EP. 135 - Questionable Statements... Regarding Life's Unpredictability | Further Your Lifestyle Podcast

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the further your lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you, episode 135 today, and we're talking about five questionable statements to challenge your path of life today and now. These are actually five things that have been top of mind for me over the last couple of months. Really, I was just spending some time going through you know what really are some things that I've been thinking about, that I want to challenge or that have challenged me, but I figured that could probably challenge you as well. Now, of course, this is generalized information that is going through my own head, so you may or may not agree with this. This is my opinions things that I'm experiencing, things that I've been dealing with and things which I think are relevant to everyone that is potentially listening to this or watching this on the YouTubes. So it will be an interesting conversation. That literally just five different points. I think it's five one, two, three, four. Yeah, five points, and I'm going to read them out and I'm going to break down what I'm thinking and how it's been relevant to me in the last couple of months and why I think it's relevant to you. So we're going to dive into that right now. So buckle up, get cozy, let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 1:16

So, number one, a questionable statement, and it's something which I mean it's only questionable because it's my opinion, so you might not agree with it, as I said before. So the first one is nothing is set in stone. Now, what I mean by this is life is not linear. Life is a roller coaster, and this can be applied to all areas, whether it's running a business, whether it's exercise, whether it's trying to make progress, whether it's just, you know, things that come and go in life. And what I also mean by this is, though nothing is set in stone. It doesn't mean that we can't shuffle to it, adjust to it, change it, restart it, try again, or even increase pace. Sometimes, as you step through life, you're going to find that this is comfortable, and you're going to keep stepping through life, but that doesn't mean that this is how life is going to be. What you do today does not define the rest of your life. It defines your life in that moment, in that day. But if you want to make a change, if you want to start fresh, if you want to do any of those things, you can, right, I know people that complain about a lot of things, yet they're not doing anything to make any change about it.

Speaker 1: 2:25

So why are we complaining about it? And there's obviously the levels of things out of our control, but there's also things that are in our control, like, I mean, people complain about our government, people complain about all those different things, people complain about taxes, and it's like, well, you know, you don't have to live here. It's like, yes, I do. It's like, well, you don't, you can actually go live anywhere in the world. Well, not everywhere easily, but you can make that change if you really wanted to. And by that I'm not going to do that, there we go. So that frustrates me.

Speaker 1: 2:56

This is a personal peeve, but nothing is a set in stone and even the things that we create, things can change instantly where those things get pulled down or circumstances change. So the rule thing that I'm trying to bring out of this statement is let's not take things for granted, but let's not overthink things either. We need to sometimes ride the wave, see what's going to happen tomorrow, while at the same time, you know, enjoy every day, be grateful, be humble and make sure you do tank time to smell the roses along the way as well. So, and it's okay, it's okay to slow down, it's okay to speed up, it's okay to start again, it's okay to double down. You know it's all. Those things are okay, you do you and what works for you. The next one is people will cheer you on to succeed, but only if you don't surpass them.

Speaker 1: 3:47

This is something I've noticed a lot. I mean, it's an Australia thing, tall poppy syndrome, where we see other people thrive, or we see other people succeeding and they just get pulled down so quickly. Or we because it's not us, we're very quick to like, oh yeah, but this something mustn't be right here, or that you know they must have had a free pass, or you know a silver spoon, or you know they've been, they've been handed it all, or you know we naturally and I'm generalizing here we naturally tend to think of all the things, of why it must have been easy for them, and I think some of this will cross over some of these other points. It is very unfortunate, and I've seen, I've seen people that have encouraged me, but as soon as I start to, I mean, this is all my own opinion so I could be projecting. I might not be necessarily, I might not be right here, but how I feel is, as I start to make better progress, or better than maybe what someone else was doing when I first started, I do tend to see that there's either a changing conversation or there's this frustration or a pull down or negativity, which is unfortunate, because the people you need to find people that are going to uplift you, encourage you. Whether you're doing really really well or whether you're doing really really bad, it should not matter.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Unfortunately, in today's society and again very generalized we see that a lot and I see it happen to other people, and what frustrates me is there's a lack of empathy, there's a lack of fair game and there's a lack of just giving people a fair understanding. If you don't agree with something, you're entitled to that. I mean, we're all entitled to our opinions. But there's a lot of toxicity around people bringing other people down and when they start to make good progress, that must be fake. A really good example of this is and this is directed at no one but people leaving comments around oh, you must have, you're just so lucky that you built that way or you've just had it really really good, or you've obviously got something that we don't.

