EP. 157 - Level Up Life Like Runescape OSRS | 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'm your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 157 today, and we're actually talking around the concept of leveling up Now. I have touched on this before in the past but for me, like in the last I guess six weeks, I've really just been enjoying me building out my business right, and it occurred to me that this is very much the same sequence, the same excitement, gratification and, I guess, joy that I get when I played video games in the past as a kid, and it gives me the same effect Now. I've been a big, I've been a big old school RuneScape player for a long time Not that I'm anything excellent, but I really love doing it. And on that game it's a bit of a grind, but you are, you're doing things on a daily basis over a long period of time to basically level up your skills, get experience points, and then you're able to go do something else with that ability, with that experience and with that skill set to get a better reward. And I've realized this is exactly the same for the own principles of our own life and both, whether it's personal, whether it's for professional or business or whatever. But that's really what I want to talk about today and I want to focus on how we can leverage those incremental steps towards becoming a better version of ourselves. And in me building out this episode, I have leveraged the power of ChatGPT to come up with a whole bunch of different prompts and different points that I want to kind of discuss with you and discover with you, and I'm going to ask myself those questions. I'll answer those questions for you, but you can leverage this for yourself to really ask yourself is this helping you level up as well? So we're going to be touching on a whole bunch of different things today. The concept of leveling up I'll share some of my own stories, of course the mechanics of leveling up challenges, obstacles, tools, resources, specific areas of leveling up and how we can unlock these new abilities and opportunities. How we can use strategies to have that continuous improvement. And then also making sure we do mention the role of failure when things don't go well and how we can learn from those to enable us to grow for the long-term as well. So we're going to dive right into it. Let's roll the intro Now, before we do get started.

Speaker 1: 2:21

If you do have any questions, comments, or you want to continue the conversation and you're here on the YouTube version of the podcast, jump down into the comments and say boo, say hi, leave a question, leave a comment. Whatever you want to do, if you're here listening, you can reach out to me on the socials. You can also come over to the YouTube and leave a comment. You don't have to go watch it again. But let's continue the conversation. It would be really great and I'd love to hear some of your stories and some of your insights and some of your. You know what's working for you and what's not. And, of course, if there's any old school RuneScape players here listening, let me know down in the comments as well. That would mean the absolute world to me.

Speaker 1: 2:54

All right, so the first thing that we're going to speak about, or talk about, is the concept of leveling up, and ChatGBT has asked me can I explain the concept of leveling up in the context of personal growth and development? Well, look, in short, I think when we look at this, it's about leveling up. It really does mirror the, I guess, the achieving growth in life, similar to the nature of what we would experience in a video game, and what I mean by that is majority of the time, if you play a RPG or a role-playing game actually, a lot of games these days have this similar mechanic inside of it is as you do something, you gain experience, and in gaining experience, you're able to learn from that experience, gain new skills and then you can improve your capabilities. That is essentially the concept of leveling up. But in this perspective, we're looking at from the lens of life and not the lens of a video game, because, well, this is life. What you do is going to have a direct impact to you, your life, your surroundings, your behavior, your psychology, your mindset, all of that. So we've got to keep that into mind. That aside, I think that covers the concept of leveling up.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Now, if we dive in a little bit deeper about some of my own personal experiences, the question or the prompt here is can I share a pivotal moment in my life where I felt I had leveled up and what triggered that progression? And then, also, looking back at the skills that I have, what skills do you believe I was training that enabled me to reach a new level in my personal or professional life? I think for me, like there's a number of pivotal moments that have enabled me to get to where I am to today. A lot of the time, you don't realize this until hindsight, like as you get to where you are, and you look back and think I am so grateful for those moments. Now a lot of this will come down to skills such as critical thinking, some of my emotional intelligence and, I guess, my ability to continue to press on, but also as I vision and see things of where I want to go.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So my background, if you are new here, before doing taking a chance on myself and building out this podcast and having my reselling eBay business, I was a full-time project manager working in one of the actually, it is the largest professional services group in the world working in one of the actually it is the largest professional services group in the world and I graduated doing a Bachelor of IT and Business Analysis and I went straight into the workforce. They actually offered me the job. I didn't even have to apply for it, which was pretty cool because I did an internship there and everything from there just snowballed and I started off in a tech space and then I moved into more consulting and then I moved into the project management space. So I've been dealing with a lot of people. I've been dealing with large projects or programs of work, so that would be projects that had resources up to 300, 400, 500 people we're talking budgets of up to $150 million and my role in that essentially was to build and design a lot of the operation processes, so the governance around how do the stakeholders continue to meet, how do we continue to meet delivery schedules? I was also in charge of all the resourcing, managing the resourcing in terms of who's allocated where and how's their time being spent. I was also in charge of the dollars. I guess kind of like the internal project accountant in that sense, making sure that we are hitting targets, are we under, are we over? And then there was also a whole bunch of other things around risks issues and all that stuff that came with it. This is very high level on paper.

