the rules we need to set in our life is to, when you do have a big decision, is implement a level of period of time that you go into assess it or sleep on it. Or, you know, there is that typical saying it's like I need to ask the boss or I need to sleep on it, but I think that's a relevant thing. We need to take the time to, just, you know, make sure we look at things from all angles and actually understand what we're about to decide on. Now. Emotions can obviously cloud our judgment. Emotions can make us do things that we didn't necessarily think we would do if we had thought about it more.

Speaker 1: 5:13

So, taking a step back about these decisions and, I guess, being able to have a little bit of thought out, understanding you know whether it's risk mitigation or understanding the consequences, the pros and cons I think the pros and cons ones is a really important one. I spoke about this the other day, but I think that's a good one. I spoke at this the other week is like, if you do have a decision to make and you're not sure, well, do the pros and cons right, because what it will do is reveal to you all the good things, all the bad things and how that plays to you. Now, if you're still feeling like you want to do it, even though there's a lot of cons against it, it probably means that it's a risk you're comfortable taking. Now, if you've got a lot of pros but you're still not feeling with it, it probably means it's not relevant to where you want to be going. So I think there's some really good outcomes that we can find from doing a pros and cons list, but also, you know, taking a step back from the emotional moment, taking a breather before we make a big decision. I think this is key. This is absolutely key. I totally agree with this.

Speaker 1: 6:12

Number three is don't buy into thoughts that make you feel worse. Yeah, look, this one is easier said than done on paper, because in a world absolutely saturated by people sharing and here I am doing a podcast telling you things, right, but there's a lot of people out there that are very happy and comfortable to bring other people down. You know, just being negative, nancy's Just, they just have a bad day so they take it out on everyone and they just have a negative look to life. And Sometimes that's not me and unfortunately so. Sometimes you don't want that right, but sometimes there's people in our circles whether it's family, close friends that are like that. And it doesn't mean that you should Get rid of him, you know, cut them out of your life entirely, but you might need to pull back or not surround yourself around them when you're trying to make bigger decisions or trying to move forward In areas of life where they're not going to support you.

Speaker 1: 7:09

So I'll thought, shape our reality. So if you brought people, you know, saying I your crap or you're not good enough, or you could never do that, it's not going to give you the confidence you need. Now there's a difference between people giving you constructive criticism or constructive feedback and like telling you what you need to hear, versus people telling you Things which is their own projections or their own issues or because they never thought that I can't feather them. Feather them that I think it's possible. So you really want to make sure, by focusing on positive and constructive thoughts or receiving positive and constructive feedback, that way we can. We can, I guess, construct a, A healthier mindset of sorts. Right, and we can continue to charge on. You know, surround yourself with people that are on the same mission or doing something of relevance to what you're trying to achieve, and that way you can get there quicker. You can support each other. You can, you know, charge each other on and motivate each other.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Where is you've got the negative Nancy's or people bringing you down. You gotta, you gotta cut that out. You gotta cut it out. Look I I immediately went to other people, but there's also the whole factor here around. You know, don't buy into thoughts that make you feel worse. So when you are talking to yourself and saying I'm not good enough, I'm where's that coming from? You need to cut that out as well, not blaming other people, because we sometimes are our worst own enemies. So if there's things there that you're doing of yourself, like self sabotage, you need to deal with that. Like, get on top of it, figure it out, put in a plan of like when you are feeling those triggers, what are you gonna do to have the conversation with yourself of cutting that, those negative thoughts off? Because if you're continuing to be negative, you're only gonna get negative results. That's. That's, unfortunately, as simple as it is Now.

