Welcome to Episode 493 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast! Im glad you’re here, thank you for listening!
I read something today that almost brought tears to my eyes because it speaks to something I think we can all relate to and this is what it said. I hope you don’t long for the things you’ve outgrown just because they are familiar. I hope you don’t consider everything you lose to be a loss. I hope you let yourself do more than you ever thought you could. You see, We were all born into this world with the ability to be great. Sometimes in our pursuit of our greatness, we have to step away from things that feel familiar. Remember that your brain is always trying to keep you safe but stepping out of your comfort zone is where all the growth is. Your brain is going to tell you to stay because it’s familiar. But familiar doesn’t always mean it’s right, it does means it’s easy and comfortable. If you’re too comfortable, how do you grow? How do you reach your full potential without growth? We have to be willing to get out of our comfort zone. We have to be willing to move forward one little step at a time, so what are you doing that grows you? What are you doing that makes you better? In a world filled with easy dopamine, we have to be careful we don’t get complacent and lazy because those words do not coincide with being Wildly successful…we have to work to be our best selves every day and that starts from within.
I remember back when I first started in interior design and I needed so much confirmation from other people that my designs were good or that what I was doing was beautiful and on target and then in style and I thought if only I could win this award or get this magazine then then I’ll finally feel like I’m successful or like I’m a good designer and then I won the awards and I got published in the magazine and like three minutes later I thought that wasn’t it isn’t doing it. I need more. I need this thing now I need this award when I realize now that I did not realize then I was searching for something outside to make me feel worthy and successful and good about myself and like I was, a person that other people could respect when all I really needed was to go inside and figure out I’m already worthy as long as I love and respect myself I will attract the people that love and respect me back. I’m not always perfect. I still want confirmation that my designs are good, but I don’t need it. I still would, love to have a certain number of podcast listeners, but I don’t need it anymore, I would love it, but I don’t NEED it. I know now that everything I need is within me. All the worthiness,, all the love, all the peace comes from within, nothing external is going to fill that, nothing and no-one.
I learned that though because I started meditating. Journaling. Studying and trying to understand the stoics. I realized I’m not broken and I don’t need something outside of me to feel anything real because it’s not. The only real things are the things that no one can take from me unless I allow it. It has made me better. Not perfect just more in line with myself. More stable because everything always comes back to me. If I’m not working on being the best I can be, it’s easy to be offended, it’s easy to be angry, if we aren’t careful we can think we are broken because we cant seem to handle hard things when the opposite is true you can handle anything as long as you have got your own back and you do that by working on your mindset every single day by listening to podcasts like mine, journaling, meditating, spending time in nature, it can be for as little as 5 minutes a day to start with…..but it makes a huge difference in how your life goes.
A few days ago I was at a countertop slab company, I was there marking specific sections of a slab for the backsplash and the islands going in a client’s kitchen. That’s a big deal and I wanted it to be right. Now, the slabs were set up outside and It was windy it was cold. The slabs are heavy and cumbersome and take big machinery to move around AND it was close to going home time and these guys helping me were not loving how particular I am but that’s my job. They were outwardly annoyed to the point where at one point I was getting annoyed too and I could feel my frustration rising where I thought you know what if they have something more important to do I can find more slabs elsewhere and they can keep their attitudes. I was 2.3 seconds away from saying that but I stopped and I thought you know what? I don’t know what their day looks like today. I don’t know what’s going on in their personal life. It’s cold. They don’t want to be out here. Neither do I. It’s almost dinner time. They may not have eaten all day so I chuckled to myself and I made a little bit of a joke with them and it lightened the air and we got exactly what we needed done and I got exactly the portions of the slab that I wanted Marked correctly, but I was real close to having to go spend another week or two trying to find more slabs and then going through this whole thing and delaying the project all because my ego was about to get in the way, but I didn’t let it. I was willing to look at the situation from a different perspective only because I had been reading just this week about how anger can control us and make everything worse, I was about to let that happen but because I had been reading that it made me aware of my thoughts.
How valuable that was in that moment. If I hadn’t been aware of my thoughts I could have blown the deadline for this project with one sentence. In stead one sentence I had read this week saved me because I memorized it when I read it and that was this “I’m angry but I’m willing not to be, I’m willing to see this situation from a different perspective.
Thank goodness I had read that, it stopped me from letting my ego get in my way. That sentence made me better this week. If we aren’t growing, we aren’t going to reach our full potential.
My challenge to you this week is to ask yourself what you’re doing daily to make yourself better. It has to be daily so that it counteracts the things that bring us down. We think we are adults and we should have it all figured out but that doesn’t take into account that the world is changing rapidly and we have to rise to the occasion in order to reach our full potential and that work has to be internal and it has to be consistent. You were born worthy that is a God given right but being great takes work and that work has to be done from the inside out. Share this with 3 people who are on their way to being great. I love you guys! I’ll talk to you next week a few days!