Speaker 1: 6:15

There was a lot more than, obviously, just that, but I think in leading up to all that, especially in the last four years, I have been super grateful for my experience in that job. You start as a graduate, you move up to an analyst, you then promote to a consultant manager, senior manager, etc. And there was moments in all of those where I had to build out a lot of skills that I didn't necessarily know at the time, and I think one of them has been critical thinking and emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence being more so because I've had to interact with people on a daily basis and I've always, most of the time of my working life yeah, actually all of my working life I've always worked with quite senior people above me because, my role being in the project management space, I was working with a lot of the project directors, the managing directors and the senior stakeholders, with the clients as well, because that's who I followed. They were in charge of the project in terms of actually being the one accountable and responsible, but I was then in charge of the actual office, of the people that would then go out and make sure those things actually occurred. So I was kind of put into some pretty high level operating areas quite early into my career, which is, I see it now, and how grateful I am for that, because it meant I learned how to operate in a high performing environment, dealing with a lot of intense stakeholders, both good and bad, and also how to read between the lines and I think that has come from the emotional like. Over time, that has then built out the emotional intelligence that I've been able to experience. And now, as I build out my own business, there has been so many times I've looked back and I'm like I remember doing this exact same thing while I was doing that job and now I'm doing it with my own customers, I'm doing it with my own clients, I'm doing it with my own vendors and things like that.

Speaker 1: 8:00

The critical thinking, problem solving when you work in a consulting workspace, it is a lot of problem solving. Every day there's something else changing. It's very fluid, things are very dynamic and being able to adapt, adjust, try new things, come up with plans I guess it's a lot of resilience as well, but being able to then determine how are we going to solve for this, what do we need to do today to ensure that we continue to get the throughput that we need to see? And this is all kind of stuff that I'm doing in my current business today, when it comes to resilience or building out my ability to keep going, that a lot comes from the running side as well, and when I started running, that was for weight loss, but as I've progressed through doing that, I've started to realize it has a more impact, or a higher impact, to the relevance of my life, opposed to just losing weight, and it's where I can go out and think about things. It's where I can go out and become a better version of myself. I can work through just realizing that I'm capable, because you're achieving things that you did not know that you're able to achieve.

Speaker 1: 9:00

So I think all of that bundles it up in a very small and obviously I went to university. I did get skills there, but I think the key skills have been around the communication, the critical thinking, the emotional intelligence, working with people and the resilience to be able to keep pressing on. But one here that I didn't mention I've always had an interest in seeing other people succeed and seeing other people grow and seeing other people get the success that they want, which is the whole reason why I started this podcast of Further your Lifestyle because I want to see other people achieve the greatness that they deserve, and I then wanted to try and help be part of that journey, because I get obviously satisfaction and gratification from seeing others get that and being able to level up and go from something to something more, to even a greater version of that. It just motivates me so much and it makes me very passionate to see other people do that, which is why I do this podcast. Anyway, I'm going in circles, but for me, getting into that space, it really has just been something that I've had to work on for a long time, because it's easier for me to project onto other people to help them get that progress that they want. When I, it took a long time for me to actually work on myself, to actually be trying to level up my own business and my own life and things like that. So it has taken a bit of a while to do that and a lot of self-awareness to really break down those walls and understand, you know, am I projecting onto this person or is it? I genuinely want them to succeed, and there has been a wash between the two numerous times. So that's that's kind of some of the personal stories for myself. If you want to share one, by all means chuck it down in the comments.