Speaker 1: 8:48

The fourth one kind of carries on from this is if you're self conscious, focus on others. If you're self conscious, focus on it. I don't know if I agree with this. I don't know more context. Okay, I think. I think I see what it's saying. So sometimes we can be our worst.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Leading on to what I said before, sometimes we can be our worst enemies to ourselves. But sometimes, in order to, for company, good to ourselves, learn to be better or good to other people, now in time, you do need to learn to love yourself, because if you can't love yourself, how you meant to love others and sometimes I know I do this is I give the love and attention and help others, because I'm avoiding doing it for myself and it makes me feel better by doing it for someone else. Now that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's great to help other people, it's great to help others, it's great to be able to elevate other people, it's great to be able to engage in acts of kindness or, you know, listening to others and help boost their self esteem. But I think by doing that it's boosting my self esteem and sometimes that can be a little contradictory, because then I'm relying on always being able to help other people, like I'm some hero to help someone, and that's not a really good to have a hero's mentality all the time, because a lot of the time we need to fix ourselves, there's a lot of things that we need to deal with internally. So I think there is a level of that where, yeah, I agree, you know, if you are struggling to love yourself, learn to love others. But there is that whole conflict of I think, before we can even learn to love people holistically Sorry about to yawn we need to learn to love ourselves as well. So if you can't love yourself, it's going to become harder and harder to be able to put that love out for others. It's like if you've got people that you're you're supporting or looking after, or you know you're their carer and you're giving so much out, you know who's looking after you and you need to take the time to look after yourself.

Speaker 1: 10:46

This one is make the first move. That's very like broad, but so straight to the point. Look me, I'm naturally an introvert. I'm not one to be very bold, especially going back about 1015 years ago. As I build confidence in my environment, as I build a level of trust and you know, understand who's in my environment and who's who, then I feel more comfortable in making moves. But I am always one to Unless. I'm super confident in the room because maybe I'm ahead of the people in the room or I've done it before, or I'm teaching or sharing, like even doing this. I'm happy to talk about this kind of stuff because I'm comfortable doing it. But I think when it comes to making the first move, like even asking the first question in a room, sometimes that can be a bit scary. But if I'm Aware of the situations or the context of what we're talking about. I'm gonna be happy to do it. But if I look at this From a different perspective, you know we could be talking about anything.

Speaker 1: 11:48

You know it, this statement, it really comes down to confidence and Leading to positive outcomes, and I think that's what it is. When you see something, make the first move with confidence, knowing that it can lead to a positive outcome. I think a lot of the time we get held back, especially in the last four or five years, I think we've become withdrawn from pushing out and executing into, I would guess, being Decisive in what we want. And I think if you want something, you have to make the move. And it's not about, you know, I'm not talking about relationships here as necessarily or anything like that. I'm talking about taking action. Right, you know, if you want something, go get it. If you want to start a YouTube channel, no one else is gonna do it for you, so don't wait for someone else to come along and tell you how to do it. Get started, make the first move, go in confidence, be proactive and make it happen. That's that's what we're really talking about here. I feel that's what it's addressing.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Now, I haven't taken any context from the article. I've literally just taken the 14 points and that's what I'm diving into. So that's why I don't have any Necessarily deeper points from the article or anything like that. I'm really just diving into it from my own perspectives. Walking tall now, obviously, this is the next one. Um, obviously, walking tall.

Speaker 1: 13:01

There's two parts to this. You know, our body language, or how we present ourselves, can obviously Become as a positive or a negative. It can influence and I guess, yeah, it will influence how people respect us, look at us, judges, whatever, right, and it's not about what people think, but naturally that's what happens. Our body language communicates a lot. I remember when we went for, when I went for university and I did behavioral and communication studies for corporate, and it was interesting because how you present yourself, how you talk, how you, you know you adjust, you know your demeanor and where you're positioning yourself in conversations and the level of respect. It gets quite psychological and that all comes down to our own confidence, it comes down to self-perception.

Speaker 1: 13:47

But I think standing tall and Standing tall usually suggests that your yeah, you're portraying confidence and you're comfortable in the room, but you don't want to walk around with your head high, thinking you're better than everyone else. So there's a level of you know, you, we have to come into situations with humility, on being humble. And it's like me doing this, like I talk about this like I'm an expert. I'm not an expert, I'm just here having the conversation, but I can do it comfortably. But I'm also open to having the conversation, hearing someone else's point of view, being tired, I don't agree with that. I mean, we're all open to opinions, but you know it's not here saying, hey, I've got all the answers for you. You got to listen to me. This is all it is. No, no, no. I'm walking tall, knowing that I think I've got something really good to share with you all, but at the same time, it's like we need to take that on out to ourselves, we need to understand it ourselves and I'm comfortable and confident in presenting that to you. So I walk tall, sharing it.