Speaker 1: 6:08

And this is in terms of running and I've also had those conversations around business as well, but I mean one just because I can do something while running, whether it's a half marathon, or I make it look easy and things like that. This has come over seven, eight years of training and being consistent and working on making that work. I then think about, well, how little I have achieved from it, because I know I could have changed things or I could have done things differently. So we need to really be mindful of when people are saying negative comments or trying to bring you down just because you're being successful. It's probably more their own problems than your own. But it's very easy for people to say, oh, you know, you must have someone, must have given you that or no way you could have done that. It's too hard to believe, right. If it's too good to be true, it can't be right and it's a shame, like it's a pity.

Speaker 1: 7:05

And look, I'm kind of sharing and being vulnerable here of what I have started to see a lot. I've seen it on YouTube as well, when I was raising money for Backpack for Vic kids. When we hit over $10,000, we did $11,000 actually in charity fundraising it was people going around reporting me saying that I'm scamming, saying that it's all fake, which you know it's. I don't understand. There's probably a whole level of things that I could probably break down into, help myself understand, but it's sad to see people trying to attack and bring down when others are thriving or growing or making progress and it might not even be a big deal, but it's just a bigger deal than maybe what they've done or I don't know. I don't know. There's clearly something I'm missing here, maybe. Anyway, that's.

Speaker 1: 7:54

That's something that I wanted to kind of just bring out and really challenge you all with is like make sure you know who you're surrounding yourself with. You know we do say we are a makeup of the five people we do surround ourselves with, and I talked, spoke about this a little bit in a couple of episodes back where, when doing my 50k, you know I had a crew, team, support. And having a team or a crew that can support you and help you make decisions and enable you when you're up, enable you when you're down, support you, encourage you, cheer you on, celebrate with you, keep you honest those people are crucial. So find the people that are going to cheer you on to succeed, but also cheer you on when you're past them, also encourage you, celebrate with you. Those people are the right people for your life. The next one that I had and this could be a short and sweet episode, the next one that I had was, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. This is one that I come back to very, very often and it kind of comes into play with the conversation that we just had is I do have a lot of people say, oh, you make it look easy, jeepers.

Speaker 1: 9:03

That statement, look, it can go two ways. Like I've said it to people, and I mean it in a way of you're doing a really good job, great work, you are making it look easy. But I also understand that anything that we do whether it's life in general or certain things in life like, for me, running a 50K or building my business, or seeing people thrive with their YouTube, or just trying to get that promotion at work, or going on a hike or traveling, or just wanting to maybe be the top spelling bee competitor in Australia I don't know all these different things the reality is, none of this stuff is easy. The reality is there's a lot of stuff that goes in behind the scenes, not just physically, but mentally preparation, planning, consistency, discipline, showing up, just being able to continue to show up over a long period of time. And the way I look at this is people are easy to throw you under the bus, easy to call you out, easy to be negative, but at the same time, where are these people doing those things that you're doing? I'm all for constructive criticism, all up for having people keep you honest, but there needs to be some level of like. Well, who are you to give me that advice? Or who are you to give me that feedback when I don't even know what you're doing? Like, how can I respect that if there's no respect there? So, yeah, something to just keep in mind that none of this is easy. None of the stuff that you're doing is easy. Life is tough, life sucks, right. I mean, it's just about making it less sucky and working through that and making some fun of it, right? So just remember, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Speaker 1: 10:53