Speaker 1: 10:39

The next thing that I'll address is the mechanics of leveling up, and the prompt that I've got here is in video games, leveling up often requires repetitive tasks or challenges. How does this translate to real life skill development or personal growth? And the other point is how important is the mindset or mental attitude in the process of leveling up in real life? Look, I mean any real life skill development requires practice. It requires consistency, which is like any other game. If you're going through a grinding process to level up A good example of this is running, and I've been talking about this in my running vlogs is if you're training for something or if you're just trying to make progress.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Maybe you want to do your first 5K or your first 10K. As you go for a 12-week program, you follow the plan and there's days there where you feel tired, you feel sore, you don't feel like you're making progress. It's hard work, you've had to stop and walk, you just don't feel it and then you know you have those moments where, out of nowhere, that was a really good run, that was a really good day, that was a lot easier than I expected. All of that hard work all of a sudden just gets banked and that is the progress right there. Compounding and that is the beauty of it is when we do take on practice consistently. Then we will grow and level up and gain that experience, and as we gain experience, we're able to then obviously do things with a lot more ease. So that is why it is important that we do the repetitive tasks, that we continue to do the same types of challenges, because they become easier to do.

Speaker 1: 12:14

It's like driving a car the more you drive, the sooner or later you're able to change indicators, change gears, eat a burger, drink a drink or whatever, not saying that's what you should do while you're driving, but it becomes second nature. So it's the same with video games and life. Right, we need to be making sure we take on putting in the reps, okay. Now the other part of this is how important is the mindset or mental attitude in the process of leveling up? This is absolutely the key, because one if you don't believe in yourself, it's going to be very hard to be able to even embrace the growth mindset, and it makes it very hard to embrace the challenges and to learn from the failures. If you don't have that mental attitude that this is part of the process of leveling up, then when those blows come, when those obstacles come, you will struggle to be able to overcome them and work through them.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Think of it like a boss. If you're playing a video game, as you progress up in the levels, you get really good experience and all of a sudden they throw a boss in front of you. What you've learned today you have to put to the test, you have to take on the boss, and then you beat the boss and you feel like an absolute boss yourself. And then you move to the next level or the next dungeon or whatever it is. All of a sudden, the challenges, the puzzles, the quests, the people, the monsters, the things you've got to do are a little bit harder. You have to get into the experience, you have to gain that experience, you have to unlock new things, and then you do it all again and then you have a bigger and greater boss where you take all that you know to beat them again. It's the same process.

Speaker 1: 13:46

And speaking of mechanics of leveling up, there is something that I want to share with you Magic Mind. It's a little mental performance enhancement shot. It's basically to boost your productivity and focus. Now I've been using this for more than 10 days now and this little bad boy has been an absolute game changer for me. It is scientifically formulated to increase energy, to enhance focus and also to create some sense of I guess a calming alertness. Now, for me, this has been a game changer, because I'm an early riser.

Speaker 1: 14:14

I get up at 5.06 most mornings through the week, and that's when I'm focusing on doing my biggest challenge of the day, which is usually getting my listings up on eBay, because if they're not listed, I can't make money. So this has become an essential part of my morning routine, and I am feeling that, within seconds and instances, I am getting that moment of focus and productivity, just like that, and the importance for me is that I don't want to be getting up feeling drowsy, feeling sleepy and trying to work through that sleepiness to actually get into what I want to achieve. I just take a shot of this bad boy, and it is wonderful. The beauty of this is, though, the more you do, over a series of days, as it compounds and, as I said, over 10 days, you will start to see the compounding effects, and it instantly starts to happen on a more regular basis in terms of you feeling the results you should be feeling. It contains a whole bunch of different healthy, beneficial ingredients, including a number of different vitamins, things such as matcha, such as mushrooms, such as sea salt, such as saffron, and there is a little bit of caffeine in it. Right, and this is not to replace your morning coffee I mean, you can have it instead of your coffee but it is really focused on enhancing your mental clarity and your productivity.

Speaker 1: 15:23

Now, I've been using it and if it's something that you would like to do is boost your productivity and your focus, then jump over to magicmindcom. Slash clfurlong that's C-L-F-U-R-L-O-N-G, with a discount code, clfurlong20, offering up to 56% off on your first subscription or 20% off a one-time purchase. Now, jump over there by all means. Go check it out, because it's been working for me, and if you want the same results, I'd highly recommend go checking out Magic Mind.

Speaker 1: 15:51

All right, this kind of now leads on to challenges and obstacles. It does. It's a good segue, right, because I've had challenges in the past where I've had to. You know, obviously feeling sleepy in the morning. And how do I overcome it? Well, I use Magic Mind, but in this case, some of the prompts that I've actually received from ChatGPT in challenges and obstacles, what are some of the biggest challenges or boss fights people face when trying to level up? And then number two is how can someone identify when they are stuck at a certain level and what steps can they take to break through the next level? And what steps can they take to break through the next level? Jeebus, all right.