Speaker 1: 14:44

You've got to own it right, whereas there's levels of walking tall where people might be arrogant or stubborn or think the whole world revolves around them. You don't want. You don't want to be that guy. You don't want to be that guy or girl. So I think we need to be careful with you know, confidence versus Arrogance and pride.

Speaker 1: 15:04

Yeah, the next one is always look your best. Now this one I. I Think it's not what we expect. So traditionally, if you asked me this about ten years ago, looking your best meant presenting myself in the social norms of what is expected in society me working in corporate. You know, ten years ago, you know, I wanted to look the slick, I wanted to wear the suit, I wanted to fit in with what that culture was representing. But that's not the answer here. What the answer is here is you always want to look your best of what makes you feel your best Version of yourself. Now I've got long hair. So back in my corporate days I would never have been allowed to have this, which is just stupid. But now I love it and I had a.

Speaker 1: 15:46

I think I shared this story in a previous episode. I was at a um. I was at a meeting just locally recently. I got my long hair and someone was asking me to come get a photo shoot and there were some people there doing a donation. It was a sponsored event and there were some high corporate people there were bankers actually, and they wanted to stand together with a picture of the donation being made and I was wearing my beanie, my Pokemon beanie, and I was asked to take my Pokemon beanie off. I was like why it's not really professional? It's got nothing to do about being professional, it's about being me. I am a professional and it is part of me. It is the best version of myself. It helps bring out the best version of myself. They said anyway, that person was all iffy about it, but then I had the CEO the most senior person in the room come and say, hey, come, stand next to me, and I was up front wearing the beanie, no problems whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 16:46

I think sometimes we can get fixated in what we think is okay, based on what others project, but for me, I want to look my best. I want to be me. I want to wear what I want to wear. I want to present how I want to present, because it is a representation of me. I realize that now, it took me a long time to get it. That's why I'm actually quite attached to my hair now, because it's a representation of me being able to let loose, become free of. You know, when I was working. There's nothing wrong with working for someone else, but I had to. I was following a lot of norms, which I didn't necessarily like, and now I feel that I can, let you know, be myself, be free and let my personality open up a bit more. So I think that's why it's very important that when we talk about looking your best, it's being yourself, presenting yourselves in the way that makes you bring out your most confident self, and also being able to then provide the best positive influence to everyone else around you. So don't hide yourself. Don't hide yourself, and that's what I think it means, but that's how I interpret it as always looking your best.

Speaker 1: 17:48

The next one this is hard Refuse to wine and moan. I'm a big wine and moaner when it comes to certain situations. Some things I move on. I mean, look, I get over it pretty quick, but usually heated in the moment when something doesn't go as well, I have a silk. You know this is annoying. I'm frustrated, look, and it's okay to release frustration, it's okay to express yourself, vent.

Speaker 1: 18:11

But when we get so stuck up in the whining and in the moaning and we spend so much time in that that we don't actually start, you know, taking any time to focusing on okay, this has happened, what can we do about it? What can we do next If you can't do anything about it? What can you do next? And I think by adapting a better solutions, like you know, problem solving mindset, it can help us lead to growth and progress, rather than just sitting there and complaining and looking and thinking, oh, I can't do anything. You know, everything's changed, it's not good enough and again, it's okay to have frustration, to be upset, to be frustrated, to be annoyed, but don't continue to whine and moan about it.

Speaker 1: 18:50

Find ways that you can work forwards. Move forwards, because you can waste so much time being stuck in that little bubble of whining and moaning when it doesn't actually do anything and it's just going to you. Look what you want to have a pity party. Look that pity party is going to be only one person and don't try and get other people to pity with you. You got to try and find. Okay, this is the situation. How do I move forward? I'm being pretty frank. The next one is do what most others refuse to do.

Speaker 1: 19:20

We spoke about this one the other day. Actually, you know, it's like sometimes it's okay to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing Now, within reason. So you know, if there's laws, don't go, disobey the law. But I think there's a level of you know. The whole saying is like taking the path less traveled. If there's a blueprint of how everyone has done success right, clearly it works, but it doesn't mean it's the right way, it doesn't mean it's the best way. It's just been the best way for the last you know, whoever right Now.