The next one is and I find this one funny is simple. Math may help you choose on a decision. You know, I have this conversation with a few people that you know, as we go through high school and then you go through, you know, finish high school, go to university, then start life, start adulting. And there's some thoughts here where there's so many times I've had the conversation around like, oh, you know, we don't even use you know the math from. You know nine, you're 10, you're 11, you're 12.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Some people would in their professions, but as a generalized perspective, I think it gets neglected and in the last couple of months I've realized how important math is when we just use it for things. I was having a conversation with someone the other day around they're recently coming to a lot of time and they think by having that time, they're naturally just going to be able to make a lot more income with their business. And I said well, yes, I mean, that's possible. You can have all the time in the world, but if you're not doing the right things in that time, then you won't actually make extra money.

Speaker 1: 11:52

And we went through the process of doing some simple math of like well, if this is what you do currently with the time that you have, how much more do you need to do with all the time that you're going to have? How many more items do you need to sell? How are you going to get these items? How much time do you need to spend to find those items, to be able to sell those items? And you start to realize that when we add math to it, just basic math of simple problems or problems that we start to overthink in life, you might start to realize okay, it's going to take me 12 weeks to do this, or it's going to take me five weeks to do this, or it's not worth doing, or this is actually really really good opportunity.

Speaker 1: 12:30

And it's like training for something you know I can't say to you. You know, if someone came to me and said, oh, you know, I want to do a half marathon, and I said, sweet, have you signed up for one? And they said no, no, no, when I get closer to doing it I'll do it. And I said well, if you want to grow, if you want to see the progress, find the one that you want to do and know that it's 20 weeks from now and then that will enable you to do the 20 weeks worth of training. But once they realize they have to do 20 weeks worth of training and this is simple math. You have to. It's not just 20 weeks, it's 20 weeks of three, four, five days of being on, having to do cross training, having to eat right, having to go out and actually run All this extra work they start to realize that is a lot of time. I don't have that time, I'm not willing to commit to this. This is more than I expected. But when you do those conversations with yourself at the start, you start to realize I'm ready to commit to this, I'm willing to do this Simple math. So I found that has been really, really rewarding for a lot of different things that I've been working through over the last couple of months and I want to play that one back to you. It's like sometimes when we start to overthink things take the process of using some simple math, how can you bring it into it? Almost like a pros and cons perspective. Now the final one, which kind of wraps up everything that we just said and it's gonna play over again.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Look, this is a bit of a vent rant, but I do apologize things that were in the top of my mind that I wanted to share, and don't be fooled by the highlight reels good and bad, kind of playing back what I just said before. What and I'll talk from my own experience. I share I don't share much on my socials. I share my Nitro Knight. I share a weekly update of the business and I share usually a running update and maybe a small win here and there.

Speaker 1: 14:19

The reality is there's a lot always going on. I'm always on, I'm always doing stuff, whether it's in the business, whether it's running, whether it's planning, whether it's working on stuff for myself. I might be playing some video games, spending time with Carla, spending time with family, planning on other things down the line, working on, you know, volunteering stuff, charity work, running my YouTube editing. There's so many things that are going on. We all have this. We all have our lives.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Now the other thing that we also need to forget is like there's good and bad sides of this. The stuff that we show, obviously for personal reasons. There's stuff that we show you to share as a highlight reel because we're curious to know and get other people's thoughts on that, or validation. But don't be fooled by the highlight reels from both perspectives. If someone's showing you something and that's what you've signed up to, follow along that journey, you shouldn't be expecting to be seeing other things outside of that, unless that's what they've agreed to show you. But you also need to take into mind that you know they're able to do this because they've built a lifestyle to enable that, or they have a lifestyle that enables that. And that's where I think people then think, well, this isn't a true reality. But the fact of the matter is it is a true reality.

