Welcome And The Core Claim

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Yo, yo, yo, welcome back to the Further Your Lifestyle Podcast Conversations on Lifestyle, Passions, and Hassles. My name's Chris. I am your host, and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 267 today, and we're kind of continuing on from the topic of last week, which was if you're not growing, you're not living. And I kind of wanted to then back this up with that, talking about how happiness will beat vanity every single time. And I find it look, this is a bit of a cliche. However, we spend years and years chasing things to look impressive. I feel like that's society's marketing mentality of telling us you need to do these things to look like this, to be like that, to fit in with the world. But as we do that, we only discover that they don't actually make us happy. And what if the things that we're chasing aren't actually the things you want? I mean, that that would be a big real reality check, wouldn't it? And I think I think we all experience this at some point. We get to a point where we realize, I don't even want this. But it feels good, but it doesn't feel right. And we've spent years, or maybe you have spent years pursuing more money, more status, recognition, approval, only to discover they don't actually create the feeling you thought they would in the long run. And that's hindsight, right? That's the beautiful thing about it. That's what we're talking about today. We're gonna get into the details of it. If you do enjoy these episodes, make sure you do hit subscribe or you can leave a like as well if you do enjoy the episodes. You can leave a comment if you want to continue the conversation as well. Otherwise, you can share it to someone else who you think maybe needs to hear this conversation. We're gonna enroll the intro and let's get into it.

Vanity Versus Fulfilment Scoreboards

SPEAKER_00 1:52

So I think there's there's two kind of like scoreboards in life in in which we kind of compare things to. There's the whole vanity scoreboard, which is going to be like things like what's your money, your total wealth, your status, your titles, your followers, your possessions, your recognition. And then there's a scoreboard of fulfillment. Things that actually make us feel meaningful. Your purpose, your growth, your ownership, your contribution, your freedom, your relationships, your peace. And I think the challenge is it comes down to the first scoreboard is visible and is actually put on display most of the time, vanity, whereas the second one is invisible. People can't see a measure of growth unless they've seen you do something for the last 15 years and see where you've come from and where you've gone to. But people can't see your freedom, the stress you have inside of you, the purpose you feel, but they can see the money or they can see the money idea that you try to create. So you get my point. There's two types of scoreboards. So I think when it comes to vanity, vanity is very easy to measure, right? With money, you can splash cash, you can get this, you can buy that, you can get possessions, you can, you can get followers by doing things and have this influence. You can have promotions and level up and be bigger and better than maybe than someone else. You can have a car, you can have a house, you can have a big car, you can have a big house, you can get awards, you can get recognition. And they're easily visible. It's like people updating on LinkedIn. Oh, I've now become this or I've now just turned over that. I mean, we all do it. We're all, we all, we are all we are all doing it, right? No one's and I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but what I'm saying is they're easy because they're visible. And people can point at them, people can see them, and people can compare to them and in a good way and a bad way. And society usually celebrates them or we're in we're encouraged to celebrate them, and they make great highlight reels. However, the most important things are hard to measure. How do you measure peace of mind? How do you measure self-respect? How do you measure fulfillment? How do you measure purpose? How do you measure joy? How do you measure confidence? You can't easily put them in a spreadsheet. It's not just as me as a uh prior to having my own business. I was a project manager and I love spreadsheets. I love tracking numbers, I love the dashboards, but these are things that you can't tangibly very, very easily track down to simple ones. Yet they're often what people are actually searching for. These are the things that actually matter. So we we tend to confuse our vehicle for the destination of we're trying to

