Have you ever wondered how small changes in your daily routine can lead to significant improvements in your life? Join me as I share my personal and professional journey, uncovering the challenges and rewards of cultivating consistency and positive habits to achieve our goals. I reveal my morning routine that sets the tone for my day, including affirmations, goal-setting, and reading a devotional.
Discover how embracing reading and audiobooks can help increase knowledge, vocabulary, and speaking skills. I also discuss the importance of a focused daily routine, using tools such as the Do Not Disturb feature on Apple products to stay on track. Learn how to adjust, adapt, and overcome when life throws unexpected curveballs, and find out how taking small steps can lead to lasting change. Remember, you don't have to go it alone - I'm here to offer support and inspiration for anyone who needs it.
Have you ever wondered how small changes in your daily routine can lead to significant improvements in your life? Join me as I share my personal and professional journey, uncovering the challenges and rewards of cultivating consistency and positive habits to achieve our goals. I reveal my morning routine that sets the tone for my day, including affirmations, goal-setting, and reading a devotional.
Discover how embracing reading and audiobooks can help increase knowledge, vocabulary, and speaking skills. I also discuss the importance of a focused daily routine, using tools such as the Do Not Disturb feature on Apple products to stay on track. Learn how to adjust, adapt, and overcome when life throws unexpected curveballs, and find out how taking small steps can lead to lasting change. Remember, you don't have to go it alone - I'm here to offer support and inspiration for anyone who needs it.
I hope you guys are having a great day today. On the podcast, you guys have me, so I thought I would share a little bit more of an update of what's going on with me personally and professionally, but continuing with the story of where I'm at in life and how things are progressing. So, first and foremost, on a personal front, the journey has been tough, to say the least, but the journey has had its rewards. And then it's had its really crappy times, and I want to talk about the crappy times before you talk about the rewards, because I've learned so much more about how much I can truly handle from a life perspective, and I'm not just talking, i'm not talking about drama, i'm talking about true life experiences, and when I say personal, it's intertwined with business. Also, the piece that I really want to focus in on and I think I've spoken about this on several other podcasts, as I've spoken about my journey is my ability to disconnect myself and find that space for my well-being, and that space means freeing up my mind, and so every morning I start with quiet time. I'm up between 4 and 4.30 and I really focus in on affirmations, positivity. I write down the things that are on my mind that I want to accomplish. I set goals for the day, whether they be big or small. I want goals. I typically four to six goals a day, and I know I've spoken about this, but I wanted to just talk a little bit more about how it actually works for me. But then the other aspect of it is I get some inspiration. Whether you're spiritual, believe in God, universe, whatever, i find that very enlightening and powerful. So I actually have time to read a devotional daily where it talks about spirituality but also positivity. So I really focus in on that to set my day up. I want my day to start out on the right foot, knowing that there could be pitfalls in the day And guess what? Crap happens And I get it. But I'm able to rebound better when I start my day out this way and sidetrack. Because I want to put a note on this or a footnote I'm reading a book called Atomic Habits and it really hones in on the consistency aspect that I've always believed that I needed to utilize in my personal and professional life and the biggest thing that he talks about And I'll link to the book in the show notes If you guys want to check it out there's no, i'm not marketing it.
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It's just a book I'm reading. It's very popular. It's been out since 2018. I've listened to it on Audible Now I'm reading it, so it's really starting to sink in even more.
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But the thing that he talks about if you want to lose weight, you have to go to the gym or you have to exercise or you have to eat right. If you want to be a pilot, you got to learn how to fly a plane and you've got to consistently learn. What he talks about in the consistency aspect really hits home, because every single day you'd make a small step forward towards that consistency, to where it now becomes a habit. And the way we fall into our he calls them comfortable habits is through our mindset and how we actually perceive ourselves. It's a self-esteem issue. It's a lack of wanting to try and put effort forward to change the current situation we're in.
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Let me give you an example. I'm going to start giving myself a daily goal which I haven't started yet on push-ups. I really want to get back into doing push-ups on a daily basis. I used to do it in my prior life. It's fallen by the wayside, so I'm going to start with small goals and create a daily goal for push-ups And I'll keep you guys informed of what's going on and where it's going, but I'll probably, all joking aside, start with 10. 10 a day. I'll do 10 for the week. 10 each day, so 70 push-ups And then next week I'll up it. I don't know if I up it to 12 or 15, but I know I've got to start somewhere, because I haven't done push-ups in many years. So for me to say that I'm going to come out and start pumping out 30 or 40 push-ups at a time is stupid. I'll set myself up for failure.
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And that's one of the things he also points out is that we try to go big And then, once we can't go big, we just give up. We view these small steps as failures when truly they're actually wins. And if you can't take the small steps and look at them as wins, how are we supposed to change our lives? And I put a lot out on social media when it comes about talking about motivation and changing our lives, but the one big thing that I truly enjoy and seen as others taking that small step and really working on themselves to fight fear and change head on, and we've seemed to have lost focus on that for ourselves.