Speaker 1: 19:54

At the same time, we need to look at things of how other people have succeeded. But where are the gaps? Where are the things that we can come through and do it better based on what we know? Think about it Like the successful companies out there doing all these amazing things, but if you're able to fill their market gaps, you would be able to compete with them at a very high stakes level Only if you can meet you know, their market gaps, which is obviously quite difficult. But what I'm trying to say is, if you're trying to build a business and you can see everyone does it like this, but you can see that, why can't you do it this way? Why can't you ask the tough question and say, if we did it like this, it would, you know, get different results? And you think about it like you've got Uber versus taxis that model changed because they changed the way they operated in the game. Right, they did everything different. They didn't follow the same way. So I think the other way we can look at that at this is, you know, taking a chance on yourself. Now I can speak obviously on this one, because I did. I stepped away from the nine to five, the security, the job, the comfort to Joe. Figure out if I can make it work for myself and Obviously I'm in that journey nearly three years in and it's been the best thing I've ever done, scariest thing I've ever done.

Speaker 1: 21:11

There's been some really big moments there where it's like all jeepers, but there's also really really rewarding moments and I think when we're happy and comfortable to take the path less traveled, understanding that there's going to be consequence. You know not consequences, but you know obstacles and things. It's not gonna be easy, but I guarantee you taking the path that's always traveled isn't always easy either, because life gets in the way regardless. You could go the easy route, you can go the hard route and they might both be as rewarding, but you're still gonna probably have hiccups, problems. They hit you in life.

Speaker 1: 21:43

It's about what makes you comfortable. Sorry, not what makes you comfortable. It's about what makes you happy for life, and I'm not talking about oh yeah, but I've got lots of money. That's not happiness. Happiness is lifestyle, and that's what we're here to talk about furthering your lifestyle. And when you are able to Do what you want with confidence, ownership, accountability and responsibility, you'll be living your best life, and you are the only one that can take that Like. You're the only one that can be accountable, responsible for your life. So get out there and own it right. Don't let other people tell you that no, you can only do this, and I'm not trying to be saying oh yeah, go back to your boss and say you know you're no longer working for them because you don't like the way they, you know You're working environment or they don't pay you enough. Be sensible about it. But if you want to, if you want to be somewhere, you have to make that happen. And the only way to make that happen is to stop just doing the same that everyone else is doing and Start to think outside of the box. Be your best version by bringing out the best of yourself.

Speaker 1: 22:46

The next one is Create. Then create some more. So this one, I think, is interesting because, if we go back about 15 years ago Talking about creators and influences that didn't really exist. It wasn't a big thing, it was kind of maybe an upcoming thing. And Now everyone's like I want to be a creator, or I'm a youtuber, or I, you know, I create this or I do that. Look, we can do it in music, we can do it in art, we can do it in videos, we can do it in photos. We can do it in so many different areas of expertise.

Speaker 1: 23:15

Now and I Think the problem is coming back to the point of like Starting something from scratch and, you know, taking your own chance on yourself and trying to build the world or the life that you want. It comes down to you can't just do one thing and expect it's all gonna happen. You need to create and then create some more. You know, like me, starting my huge. I've been doing YouTube for eight years and I continue to create. I continue to refine it, continue to learn. I've been running, I continue to create how I run, in different ways. I've been doing this podcast. I continue to create and I continue to create some more in different ways. I express different ways of doing it, I fulfill these episodes in a different way and I think Finding ways to continue to create and express your interests, express your creative pursuits, your Ideas, is going to further your personal growth, and it doesn't have to be about creating a podcast.

Speaker 1: 24:11

It doesn't have to be about creating a YouTube channel. I'm talking about just journaling, drawing a pictures, whatever is that's creative for you. I might be building something, sharing something I don't know, but when you create and continue to create, you will continue to grow. Don't stop because it doesn't seem to be you know, stepping up to the same level of what other people are creating. No, no, no, you are you and you don't know what will happen if you did the third one, the fourth one, the fifth one. So you continue to create, express yourself, and you don't even have to create and express yourself to anyone else. Just create and express yourself to yourself.