The Feeling Behind Money And Status

SPEAKER_00 4:24

achieve. This is where I think it's really important that if you're going to listen to any part of the episode, this is the most important part. Because I think people think I want more money, but often what it really means is security, freedom, and choice. Now, I had a question asked to me, and I've actually answered this in one of my videos already, but asking, like, having building a business for myself and maybe only taking away a quarter of what I used to earn, is it really worth it? And that's on the premise that the money is what I'm doing it for. Now, sure, I do want more money because it gives me the ability to be able to have more opportunity of things. But having my own business, building my own business, creating what I've created and working towards things that I want does give me that sense of freedom, that sense of choice. And it is helping me create a longer-term freedom because I'm not working for anyone else but myself. I'm working for my customers, actually. So there is that sense of just that liquidity, that ability to do, I can make that decision, I can do this, I'm not reporting to anyone else. Of course, there's challenges with that because obviously I need to make sure that my business is the security for me financially, but that's why I'm backing myself because I'm building something that I know is going to generate something better and greater in the long term. It just probably means it's going to take a little bit longer. People think I want status, right? But often they really want respect, belonging, significance. And for me, I want to build a legacy. I want to create something that leaves a mark, that encourages others, inspires others, motivates others, and builds that respect, right? Whereas status doesn't necessarily get those things. Status is a title, status is vanity. Status can just mean you could say anything. I could say I'm the CEO of a of a million-dollar business, and people think, oh, well, okay. But it's there's a lot of nuance and detail, and it's framed in a weird way. Sure, I can say I'm a CEO, but I'm just a guy that has a business that has like a few staff that work for me. Doesn't the titles, it's all vanity, right? But and and people always talk about this and challenge me about when I talk about revenue and profit and things like that. The way, the reason why I split out and focus so much on revenue is because we want to be focusing on regular recurring revenue. And when I can do that, it means we can start to then build a baseline of what is achievable in terms of a profit margin, simply because if sure, if you have a million dollars in revenue and you have no cost, it's all profit. But the reality is to achieve that, it's very, very hard to do by myself. So I need to have staff that can work under that. And if you know that when I first started, when I first started my first year, I did $55,000 or $56,000 by myself. And we profited a lot. We profited probably $30,000 or something, which was great. But it was only me. I didn't have any expenses. But then to scale, to do more, I don't want to have to do it all. I want to give myself freedom. I want to give myself choice. I don't want to have to do all the work. So you you hire someone else to help make that achievable. And we've averaged about that $45,000 to $50,000 profit every year for the last five to six years. But I've incl I've included or added more weight in expense to the business to be able to get a bigger number. And that has a compounding effect because what used to take us a year to achieve $50,000, we can now do 10x that in the same amount of time. And there comes a point in time where it's a tipping point or it's a it's a they call it a hockey stick in which that growth kind of just flicks up because all of a sudden the ability to it's the what would you call it, the economies of scale. Because we now have the ability to be able to do so much so quickly with ease, without the friction, that we're actually making more money because it doesn't cost us as much. Now, that's all in theory, right? Of course, that's what I'm working towards. And that's why I'm focusing on it, because that revenue target, knowing if I'm able to turn over a million dollars a year, but we're able to retain a 10 to 20% net margin, it means that's a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollars. Whereas you, it's impossible to be able to do $200,000 profit if your revenue is $200,000, unless you got everything for free. You didn't have to pay for posts, you didn't have to pay for fees. You get my point. So that's why I focus on that number because it actually is something that needs to be built up, knowing that yes, the profit is going to come after that, regardless if we're able to control the things underneath the revenue.

Building A Business For Freedom

SPEAKER_00 8:51

A little bit of a tangent there. So I think, as I was saying, right, people want status, we want this respect, we want the belonging, we want the significance. The goal isn't the thing. The goal is feeling behind the thing, right? And that's what I'm trying to build. I'm trying to build that legacy. I'm trying to build something that people can be inspired and motivated by. But that's my goal, right? It's it's different for everyone. Some people just want a sense of a belonging, right? And you could you could be a huge influencer, you could have a lot of followers, but feel very, very alone. Very, very simple, right? Because you don't have any of that connection. You're just doing it for a paycheck or you're doing it to have this status. But what does that actually equate to? It's a question for yourself to answer.

