Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 140 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle.
My husband surprised me with a trip to Chattanooga this last week. I had never been and I have lived in TN almost my whole life! But anyway, it was so fun and a great example of there being really cool things to do without getting on an airplane, probably in your own state or even city.
Anyway, we did all sorts of fun new things. I rode a Segway for the first time which was a little uncomfortable at first but then it became really fun once you got the hang of it which didn’t take long. But the reason I tell you about this is we went to Ruby Falls. Ruby Falls is the Tallest underground waterfall that can be visited in America. The reason I was able to ride an elevator down 250 ft and then walk most upright in caverns down to 1100 feet is because a chemist named Leo Lambert put aside his comfort and crawled on his belly for 17 hours squeezing himself through an 18” space crawling through a dark cave on his belly in his effort to allow the beauty of the mountain to be seen by everyone, had he stopped when it got hard or turned around in fear when he thought about what could happen to him, we may not ever know the beauty that is Ruby Falls.
So my question to you is this… Do you have a passion or a calling that you are putting off, maybe because you’re afraid or you’re scared of what people will think? And look not everyone’s calling is going to end up at a massive underground waterfall, I don’t know about you but that would not have been something I could have done, not because I’m a scared cat but because it is not my calling. We each have our own calling and it is up to us and only us to figure out what that is. And like Brooke Castillo always says “Stop saying you don’t know how or you don’t know what to do next or you don’t know…Do you think Leo knew what his next step was when he first crawled into that new cave hole? No, and most people when they do big things, they didn’t know how either…that’s why it’s called Creating. Fred Smith the CEO of FedEx proposed a paper at Yale on the economics of overnight high priority shipping…he got a C for his work, the company he eventually created is now an 80 billion dollar company. He kept going even though people said it couldn’t work. Your job is to create a life that inspires you, to create a life that makes you feel alive and excited to get out of bed and it may not be that far off from where you are right now. But, Only you can do it.
And you want more, because I bet you’re like me and growth and following your calling is important…now so often we get stuck in a loop of thoughts where our brain convinces us not to follow our calling because our brain is literally designed to keep us safe. Had Leo listened to his brain or the people around him, he probably wouldn’t have continued for 17 hours crawling on his stomach in absolute darkness, with only a lantern for light. How different would the world be if we didn’t have FedEx? They didn’t quit when things got hard, and it got really hard…Easy things are not generally the things that break molds. Watching TV is easy. Eating whatever you want is easy. Great things don’t happen from easy. Yes, It’s hard at first to eat healthy especially if you have had years of training your taste buds to crave sugar, starches and sodium. And take it from me, there are still going to be times when you eat peanut butter chocolate fudge like I did yesterday, but I know it’s not going to derail my good habits because it’s one time. I’m not beating myself up for it, now my body did let me know it did not love it when I was nauseous later. It’s hard to start a workout plan but once you get a habit going you’ll crave it and that’s super beneficial long term. You may have found that you try and fail, try and fail, whether it’s a diet or a workout plan…that’s ok, you’re in the game. You just haven’t found what works for you yet. I tried every diet in the book when I was young but they never worked, but I didn’t just say well I’m just destined to be bigger, I just found something that worked for me which was identifying myself with living a healthy lifestyle. Not following a diet. If this is your calling right now, keep going…
This last one is new, it’s a big one and I know I talk about it a lot but it’s something that I’ve struggled with and know how much better I feel when I have it under control…that I think most of us are realizing we have to manage it…It’s really hard to quiet the noise coming at us from social media and 24/7 news because that has become the norm. In fact it’s kind of like alcohol now, if you don’t follow social media or you don’t watch the news, people are kind of like “what”? Why not? What’s wrong with you? I mean these things aren’t all bad, we all do it but we have to make sure that we are creating more than we are consuming. And creating could mean working out where you’re creating a better body, it could mean having coffee with a friend you haven’t seen where you are creating better relationships, it could mean taking a class where you are creating a new certification so that you can apply for that promotion or maybe you’re just taking it to expand your mind. Filling our heads with noise is not going to make us better, it really is just a distraction from a real life of meaning.
So my challenge to you this week is if you have a calling to write a book. Sit down tonight and write down your outline Chapter 1: intro Chapter 2 whatever you think that may be and it may not even end up being that order but getting your outline down on paper will have your mind spinning with ideas . If your calling is to go back to school or to get a certification in a specialized area, there are so many opportunities to do that online especially now, Most of you know I’m an interior designer by trade but I love the mindset side of design so I am adding to my talent stack by getting a Feng Shui certification. I did a little research and now I’m in the middle of my course which i’m lovin by the way, look up what the If your calling is to start your own business but you keep telling yourself you don’t know how, flip that around and tell yourself “I don’t know how I can’t” and then head over to google and get to work on finding out your first step. Just the first step. Whatever your calling is, just take the first step…you won’t regret it. I love you guys and I will talk to you in a few days!