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We're out for these material items in life. We're out chasing the Joneses And I'm like, what the hell are you doing? But then also, on the other side, you can't go to a mindset of I'm going to go buy everything and get myself in debt and then have to file bankruptcy, to all I'm going to do is just have the basics. There's got to be some more there And that's where I'm at. I've gone from wanting to chase the Joneses dealing with failed businesses to now I'm living with just the bare minimum items. But I truly want more than just the bare minimum items. I want to make sure that my parents are taking care of my family is taking care of Moose, my dog is taking care of my friends are taking care of.
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Those aspects come through financial purpose And I have more. I don't know how to describe this. I guess would be motivation when it comes to financial purpose, because it's an impact. It's not about me. It's about the impact or the lasting work that we're doing through real estate, hopefully soon through loans, and through true community or nonprofit, through social media, through this podcast, through the Chasing Happiness podcast. Those different aspects is where I'm at And that's the life of abundance, joy and happiness that I've been searching for.
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It's taken a very long time to figure this out And I still think there's a lot more to figure out. I'm just at a point to where I feel like I'm stable on a road, that I know what I want and I can go get it. Now I just have to follow through and make sure that happens. And by doing that, i'm changing my path. I'm changing the output that I'm putting into the world, into the communities we serve, into the people that we serve. It's truly about them.
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The end result there's a byproduct. Yes, we are for profit. We also have a nonprofit that'll be coming up, but there is that. I'm sorry that I'm a capitalist, but that is truly. That's a beautiful thing. But the profit will never come at an expense of our community. It will always be hedged for us to be taking care of them and not the other way around. And we've done that for the last eight years, almost eight years.
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But now, with adding additional nuances and layers into this financial purpose, it's truly changed how I feel towards life. And this is just coming out raw, guys. This is just where I'm at, raw and unfiltered. It's just thoughts that come to my head. It's just how I can actually address what has happened in the last five years. For me, last 12 to 24 months have probably been the most difficult financially in my life, and there's now an opening to where things are changing for me personally and professionally. And a lot of that comes from perseverance, consistency and having those daily habits that I created many months ago that are now starting to morph into a stronger muscle, if you want to call it that.
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But the one thing I can tell you guys and I hate the adage regret if you truly love something or want to go after something, whether it be personally, professionally, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, whatever it is what's stopping you? It's a four letter word fear. I know that. And why are you afraid of failure? Failure is only going to teach you even more than what you know today and allow you to grow to where you won't make that mistake again for sure. But you'll also be able to then move on and get closer to whatever you're trying to accomplish. I joke about it, but it hurts. Having two failed businesses sucks, But it's life. It's where I'm at, it's what's happened. I can't change that. It's just part of my DNA. I've learned a lot from it.
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If you asked me to go back and think about all those things that have happened, those are pretty crappy times. I thought at that time that was probably the most difficult, daunting time for me. But I had a job that paid me a very healthy six-figure income. With being a business owner entrepreneur, when the crap hits the fan unless you've got hundreds of thousand dollars sitting in the bank account, if you're a small business, like we went through the pandemic, i didn't have that sitting in the bank, so I had to be resourceful and find ways to make things happen.
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Side hustle is my best friend. Still is. I'm still not going to stop that. Side hustling is fun. I truly enjoy it. Having two or three side hustles that you can do 20 to 30 hours a week. God bless, you do it on your off hours.
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My podcast where side hustles and now they're hopefully going to start earning some nice revenue. We're getting interest from advertisers. I'm looking at finding a potential producer that can help me with all this, because I can't do it all myself. Now that we've got even more going on with our real estate business, it's just consuming me and I'm not going to give up on this, even if the advertisers don't come on. I'm going to try to find a way to work with a producer that can handle this and grow it to where we can get the advertisers to come in and start paying for itself and then start making revenue from it.
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The difficult place to be is sitting on the couch eating bonbons and watching Oprah, but a lot of us are comfortable in that situation. We enjoy that, but then we don't understand why we're not achieving or getting the things out of life that we want. We become instant gratification. People, society, whatever you want to say, hard work still wins. It just might not win today, it'll win tomorrow and the next day It pays off, but you have to be able to back that up. You have to be willing to put the time and effort in and when you get knocked down, learn from it, take away the loss and make it a win. At some point In that and this is part of my struggle too, and I'm still learning it and I'm still trying to surround myself with these people is finding your tribe. I found a tribe with office hours with Jerry McNamara that's been on this show multiple times. That's one tribe, but I'm now building my own tribe with people that I can count on, that. They can count on me, i can count on them.
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The thing that I'm very hesitant about and I hesitate is all these mastermind groups that want me to join, and they want 10, 15, 20, 30, $40,000. And it's like why do I want to join you for $40,000? Are you going to change my life? This is just me thinking out loud, guys. I'm giving it to you, guys, unfiltered. Are you truly going to change my life and all of a sudden, everything's going to be great and I'm going to be making $5 million a year? I'm very critical, cynical of that, because if you have to pay somebody $40,000 a year in that type of environment, there's something wrong. Now don't get me off base on this, or I should say don't get me wrong. I was right the first time. I guess I need to get some more water.
