EP. 148 - 6 Lessons From Taking a Break | 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 148 today, and we're talking about slowing down. Now this is kind of interesting because a lot of the things that we talk about here is about how do we move forward, how do we make progress, how do we further our lifestyle, and we are talking about that. But the whole topic of today is me in reflection from Tana, taking a six week holiday from the hustle and bustle of my business, of life, community, social media, peer pressure, but mainly it has been a break from building the business, creating a YouTube channel and everything in between. And while I was there, there's been some really big lessons and I'm still actually realizing some of these reflections and they all start coming to life. But there were a whole bunch of lessons over this six week hiatus or period that have become more surprising than I had thought or I didn't expect to occur, and I want to take you through those lessons of a six week sabbatical. But the first thing I will say is, while you're listening to this, if there's a conversation here that you enjoyed. If you got value from this, hit the like button on the YouTube. If you enjoy this podcast, hit subscribe. If you're here listening, by all means leave a review, leave a rating, share it with someone if you think there was some value here and that they can probably get some value from it too. So we're going to get into it now. Episode 148, let's roll the intro.

Speaker 1: 1:35

So, for those that don't know, I recently went away to the Philippines for about six weeks, stepping away from my business. I paid someone to run the business. My worker trained them to do that. I went cold turkey in terms of stopping all content, didn't really even do Instagram, didn't put anything on YouTube. I really just wanted to get away from it all. Now, there was a two part to this, in the sense that I wanted to go spend time with Carla and her family I'd never done that in our hometown but I also wanted to be present and I wanted to make sure you leverage that time to refresh, reset and get a fresh headspace and do some planning and reflecting and really understand what I want. With great surprise, the first lesson actually came in lead up to actually taking the time away. It was a big reality check.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Just before I left, obviously trying to get everything sorted, I had a bit of a heart scare, which came down to the short of it was stress and anxiety moments. Now, I've never experienced this before. I've always been someone that, yeah, I get stressed, it helps me motivate myself and helps me stay on target. But it was different. This was different to the point where I actually had to go to the doctors, actually go to a heart specialist, get checked, get rigged up, had a scan, all those things, before traveling and taking all these tests. It was scary.

Speaker 1: 2:53

It was revealing to me that it's like you know, things change like that in an instant. Now, to be fair and to be clear, everything turned out to be fine and normal, just in the sense of like I just have to calm down, just need a fine way to relax. It's just a bit of anxiety and a bit of stress, which to me is embarrassing, but it isn't really now that I think about it, because we all go through these things. We all have things that just set us off scarors and obviously this was something new. Now I've stepped away from the business for a day or two, but for six weeks to live with someone else. It's like leaving. The only way I could imagine is like leaving my baby with someone else or my child with someone else, because, yeah, you trust them, but it's your baby, it's your kid and you want to be there, you want to protect them, you love them and you've helped build them and cherish them from day one. So it was a bit overwhelming.

Speaker 1: 3:45

And then, after that happened, I then unfortunately got myself with coronavirus again for the second time, and that increased a lot of the stress, because I'm thinking it was going to blow out all the plans. Maybe we couldn't travel. It all worked out okay, and the lesson here was this things won't always go to plan and even more so, the unexpected is expected. So, with all that in mind, three weeks into being in the Philippines and I found myself that I had totally detoxed from routine, I had removed myself from all the things that I'd been doing on a weekly and routine basis, from the flow and the go-go right, but to the point that, even while I was writing these notes yes, I've got these notes in front of me I wrote these in the Philippines live, in the sense of like, I wanted to make sure I was documenting how I was feeling, what I was learning and what I was experiencing.

Speaker 1: 4:38

While sitting there, I had started to question everything of why am I doing all this stuff, what am I doing it for and what do I really want? We live in a world which we have the power to do so much things, we have the opportunity to do so many things, we have tools at our disposal and we have access to people and we have access to opportunities, to the point where, if you're familiar with the Spider-Man movie, it says with great power comes great responsibility. And the more I reflected on that, we do. We all have great power. We have all these things that enable us to do things, but with that there comes a level of responsibility, and we need to have this level of integrity, we need to have a level of transparency and we need to have a level of authenticity. And it made me realise a couple of things.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Going forward, I need to change the way I do things, because I wasn't comfortable, I wasn't happy or I wasn't proud of everything that I had done. Even though I am proud of what I've achieved, I think there's better ways that I can do this, and it came down to these three things. One prove with action. We can talk and I'm a big talker because here I am talking to you on a podcast, I do a lot of videos, which is more talking but I want to also make sure I'm proving with action. I also want to stop showing for the sake of showing, but share to inspire. So share things that inspire people. Don't show people things to make myself feel good. And then, third is volume doesn't necessarily equal better. Quality of value should always come first.