Speaker 1: 16:24

So I think for me personally, like the boss fight is the transition between segments and seasons of life. A good example of this is when you go from university into the working life, or when you go from just something into a new job, from two different jobs, when you become I can't talk about this experience because I'm not a parent, but maybe when you've gone from just a couple to now a husband and wife and having kids, or just someone that now has a kid. I think all of those moments are those boss fights, because they're requiring a significant effort to overcome. They're not a bad thing, they're not a boss in terms of you need to get rid of that, but it's more of a challenge and a major life transition. I think the other thing is then the prompt around. You know, how can someone identify when they're stuck at a certain level and what steps can they take? This one's really interesting.

Speaker 1: 17:14

I think we need to take the moment to reflect on things. Self-reflection is very, very important. It's also easier said than done and it requires us to really step out of our kind of world and have a zoom out of approach of looking at everything that we're doing. And you can. You know it, you know it and I'm going to talk to you directly this because I know when it happens to me, when you're just doing things as a procrastination, you're doing things that you know aren't going to make you move forward quickly, and when you identify those things you need to make a direct and tangible decision on. This is not what I need. It might be what you want, but it's not going to get you where you want to be going, and sometimes that might mean we also need to take on new challenges.

Speaker 1: 17:58

For me, making sure that I am growing personally and as an individual and in my running, I take on a new challenge each year and most times it's another 50K ultramarathon, right, but sometimes it could be education that we need Might be, we need to actually get the skills to learn and have a better understanding of how do we progress past this next life transition, right? I mean, no one's perfect. No one's expecting you to be perfect. So if you do need to get through these challenges and obstacles, equip yourself, find the right tools to make that happen. And this is a great segue, because the next one is tools and resources, and the prompt here is what tools or resources have you found invaluable in your quest to level up from different areas in your life, and how can mentors, coaches or communities play a role in someone's leveling up process?

Speaker 1: 18:47

Well, I mean, I could harp on about magic mind, but that's short term, like I've only been experiencing it over the last couple of weeks, but I think, prior to that, the tools and resources for me that have been absolutely, you know, crucial to making sure that I'm able to achieve what I'm doing is one having a visual understanding of what you're trying to achieve, of where you are now and where you want to be. So, whether it's goal setting and then having something to track that, I'm a big visual guy. I love to see the numbers, I love to see the progress, I love to see the charts and I love to see what I'm actually doing today and the results it's giving me. So I can look back and say that six weeks ago where I was, and I can see now where I am. Same with the running, same with just leveling up in life, and it's a great way to be able to see that experience points right. If you play video games, you get experience points, you get things and you can see you've got a really leveled up character right. I want to be able to see that as well.

Speaker 1: 19:36

But I think at the same time, we need to make sure we are keeping in mind who are the people in our lives that are keeping us honest, keeping us motivated, keep us inspired and challenging us to become a better version of ourself. And another one for me that has been super important is, yes, those mentors, all those influences of people that I look up to, but really just making sure that you've got the productivity set in your life, and that's through routine or structure or schedule. I am a routine junkie. I like to have things on a regular basis set per day, and how I do it. It just enables my workflow. That has been an absolutely crucial, absolutely crucial tool and resource for me to be able to achieve what I've achieved today, but, at the same time, having a plan and understanding where I want to be going right For my business. You know what's the next step? I've literally just finished setting up my storage unit number three. That's now done. What is the next hurdle? What is the next task? What is the next challenge? What is the next thing we're working towards?

Speaker 1: 20:34

And the other prompt was how can mentors, coaches and communities play a role in this? Well, I think it's important that we do have a community around us, or a support group or people, or whoever it is, that can provide the guidance, the support and the accountability required to keep us honest. But they need to understand what we are trying to achieve, because if they don't know what you're trying to achieve, how can they help you? And that way, they can keep you accountable, they can call it out, they can comfort you. They can also keep you super honest when you slip up or you procrastinate or when you start to deviate from the path in front of you. That would be my take on that.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Specific areas for leveling up. Can you discuss the concept of leveling up in specific areas such as career, personal finance, health and relationships? How does one approach or change with each area? And the second point is how do you balance the quest to level up in the area of life without neglecting others? So, part one concept of leveling up in specific areas such as career, personal finance and health and relationships. Well, I think some of this I've already kind of alluded to and spoke about with the running and my career and things like that. But I think one thing to cover is all of this requires a tailored approach for improvement In terms of different parts of what you're focusing on, will require a different, tailored approach to improve in those areas, such as the running, how you go about running. I share a lot of my running by YouTube in my documentations, but that's just the running part. There's a lot of parts that we need to keep in mind around the cross training, the yoga, the stretching, the strength training, the mobility training, the nutrition, the eating, the sleeping, the lifestyle you live and the effects of those lifestyles in making sure that that they don't compromise how you run. So that is one way that I've had to really make sure I put some really good attention to that.

