Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 465 of The Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Thank you for being here with me. We are connected you and me. We are in some way on the same vibration when we spend these 10 minutes together twice each week and it fills my cup to know that, so thank you, I hope I am also filling your cup a little bit as well. We are all teachers to each other, Jeff Warren from the calm app says life is like this great big river that we are all on together and sometimes you’re the one warning about a big rock coming up and sometimes you’re the one being warned. The idea that I can learn something from anyone I meet has me looking at them differently and it has me also being proud of us as a whole because for the most part we all just want to love and be loved.
If you have ever been inclined to be a people pleaser or someone who is always making yourself small so that others have space or maybe you’re a mom or a dad or daughter or let’s go more general a human being wanting to love and be loved. This episode is for you.
We went out to dinner for one of our two nights eating out a week this last Thursday evening. If you’ve been listening, we have cleaned things up around here and are really trying to eat super clean 80-90% of the time and you cant do that and eat out as much as we were. So, My little sister Molly was in town and we wanted to take her to one of our favorite restaurants. It’s Napa Cafe and it’s delicious and even more than that the service is top notch and the environment is lovely. We were really enjoying our dinner when the owner, her name is Glenda came over to our table to visit, which she often does. She closes the restaurant for two weeks during the summer so everyone can have summer vacation and this was their first day back. We were talking about how nice that is for them and she said you know, I used to be open all the time even for lunch and financially it was just so good.
But she said she noticed she wasn’t happy and so she asked her accountant to audit and see how financially beneficial lunch was to the bottom line of the restaurant, she said she was hoping it would come back that lunch wasn’t making that much money for the restaurant because she really wanted to only be open for dinner. Well her accountant came back and said Lunch is a huge money maker for you, you must stay open during lunch and people love coming here for lunch too. She said she was so disappointed at this answer so she went home and did a pros and cons list and listed the things she really loved about the business and the things she didn’t love. The restaurant does very well but she wasn’t happy because she was literally working every waking moment. She ultimately decided that her happiness mattered too, it wasn’t always about the money. So she is no longer open for lunch and they are completely closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so she and her staff have those days off. It really breathed new life into her and gave her even more that she could pour into the restaurant. Her staff is the same it’s been forever and we know why, it’s because she takes care of them and even more importantly takes care of herself so that she isn’t a burned out and frazzled boss, she actually is excited and looks forward to coming to work. I remember one time recently before we knew this story, she told us she loves what she does so much she is excited every day to wake up. And now we know why….She’s running the restaurant, it’s not running her.
I think that’s a lesson each one of us has to learn at some point or another in life. Your peace is more important than anything else and you are the only person that can allow that peace. Peace will never come from chasing, it comes from a knowing that everything is working out as it should and life is always working in your favor. The funny thing is, the more peace you have the richer your life will be. The more peace you have, the more the things you want are just attracted to you like a magnet.
Glenda stopped chasing money and now she has time to swim in her beautiful pool with her cat, yes her cat, it gets in the pool with her, but she wouldn’t know that if she hadn’t taken the step to truly give herself peace by choosing to run her life, not having it run her.
There are lots of things that will run you if you aren’t careful. Your kids, your job, your elderly parents, your compulsive habits. You think you’re being selfless but you matter too. When any of those things run you eventually you’ll grow resentful and bitter and then life will hand you the equivalent of resentful and bitter OR you can decide to make a pros and cons list of what you really feel fulfilled doing, what you love and also the things that are sucking the life out of you. You may have to still do some things that aren’t your favorite, that’s life but now you’re doing them on your terms which makes them not so bad, you might even find joy in it again. My grandparents lived with my mom and dad for 20 years as they got older, one of the things that made life intolerable was having to bathe them as they got really old so they found that medicare actually pays to have a nurse come in and bathe them a couple times a week, this took a huge burden off both my grandparents and my parents because now they could just enjoy time together instead of it being a chore or my grandparents feeling like a burden. Your energy and your vibration speak louder than the fake smile you wear. You’re not fooling anyone. There are ways around that I promise you. When you care for yourself first the other things can become part of what fills your cup back up instead of what’s emptying it. Find a way to care for yourself first, to take care of YOUR peace first and the things and people that are important to you will no longer seem like a burden, they’ll actually fill your cup instead of draining it. And that’s gonna take boundaries and probably schedule changes and it may be uncomfortable at first and like Glenda’s accountant, some people may not like it, but they’ll come around and you will all be better for it.
So yes, you’re a human being and yes, you want to love and be loved but never forget that the main person that you want to love and be loved by….has to be yourself. Otherwise you’ll give all you have away without ever filling back up. You see it’s a beautiful thing to be a giver, but the thing you have to know is there will be people who will just keep taking, and it’s not love that keeps you giving it’s habit. Because love would have you taking care of yourself first, you know why? Because you can’t pour from an empty cup, you can’t give what you don’t have.
My challenge to you this week is if you’re feeling overwhelmed, overworked, resentful and or bitter, sit down and make a list of the things you do that fill your cup, those things you do just for yourself, for your peace and then make a list of all the other things, the ones that are draining you. I bet you’ll find that you’ve forgotten that you matter too. Share this with 3 people who are givers. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