Speaker 1: 6:08

So there's a three things in the sense of reflection from slowing down In my first lesson that I've really taken away. Lesson number two, and I've actually written this down, so let me read it out to you Before we should accelerate into the distance, though the road may be unknown ahead, and we, and even the destination we may be going, have a route of action, have a pace, have a progress in place so that you can stay on track. So really, what I'm trying to say here is like we can see the road ahead of us. We don't necessarily know where it's going, but we know that it's going to a destination that we think we want to be going to. So, with that in mind, have something in place that's going to keep you on track, that's going to keep you to your rules and that's going to keep you honest and set to where you want to be going.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Now, further to this, in my downtime I again I spent a lot of time reflecting, thinking about a lot of things that I want and don't want, and in doing so, I stopped sharing content. I went tools down in the business, as I said, you know, jumping off all the socials as well, and this was a chance to really just reset and reflect and to clear my mind and just escape from all the things going on. If you will, and in the short of it all, I guess you realize that the world does spin on without you. Things went on, my business went on, life went on, people created content. There was people that you know said they missed me or whatever, but a lot of the time everyone moves on. Everyone just moves on, and it made me think that maybe realize that we're not all as important as we think we are, but at the same time, with this, do not give into making yourself irrelevant.

Speaker 1: 7:49

During this downtime, you know and I've alluded to this already I have found myself thinking and questioning about a lot of things, to the point that asking myself am I actually relevant in the circles that I currently exist in and is there a space for me in this place and is there a position for me to share? Now, some of this comes with maybe a little bit of insecurities and imposter syndrome, but do I have what it takes to share the value that should be in this area or on this platform? Now, with much reflection, the answer is yes. Yes, of course I do, but not just for me, but for all. The beauty of this is we don't have to do what everyone else is doing, nor do we need to do it with a blessing of everyone else. However, we do need to do what we do with the responsibility and understanding of. We do this with love, we do this with care and we do this with openness. That's my take anyway. It's a big world out there and it's big enough for everyone to share something, to find your light, to find your groove, to do what makes you smile, or to bring people together, or to share with said people and to grow together. Right, there's opportunity out there for everyone to do that kind of thing. Don't create distance and bridges of separation, but I think we should open with arms to when embracing this space, when going on that journey. I think one thing that I have realized is that we don't have to be participators in everything, but we can respect and support and give people the love and the respects that they deserve in doing their own thing.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Just because someone does something different doesn't mean it's wrong. Just because they do it different to how I do it or how you do it doesn't mean that they shouldn't be doing it. And the reality is there's no perfect way or better way. There's only the way that makes sense for us. And of course we have to fine tune that and iron sharpens iron and get some feedback and things like that. But at the end of the day, everyone's just out here to try and find their way in life, pay bills, live life, have a family, explore their own interests. Everyone's just trying to do that. And when we come along and we make it a competition, when we make it a place where people don't feel safe, or we make others feel like maybe they're not good enough or we make it so it's competitive. It ruins that and I'm trying to be more open and aware of that.

Speaker 1: 10:21

Lesson number three is this Followers, subscribers, audience, community fans, lurkers or fellow peers these are all people you are. You're a person listening or interacting with this conversation. We are all in search of something, in both cases, as a giver and as a receiver. And where you receive, be kind and be grateful, and where you give, be kind and give more, coming kind of off. Lesson number two I think it's very important that we understand that everyone is out here to do things for themselves and that's okay.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Why did I create this podcast? Yes, I want to help people further their lifestyle, but in the long run, I want to hopefully make this into something that also brings in an income that enables me to be able to do more of this, to have a lifestyle, because I have the flexibility to be able to turn on a recorder, have a conversation with you, inspire others to go, do what they want and be able to make that as something that helps pay for my living why not Right? And when we start to realize that everyone's just out here trying to make their way and everyone is out here to either give or to receive, I think it should be both. We should be willing to receive and be kind and be grateful for what we receive from others, but more so when we have the opportunity to give, be kind, but give more there's not. The more I've realized through life as we go, giving and giving more is going to bring you more satisfaction than anything else. And it's not about who can give the most. But when I say give more, it's like if someone says, hey, I need some help, have a conversation with them, see what they need. If they just need an extra conversation, have the extra conversation with them. It might be here on the channel. We do live streams, I do giveaways of Pokemon cards, I do giveaways of books and I like to be able to give and give things. That's going to help people be excited or make their day or enable them to grow, to further their lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 12:17

That was lesson number three. Lesson number four was this letting go. Now, I've spoken about letting go a few times here on the channel or on the podcast, but I think this time more in the context of perceptions and expectations. Today, the lesson of letting go is about the things that we've held onto and more so, the things that are holding us back or holding us down, and with this we need to be happy to be free in doing things which might not be what we thought we wanted. So there's a similar thread here across all these different lessons.