Speaker 1: 22:28

But then, when it comes to, for instance, my finances, back when I was working full-time for someone else, I was having a certain way of how I was managing my money. I'd have a lot of money coming in. I was able to save a lot of that and I was putting a lot of that money to work. I was investing it, putting it to shares. I've got two rental properties, like investment properties that I was able to get quite young, so putting that money to work. But that came from leveling up and understanding how to budget, how to leverage your money, how to put the money to work, and that's from reading books or attending different information sessions and getting some insight. But the key thing was was actually taking action and giving it a go, just doing it on a regular, consistent basis. It might've been just been putting a thousand dollars away a month. You might not have a thousand dollars. Put a hundred bucks away a month, right, whether it's into an investment or into something that you're saving up for.

Speaker 1: 23:21

I think the other thing is around health as well. When I needed to lose weight, I was 105 kilos or two pieces back in like 2015, 2014, maybe even earlier than that. Probably, actually, it was probably like 2012. And when I decided to make a big life change lifestyle change I went cold. Turkey took sugar out of my life and I lost yeah, like I think it was 19, 18 kilos in about six months, and that was an incredible journey. And it then was also when I started running and that made a big change in my life for the longterm, because now that's part of my life.

Speaker 1: 23:54

But how I went about doing my health, how I went about doing my running, how I went about doing my personal finances, is completely different, also, from when I've done my career. When I was studying through university, I was very studious, but I wasn't necessarily the smartest kid around in terms of academics or markings, but I did do my best to achieve the results that I needed to be able to get to where I wanted, and I still managed to get a scholarship through my university. I managed to get a really great internship, which then led to my job right, and then I was given plenty of opportunities to work with some pretty amazing people, and people that you know have enabled me to now do what I'm doing today, right. So all of those pieces of the puzzle have led to this moment, and I think how you spend, how you massage and how you, I guess, leverage those different elements or skill sets really comes down to what it is and what you want from it. I think the other thing about how do you balance the quest to level up in one area of life without neglecting others.

Speaker 1: 24:50

The one thing here that I wanted to call out was prioritization between time management and focus is absolutely important, and balance. I struggle with this even now with my business. It's like a video game. I get addicted to it. I'm leveling up, I'm seeing the results and I just want to do it, do it, do it, do it. I don't see it as work. I see it as my little thing that I am growing and turning into something amazing. It's my character. It's my character that I'm trying to level up to be able to be unbeatable and an unstoppable force.

Speaker 1: 25:24

But we do need to make sure that we are managing the different life aspects that we have. Just like if you're playing video games, you can't play video games 24-7. You need to get out, you need to eat, you need to socialize, you need to spend time with your loved ones. I mean you don't have to, but you will become isolated and you become something that you probably will not appreciate in the longer term. The next one is unlocking new abilities and opportunities. How does leveling up open new doors, opportunities or even uncover abilities you didn't know you had? And then can you share an example of a new ability or skill you gained after leveling up significantly and how that has significantly impacted your life. So one how does you know, leveling up open new doors, opportunities and abilities.

Speaker 1: 26:06

Well, I think advancement right On video games a good example of this. If you are doing mining on a video game, the more you mine, the more experience you get, the more levels you get, and when you get to a certain level, you now get access to a new area, or it proves that you're strong enough or capable enough to be able to go do something else. So advancement can lead to new opportunities like leadership roles or healthier relationships. All these things enable you to get that opportunity. It doesn't guarantee it, though. So when we have the experience, if you apply for a new job, on your CV you can say I've done this, I've done that, I've got experience here, I've got these skills, I've achieved that, I've helped these people, this is what I can do. This is what I haven't done, though, all right. It also shows you what you have not done. So as you do do things, you do gain more to your bucket, you do gain more to your abilities, you do gain more to your skills, and that means it does open up the likes for more opportunities.