Speaker 1: 24:52

The next one is never get into arguments. I don't know if I agree with this. Look, okay, I think I get it. Arguments yes, we don't want to have arguments. I'm not one for confrontation, I don't like it, but I think there's levels of conversation that need to be had around not debating, but necessarily understanding other people's opinions. Conversations, how they're feeling, what they're feeling. Obviously, we don't want to just be arguing for the sake of arguing, but I think having a really good conversation to seek understanding and to really learn about something or learn about someone else, it's beneficial, it's really beneficial. But just seeking an argument like you want to fight, it's like, no, yours isn't right. I'm here to tell you why mine is right. That's not the way about it. But understanding where people are coming from, understanding people's perspectives, understanding people's context, I think that's super important. And there's ways to have conversations or arguments in terms of in a healthy and safe way and hearing people out.

Speaker 1: 26:02

Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they don't like you, doesn't mean they hate you, doesn't mean that they should hate you or don't like you. I think we get so personal with arguments or mixed opinions or different opinions, like, obviously we can talk about the generalization of religion or different cultures, and then there's, all of a sudden, there's this generalization that, oh, because you're like that, well then you must be doing this. Therefore, I don't like you. Well, you don't believe that. Therefore, it's just, it seems almost silly, right, like child's play. So I think let's not get into arguments but let's have, you know adult conversations and understanding.

Speaker 1: 26:39

You know where people are coming from, why they feel that way, and then be happy with it. Be happy for them. You don't. It's not about trying to change people. It's about being comfortable, that you're both comfortable with each other, right? Because just because I might not agree with what you agree on, so just because I might not agree with what you like or do or how you live your life, doesn't mean I should tell you how you should. I can share how I do it, my opinions, why I think this way might be. Oh, you know, this might be better for you. They can take that on board. They can say, no, I don't like it, okay cool, but it shouldn't really impact the way you bond or connect. However, I will say this if there's people out there that are toxic about this kind of stuff or, you know, aren't happy to have a conversation or, you know, aren't happy to compromise in the sense of like respect, then they're probably people you might not want to be surrounding yourself with.

Speaker 1: 27:32

The next one is make a habit Is it actually been 14? We're three out. The next one is make a habit of asking yeah, look, I think this makes great sense Asking questions. The more we ask questions, the more we can understand, the more we can open up to opportunities. And you know, whether it's a business, whether it's with life or you know, I mean think about it back to the rules of basic dating. You know, if you don't ask someone out, you know how will you know if you don't ask for someone for their number, how you know how else are you going to get it? You know, that's just simple, simple stuff. But asking for a discount or having conversations with people about how did you do this, people are happy to give advice, people are happy to share, people are happy to have a conversation with you, but they can't give you those answers, clarity, understanding or opportunities or, you know, connection if you don't ask. I think the other thing is, when you ask, make sure you're asking with the desire to learn and actually being mindful of what you're asking, because if you ask something and you don't take any attention to it, it's kind of like wasted time, because you know why did you ask in the first time, first place. So, yeah, I think it's important to ask more questions. The next one is and this is the second last one write and share something every day. Oh, I don't do this.

Speaker 1: 28:45

Look, there was a time where I was journaling and blogging every day. I did it for three years straight. But I think there's a level of it which obviously it's rewarding, it's relaxing, it's a way to, you know, decompress, to clear the headspace, to get out of your own head. I think it is a healthy thing to do. I don't think it has to be writing, but I think some way of you know whether it's documenting, sharing, journaling, recording, helping you kind of just get off what's happened when I first started doing my own, you know, doing all this for myself. Like every day I was dot-pointing what has to happen, what's the next things I need to be doing, like I was. Like I remember my, you know, task list was huge and I was just getting it off my head before I went to bed and that gradually then changed because I didn't need to, because I built a routine.

Speaker 1: 29:37

But now, if my head does get clustered, I write things down or I get it into the habit of regularly, you know, going through the information and understanding is this makes sense, does this make sense? And because when I shelve it in my head, it's kind of like there's a point that I need to understand, right, but it takes time to go through that, so I'll put it over here, I'll write it down and then I'll come back to it and dive into it if I need to. But sometimes, once you clear it out of your head and you answer the questions that you have about it, you're able to just continue on. So I think, yeah, going through that journaling process or sharing about it it helps you work through it and then you can move on All right.