Why Growth Feels Better Longer

SPEAKER_00 9:34

So growth creates a different kind of happiness. I think a temporary happiness is buying something, you get that quick gratification. You're winning something, you're feeling all excited, you get that adrenaline rush, or being noticed, being appreciated. But it lasts briefly, growth creates a deeper satisfaction because one, you know you've become more capable, you know you've earned it, and you know you're evolving. It's more intimate. It's more intimate with you and what you're trying to achieve. And achievement excites you. Growth changes you, right? And and for me, if I look back to where I was five years ago doing videos, doing my podcast, I was I was different. I was nervous, I was scared, I didn't really have a plan. I didn't know where I was going. But now I do know what I'm trying to work towards. So therefore, that growth, every time I level up, it gets me excited. It's like playing a video game. You level up, you get excited, you can go do something else, you can do more, you have the ability to achieve more, you have the ability to attain more, you have the ability to be able to build your purpose deeper and closer. And this ownership creates freedom, right? Because you have more options. You can do more things. Ownership of your choices, ownership of your actions, ownership of your time, and ownership of your direction. The more ownership you have, the less dependent you become on external validation or the vanity. All right. I mean, again, this is all my thoughts, my opinion, and it's it's up to you to decide if it works

Legacy Beats Recognition Every Time

SPEAKER_00 10:55

for you. And I think the the it's probably almost the second last thing I wanted to say, which was legacy. Legacy beats recognition. One day nobody cares what car you drive. When you when you die, you will be forgotten. All right, most of the time. Nobody cares how many followers you had, nobody cares how the most things that you were stressing over. No one no one even knows what you're stressing over most of the time. What will remain is the impact you made, the memories you made, the relationships you had, the contribution you did, and the people you helped. Recognition will always fade, but legacy remains. And I think that's why it's really important to be able to look at are we going after the now moments or are we going after the long-term moments of what we create and experience for other people? If you're going after you wanting to be remembered for those things. But at the end of the day, does it really, really matter if once you've gone that people remember you for those reasons, right? I think you want to be living your life knowing that you're happy and content with the impact and the memories and the relationships and the contribution and the people you helped. At the end of the day, it's up to them to decide if anything else goes on from there. But for you, you know that you've left a lasting standing legacy that you're proud of, opposed to just trying to reach a number, whether it's through dollars, whether it's through vanity or metrics of social followers and things like that. You could, like I said before, you could get to a million followers, but if you've got nothing that is actually giving you the joy and the purpose, and that's all you've got to go by, I mean, it feels empty. It feels empty. That's my thought. It really does. So I want to have that deep moment. What were you able to put your purpose and joy to? How did you spend your time? Did you spend it with your kids or were you too busy working? Like all those different things. They're all things we need to consider and think about.

Questions To Check Your Success

SPEAKER_00 12:48

The real question, and it's the final thing we'll we'll kind of talk about, is excuse me, instead of asking what looks successful, ask what looks meaningful. And it's a huge difference. One's external and one's internal. So I have a couple of questions for you that I think really important for you to reflect on. And they're they're questions for you, right? You don't have to put them in the comments. You can, if you will, if you want to, but totally up to you how you want to answer these. Am I building a life that looks good or feels good? What am I chasing right now? What do I believe that what what do I believe that thing will give me, the thing that you're chasing? And what scoreboard am I using to measure your success? You answer those questions. If you need to have another listen through, do. But I'll close with this. Money matters. It's important. I get it. Achievement matters, it makes you feel great. And success matters too because it it gives you that sense of pride and joy and purpose, but only if they support the life you're trying to build. Because at the end of the day, right? At the end of the day, the goal isn't to build a life that impresses other people. The goal is to build a life that feels right for you. And that's why I have these episodes to help you further your lifestyle, to help you get closer, one doing one thing a day that's going to get you closer to where you want to be. That's all that matters. But if you don't know where you want to be, that's why we get stuck on these vanity things. Because we we we get the joy and excitement and the the feel-good from it, but really it's empty because it's not actually getting us closer to where we want to be. So you need to decide where do you want to be. And if you want, I challenge you, put down in the comments below. Where do you want to be in two years, five years, ten years? What is your lifelong goal and why? If you want to share it, totally up to you. That's it

Challenge And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 14:27

from me, folks. If you did enjoy this episode and you want to continue to receive updates, make sure you hit subscribe to get the notifications. We've also got comments you can chuck down below and you can continue the conversation that you can even like as well. Otherwise, if you think someone else really needs to hear this conversation, then please send it to them. Keep them honest, say that you're thinking of them, send it to them, get them to have a listen, and maybe we can help them further their lifestyle too. Appreciate you being here. We'll be back here again next week. I'll see you when I'm looking at chat. Ciao.