Speaker 1: 27:05

But I know people that are super intelligent when it comes to maths, when it comes to coding, when it comes to software, when it comes to technical experience, but they cannot talk. They don't know how to hold a conversation in a room. They don't know how to interact with other people. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be able to get the role that maybe they thought they could. Of course it's not necessarily fair, but the reality is certain roles, certain opportunities require certain skill sets and certain abilities. So it's also good to make sure you're not just isolated and niched down into one little component of a skill set, but you do have that, I guess, variety or diversity of skills and abilities.

Speaker 1: 27:47

Can you share an example of a new ability or skill you gained after leveling up that significantly impacted your life? Look, I think for me there's a lot here. There's no. I mean I couldn't bring it down to one little thing because all of them kind of intertwine. But I think me being my role as a project manager for eight years has enabled me to be able to come and do my business eight times easier, because it is like running a business in itself and because I've had that experience of putting in processes, working with people, solving problems, achieving month-end revenue goals or managing financials or managing KPIs all of those things have crossed over into the business space for me and as I've grown up from a PMO analyst to that, I just was responsible for creating some documents to then being more responsible for managing a component of the floor and the project, to then being in charge of the entire project management office and then being responsible of working with the release managers, working with the other project managers, working with key stakeholders, being in the room with CEOs and CIOs. Those things are crazy to think about, but they only came from me continuing to put in the work, continuing to grow, continuing to level up, and then that's now given me the position to where I am now to be able to leave my job, create my own business and I interact with people like that on a regular basis. I've had to create contracts, I've had to create service master agreements, which all things that I did in my previous job I've had to build out. I've had to hire, I've had to create systems, I've had to put in structure, put in workflows, all these different things. Now, this isn't about me, but it gives you an example of like.

Speaker 1: 29:29

We sometimes take for granted the things that we've been able to take from our past experiences and put them into implementation of our current situations, unlocking okay strategies for continuous improvement. What strategies or habits have you found effective for continuous improvement and avoiding complacency after achieving a new level? How do you set new goals or find new challenges once you've reached a milestone? I think for me, the strategies and habits that I found effective for continuous improvement and to avoid complacency is two things. Number one is making sure that I have set a guide in terms of where I'm trying to go to. If I know where I'm trying to go to, I can then build things, reverse engineer. Okay, if I want to do this much in sales, if I want to create a business that has this, if I want to build a lifestyle that suits me this way, if I want to do a 50K ultramarathon, Now what are the stones or the steps that need to be taken to get us to that point?

Speaker 1: 30:29

The other thing to that is complacency. I know when I become complacent because things become simple, things become easy and you're just doing away at thinking about it. It usually also leads to boredom and it sometimes leads to just you not being attentive to the detail. Now, when I find those moments, that's also when I usually find myself in a lull and I don't see growth. Now, I'm not saying you should have growth every week, all the time, 24-7, but there should be a trend right. And now it's okay to kind of take some downtime to chill, relax and just ride it out. Just don't get complacent.

Speaker 1: 31:05

How do you set new goals and find new challenges once you've reached a milestone? So I think for this, after reaching a milestone or setting new goals, I then have to make sure one reflect on those moments of success to then see was there things that didn't go well? Looking at that, then I look at where I am still heading. Now I've got goals that have gone from one to two to five to 10 years in terms of where I want to be and what things look like. Obviously, sometimes that changes and they move. The goalposts move, but when I achieve where I am today, like, for instance, I hit $20,000 in one single month for my business this month, for March 2024. I had a goal to do that this year, in 2024. I didn't expect it to be third month in, but now that I've achieved that I know that it's possible. So the next goal is then $25,000, right.

Speaker 1: 31:53

But then the challenge is how do I now make that consistent? Right Now, that's just from a revenue perspective. But then there's the goals behind that of how do I uplift profits, how do I continue to bring more people into the business so I don't have to do as much, but then continue to lift profits? How do I now get the business so it's running at a new level or a next level or at a higher turnover, right? All those different things, and a lot of it sometimes, is just. The requirement is time, consistency and just rinse and repeat, but with better throughput. That may be all it may be. But when I have that understanding and I know what I want, I can then just continue to celebrate the milestone of today or at that moment and then move on to the next one, the role of failure in leveling up.