Speaker 1: 30:13

The last one is this is good smile when you don't feel like it and it's hard, but I think smiling can elevate your mood or influence your mood in an environment for a positive outcome. Right, because, look, we live in a pretty harsh world and a world where there's not a lot of positivity, and sometimes we seek happiness or we seek something to make our day from other things or external factors, when we probably actually just have it in front of us. And for me, look, smiling is one way you can do it, and I don't do it enough, right, but I mean, that's why, every time I take a photo, I'm, like you know, doing a nice big pose, and it does. It makes me smile even more. But you know having little things in your life, you know, tokens which Enable smiling Things to look forward to. Might be a pet, it might be a certain day of the week, it might be date night, it might be, you know, a certain meal that you have once a week, or it might be an experience or something that you get out to do and that might help you then get to the process of smiling and feeling that joy every day. But I think there's days where you need to have those things that you can fall back on to just, you know, to make yourself feel good, and it can be as simple as just smiling. When you smile, like it can be contagious for the rest of the body as well. So I think it's important to bring that into your, you know, into your into your life, right? So well, I mean, look, ask yourself this question when was the last time that you smiled? And you smiled just to yourself? Alright, so that's the 14 points. I think it was 14. Look, I apologize if it wasn't for a good life, 14 rules for a good life.

Speaker 1: 31:55

Now, I think there's a lot here which is very relevant. Obviously, it can be interpreted in so many different ways. I mean their guidelines to help emphasize, I guess, the importance of self-awareness, and over the last six months I've been trying to become more self-aware of myself. Over the last two and a half years I've done even more of that, but really it's. These are to help you express the importance of self-awareness, taking actions, positive actions, being proactive, and how we can approach life in a way that's going to get us a rewarding outcome, ie furthering your lifestyle, and I think by if we incorporate these things, it can lead to better well-being. It can lead to better conversations or better relationships with our loved ones, our friends, our family and, you know, all those people in our peer groups. But also it enables personal growth, right, and I like to have these conversations this way because I'm learning so much here. I'm challenging the way I think I can restructure what makes sense to me and what doesn't. Now it can be interpreted different for you, but I do have some, you know, quick little callouts for you to maybe go away with One.

Speaker 1: 32:57

Go back through this. You know what stuck out to you. Let me know in the comments below what stuck out to you, which one to you is a big one or a big challenge or something that you wanted to elaborate a bit more on? Let me know in the comments below. But the other thing is, like the questions we should ask ourselves is how can we tailor, I guess, these guidelines, these set of rules, to fit our own unique circumstances and personalities? As I said, you go through it, you're going to have a different reaction or response to all of these that I've just gone through. And I think the other thing is that there's obviously different contexts to these different things. You know, not all of them are going to apply as simple as you know, black and white. I think some of them could be counterproductive depending on how you interpret them, as I did. That's why I said some of these I don't agree with, but I guess it comes down to how we interpret it and the context behind it.

Speaker 1: 33:49

And then I think the other thing that we should be thinking about here is balance, you know, between these guidelines but also being authentic to ourselves. Like I mean, these aren't my guidelines, these are not saying these should be your guidelines or your rules for life or whatever, but I think there is a relevancy of having rules to life, right, no things that you can fall back to things that you make yourself aware of, and it might just be one or two things that. No, this is what I want to do and this is why I'm doing it. Whether it's values, rules or a set of guidelines, I think they're important to help, you know, stand as tall when we're not too sure of what to do, and that in itself can be quite hard to do. Like, how do you write a set of rules and I'm not talking about like some manifesto or anything, but just little things that you know you can stand by. So that would be my challenge to you is think about this in that way.

Speaker 1: 34:39

Do you have rules for life? Do you have some values or guidelines that you can fall back on to? And what was your out of these 14? What one stuck out to you the most? Really, do appreciate your being. If you do want to continue the conversation, as I said, you can leave a comment, you can reach out to me. Let's get connected. I do have speakpipecom slash further your lifestyle, where you can jump over there. You can leave a voice recording. I can integrate that into the episodes. Otherwise, look, you know you have a wonderful week, take it easy, look after yourself and if you think this episode could resonate with someone, or any of the episodes on the further your lifestyle podcast, please, please, go, share it. Share it with someone that would mean the absolute world to me. Appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day, cheers.