Speaker 1: 15:36

I've been very, very open about how I do things, especially more about my business. You know, stepping away from a nine to five almost three years ago, taking a chance on myself, I was able to do that with unpaid leave and if I wanted to, I could have gone back to my job. I didn't. I currently don't have a lot of overheads. I still live at home. I do have two rental properties. I do have to pay the mortgages on those, but they're rented out. I have a big, large stock portfolio which does give me some little bit of income, but majority my income is coming from my business and but I also don't have a lavish lifestyle. I've got everything catered for. I'm able to provide for what I need to be able to do, but that's in the now If I want to be able to go out and buy another house. I can't do that. I need to wait until I have enough income that the bank can say, yep, you're good, right, and that's a compromise, whereas you know, I can't even fathom people doing what I do, running my business. And they have a family, they have two kids, they have all these other elements to life which I don't have to worry about.

Speaker 1: 16:44

But again, it's all circumstantial. Everyone does their way of doing things, the way that suits them. Who cares if someone lives at home? Who cares if someone is financed by someone else? Who cares if someone was given a house? Who cares if, like, the fact of the matter is, we're all sharing journeys? Everyone's intentionally sharing a journey, or someone's putting things out there to be shown there's no right or wrong of it. People want to share it because that's what they feel like doing. Again, it could come down to external validation. It could come down to, you know, they're just wanting to see what people think. But, at the end of the day, everyone that shares something. It's kind of like this, and I'm putting my hands over my eyes. It's a narrow view, it's only a perspective, it's only one part of it. I get frustrated when other people take a stab at people that are being very successful and they start to bring other parts of their life into it which aren't relevant to that conversation.

Speaker 1: 17:47

In this world, there's no one-to-one, apple-to-apple ratio of you and me. You and I aren't doing exactly the same thing. That doesn't mean that makes me or you better than each other. No way, because it's not a like-to-like comparison. The only person you can compare yourself to is yourself, where you were six months ago, a month ago, three months ago, three years ago, ten years ago. You can't be going around thinking I have all you know, I've been doing business half the time of you and I'm doing better than you. Or I've been running half the time of you and I've been better than you. I've been doing YouTube half the time of you and I'm better than you. It doesn't matter, unless everyone is doing exactly the same thing, then it's irrelevant.

Speaker 1: 18:30

I say this because I get stuck in this. I get stuck in the whole highlight reel thing and I do want to share. I want to share as well, but I have to be careful when doing so, because sometimes it's for the wrong reasons and you'll find that, yes, there are people that genuinely are sharing, hopefully for the right reasons, but most of us are sharing, obviously because it's something we want to share. It's a celebrate, it's a win. Not many people are sharing their losses, not many people are sharing their downs, but people do, and that's the reality of it. Even people sharing the highlight reels of really good stuff doesn't mean they have bad things going on. And people sharing the really really bad stuff doesn't mean they don't have good things going on either. So just be mindful of that. You know this. You're human. You know how it works too.

Speaker 1: 19:24

But my encouragement to this is always do your research. Always make sure you don't take everything as gospel. Do your fact checking and understand if what you see is what you like. If you like it, you know, support it. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch it, you don't have to follow it, you don't have to do it. That's the other one that I find funny as well. Whereas people get frustrated at people, yet no one's forcing anyone to follow, watch, you know, share or see it. I mean, you're more than welcome to share your opinion. We're all more than welcome to do so, but it's just funny how we spend our time bringing others down, yet you could be doing things that enable your own life.

Speaker 1: 20:15

Anyway, a bit of a weird, weird one today, just really just sharing some questionable statements or things that are being top of mind for me, and I wanted to be vulnerable about it. I wanted to share it because I feel like sometimes maybe there are unsatidied things that other people are feeling, or maybe it's all just my own head, but this is the part of life I mean, when we want to further our life, we need to think about these different things. We need to be self aware, we need to challenge perspectives. We need to also ask the questions of like is this normal, is this not? And how do we keep ourselves honest? So that's really what I've been trying to achieve here.

Speaker 1: 20:48

If you want to continue the conversation more than more than happy to do so chuck a comment down below on the YouTube or you can reach out to me on Instagram. Happy to have the conversation, happy to really see if we can continue the conversation. Don't be shy. Ask a question. Appreciate you being here. You can share this. If this did resonate with you, send it to someone that maybe it might resonate with and otherwise, appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day, cheers.