Speaker 1: 12:47

As we discover ourselves and as we grow and as we figure out what we want, things change. Things might not have figured out the way that we expected. I mean, heck, here I am doing a podcast and I sell 80% of clothing and doing on average, about 12 to $13,000 every month in monthly revenue. Now that's not profit or anything like that, but just to give the shoe quality of volume and value of clothing that I'm selling. Now I'm selling other stuff as well, but the reality is like I never expected this. I never thought this is where it land. I knew I wanted to resell and I knew I wanted to have a business, but I didn't know I was gonna land in this way. That might change that. As I start to develop more processes, as I start to network with more people, build relationships, new opportunities might come which make it more viable to do different things.

Speaker 1: 13:35

So I think we need to be willing and happy to and be comfortable with as we evolve, as we let go of some things and start new things. That's okay and it might not be what we thought it. But it might not be what we thought it. It might not be what we wanted in the first place, but it might be what we want now. And when we have that conversation, realize we don't have to prove that we can do something because we no longer want it. And sometimes people just wanna see it through or whatever. But sometimes it's okay to draw the line and say, no, I'm done with that and this is now what I'm doing. I mean, don't get me wrong. Like I'm not here to say that it's okay to give yourself an excuse to stop doing something because you're not seeing the results. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you will change, you will find new interests and you might wanna explore that more, and that's okay. Be comfortable with it.

Speaker 1: 14:25

For me, I love building my business and just even now like it's been about probably six weeks since I wrote this episode when I was reflecting the Philippines, but here now recording it so many things have changed since writing this, changed in a way that I didn't expect we're gonna change so quick. I can't talk about them in this point because I haven't finalized it, but it's just crazy to see when we do things and we do explore interests or, you know, have conversations with people how things flourish Now. I love building my business, I love reselling, I love this podcast. I also love sharing and I love being able to create content and be able to hang out with you all, whether it's on a live stream. I love running, I love Pokemon, I love video games.

Speaker 1: 15:09

There's all these things that I love to do and there's a whole bunch of this that you see in a regular, and then there's all these things that you don't. So I see you see things that I share with you, and then there's stuff that I do outside of that. You know even personal stuff with Carla, and you know other little hobbies and you know when I had my chickens and things like that, and the point here is that it's more than what we just see on a highlight reel or on socials or in a public space. There's plenty of other things that I love. There's plenty of other things that you love and where we would love to spend our time more, but sometimes, through and speaking of my own example, through my own race to grow, I neglect the itches or I forget about the curiosity of things and I don't explore them more, and I guess my whole lesson, or my whole wrap up of this whole episode, is we need to be comfortable of letting go of the required or the routine or the explicit and allow ourselves to explore the tangible of things that you want more of. Now I may only be talking to myself here, but I think I'm not.

Speaker 1: 16:10

I think there's a relevancy here for everyone, because there's things that you realize you wanted to try or you wanted to attain to, but because of the pressures or you see how other people are doing it, you wanted to fit that mold. Well, if we want to let other areas of our life grow, we need to be willing to create that, we need to be willing to have the conversations with people that will enable that. And if we want to see, if we want to grow with the people that we share our life with, we need to be willing to do things. And I think it really all comes down to love. When you love something, you spend time with it, cherishing it, helping it grow, helping it blossom and helping it flourish and help it thrive. So if you want that in things, we need to make sure they are loved. We need to make sure that we stop doing the things that are self-sabotaging us, that don't enable us to grow those areas, and we need to do the things that are going to enable ourselves to give yourself that love required to see it grow. Does that make sense? So, letting go of all these preconceived ideas or what other people will think and this has been a trend over the last couple of episodes and they're all really messages to myself, but I think, as I keep saying, there's a relevancy here for other people to understand that maybe there are things that we want to try and it's okay to try them. You don't have to prove it to anyone, you don't even have to share them to anyone, but you're not doing yourself any favours by ignoring them.

Speaker 1: 17:38

Go back to the other episodes where I said will I do this or I will do this, and really choosing a tangible option to I will do this and that's what I'm going to do and I'm going to get the result. And sometimes the result will then give us a different conversation around. Okay, this is not what I expected, or this is better than I expected, or why didn't I do this earlier? And that's really the whole purpose of this is when we go explore these things, when we do it with love, you will start to find a quick way to further your lifestyle. And when I say quick, it will be revealing in the sense of you will feel that satisfaction quicker. But sometimes it's going to take still a very long time to actually get to that end result. But the journey will be revealing and it will give you that satisfaction very quickly. But you have to do it with love and you have to be willing to change things up.

Speaker 1: 18:30

That is today's episode. Take from it what you will. If you enjoyed this, I encourage you. If you got value from this is give the episode a thumbs up. If you're here on the YouTube, you can drop a comment. If you haven't subscribed, subscribe. If you're here listening. If I Spotify or Apple podcasts, then by all means please rate the podcast. Share the podcast. If this episode is of value to you or you were encouraged by it and you think someone else can resonate with it, by all means, please give it a share. That would mean the absolute world to me. I'm here to help others further their lifestyle and I need your help to do that. I can't do it all by myself. We need to help each other grow, and I think if you can pass this message on to someone else, even better. Appreciate you being here, take it easy, look after yourself and you have a wonderful day. Cheers.