Speaker 1: 32:39

How do you view failure in the context of leveling up? Is it a setback, a learning opportunity or something else? I think straight away. Failure is something that I want to avoid, but it also is a huge motivator for me and a huge learning opportunity. Before I've had this business, I've had multiple businesses. All of them are pretty much flopped I think three of them and at the time they were learning experiences. They were flops and they were disappointments, but now I can see how I've taken those experiences and been able to apply those lessons and learnings into what I'm doing now. So failure is not bad. We don't want it and you should be able to work away from it. But the reality is it will happen one way or another in certain areas of your life. Take those, leverage those. Don't let it be a setback, but let it be a learning opportunity.

Speaker 1: 33:30

And then the other thing is can I share a time where failure turned out to be a critical lesson for your growth? Yeah, I think there's been times where I've made lots of mistakes in things. I did the wrong thing, I made a decision. To be honest, there hasn't been huge big failures. There's been times where maybe I've lost a little bit of money. There's been times where maybe it wasn't a good business decision. But I think there's been times where I've done running and I haven't achieved the result that I wanted, where I didn't get a PB, where I didn't hit the cutoff time and things like that, and they weren't failures because I still got out there and gave it my best shot. I still got out there and did all that I could do.

Speaker 1: 34:09

But then it motivates me for the next time. What worked, what didn't work? How can I, you know, be resilient for a longer period of time next time? How can I mitigate the problems that I had this time? All those different things. Failure is there regardless, but it's like, how do we take it? Are we taking it as a failure and loss and give up and don't continue? Or are we taking it as okay? It didn't work out this time? How do we rebounce and get back out there? And the final one is future levels.

Speaker 1: 34:40

Looking forward, what's the next level you're aiming for in your life or career? What does it look like and what are you going to do to get there? How do you envision the concept of leveling up involving as you grow older and more experienced? So for me, look, I mean it continues to be focusing on multiple elements of my life building out this podcast, building out my YouTube channel, building out my business, building out my running Business at the moment is probably priority number one, because that then gives me the opportunity, but that's going to take time. I know some of those things could take up to three, four years to where I want it to be, and I also set myself the goal when I left from working nine to five that I did my role for seven, eight years. So I can't really compare my business until I've done it for seven, eight years to see where it is comparing to my previous job. But it also motivates me to try and get it ahead and giving me a result better than what I was doing at my previous job, spending time and having hobbies for myself, to grow out myself.

Speaker 1: 35:47

And I don't necessarily set as many goals in detail for these areas as much anymore because I like to think about if there's my main focus and then all the other things I need to make sure I keep well-oiled, well-maintained, well-balanced, and they will then influence my main goal. I used to have goals around the running. I used to have goals around a lot of different things, and I still do personally, but I don't put them out as detailed as much because they're more things that I know that if I'm having this happening, like if I'm training for a 50K ultramarathon, that it's keeping me honest, it's keeping me motivated, it's keeping me healthy, it's keeping me doing exercise, it's keeping my head clear, it's giving me all those benefits in other parts of my life. So that's really how I look at it from that perspective. And then, how do I envision the concept of leveling up? As I grow older, I think it will change in terms of what my expectation of is, what I'm getting out of it. I think, because I'm still quite young, there are so many things that I'm learning because I do not know what I do not know. But as you gain experience, as you bank that knowledge, you become wiser, which means the stuff that you're trying to learn is going to be completely different. And I don't know what that looks like, because obviously that's a long time away, but I would say that I think it evolves as we age and what we want to encompass or how do we want to seek fulfillment. But at the same time, maybe the focus will be about leaving legacy and having wellbeing, rather than building something at that point in time, because by then, hopefully, I've already built something and then it's making sure that it's wrapped up and it's giving back, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 37:18

So that's me for this episode, folks. That is like we've gone through a lot today. A little detail here. We have also touched on Magic Mind and if you did want to check out Magic Mind, by all means please jump over there. You can go to magicmindcom slash clfurlong and you can use the coupon code clfurlong20, offering up to 56% off on the first subscription or 20% off on the one-time purchase. I've been using it myself. They did send me this stuff. They said give it a go If you like it. By all means you can share this and I have been loving it. It's been great. So I do recommend the product. But that's it for me, folks this week. If you did have any questions, comments, thoughts, chuck them down below. Continue the conversation. Also, if you enjoyed this and there's a part of this episode that you think someone else could benefit from, share that you think someone else could benefit from, share it. Send it to someone. That would mean the world to me. Appreciate you. You have a wonderful day, cheers.