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A coach, an individual coach now you're talking my game. I want to be able to work with somebody that understands who I am individually, to be able to further myself, better myself mentally. Mindset shift That's where it really pays to do that. Would that be $10,000, $15,000, $20,000? Probably so. My mindset coach is going to cost you that, but they're also going to deliver results.
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I think some of these mastermind groups are just overbaked and they just they're looking for an easy score. Give me $10,000 and we'll help you do this and this, and they expect you to. They expect you to pay it and call it a move on. But when you find out and you look under the hood, some of these people really don't even have the experience in time. It's just all made up, it's crap. So you got to be cognizant of that too. But I'm not saying all masterminds are this way. You can find a mastermind, you know, that doesn't cost you an arm and leg, that you can start with to get your feed wet and see where it goes. Meetup is a great place. I belong to two or three on there. They're okay, but you get what you pay for, and that's why I truly want to have a coach on the near future that I can work with him or her directly, cause it's all mindset I'm getting.
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I feel like I'm getting to that point of my mindset is just about where I need to be to then jump up another level. I don't think I'm quite there yet. So I'm going to continue to work on myself and there's some things that I need to do, and one of the things that has really helped me is reading. I think I've put some reels out on Facebook, on Instagram, talking about how reading starting with reading 20 pages a day changed my life. It truly has.
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I think we're in June right now. I'm at five or six books. I'm on my sixth book right now, so I've completed five books so far, so almost let's call it a book a month that I'm reading Now. Is that setting the world on fire? No, and if you don't know my backstory, it's just this high school and college. I barely broke open the books. I just made sure I took copious notes. I didn't like reading. Now I enjoy reading anything from history stuff to motivational. I'm reading atomic habits. Like I said, i love Grant Cardone, gary V, bill O'Reilly with his history stuff, that's. Those are all great things, but the one thing that has really turned me into a consumer I should say a carnivore of reading is audible.
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I buy books, i read and then I put on my headset and I listen to it while I read And for some reason, i absorb it quicker. I seem to retain it a lot better and I can read a lot faster. So I've gone from reading 20 pages a day to where I'm reading two or three chapters a day, sometimes less, but my goal is to read one chapter a day. So we've gone from 20 pages to one chapter, and it's all time. I mean, right now, time is my most valuable asset and it's your valuable most valuable asset too. Everybody thinks it's money, but that's a whole other story. So I try to read in the evening. Time Come six o'clock. I use digress, i use Gmail, so any of the newsletters I subscribe to get snoozed till six and I start reading through those to see what I can pull out And then, after that's done, boom, i go right into a book and read and do my thing.
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It just has changed how I think, how I operate and truly how sophisticated my thought process can be. On a daily basis, i seem to be using better vernacular I shouldn't say that vernacular. Better language, better vocabulary See, look at that. I'm already screwing it up already. My vocabulary has gotten better. My pronunciations have gotten better. My speaking is better. Also, i used to use a lot of filler words, and I still do, and I catch myself, but for some reason, when I read and listen to it. I hear myself talking in my head and if I'm using or type of filler words, i catch myself and I stop. The other filler word I use is and I'm really focused in on making it less prevalent in my conversations but at times it comes through.
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I could be nervous or I could have my mind on other things, i could be lacking focus and they come out. Am I ever going to be a perfect speaker? Probably not. I'm not going to be on a TEDx stage. Maybe I will. I wouldn't mind talking about change and overcoming fear and really focusing in on your passion. Maybe it's something I can go after from a TEDx Not sure, i don't know. It could be something. I just don't ever want to say no to anything until I actually think it through. What really segues into? we turn down things on a daily basis that we truly should be going after, or at least giving it a look, before saying no. How are we supposed to grow, learn, get out of that box we're in if we don't actually try new things? It could be as simple as trying a different food when you go out to eat, going a different way to work.
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We are creatures of habit. I totally agree. I have a routine every single day. See, there was a filler word. That routine I follow. But the thing that I created with this routine was I didn't want to have a separate routine from weekdays to weekends. All those days end in Y, so why would I change? So probably five months ago, six months ago, i decided that I was going to do that.
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I go to bed religiously 9.30, 10 o'clock and I'm up by 4.30. Up at 4.30, get moose ready, we go for a walk and then I come back and I do my quiet time and then I get ready for work and I get to work. At first it was very difficult, especially from a mindset. On the weekend, on Saturdays and Sundays, i wanted to sleep in, and it's nope, that ain't happening. It's time to get up. And what's really helped is moose has now gotten into a habit and he knows when it's time to get up. He doesn't care what day it is, he just knows it's time to get up at that time. So he's almost like my accountability buddy, which is cool. I have no problem with that. It's just taken a lot of effort to do that.
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But it also simplifies my life when it comes to getting things done, being focused and making sure the goals I set for myself on a daily basis are being accomplished. Believe me, some days I don't accomplish all of them, it's just life. Other things happen So I have to adjust, adapt and overcome. But I try to do my best every single day to stay focused. I just recently, in my last podcast, i told you guys I switched over from Android to an iPhone. I love the Do Not Disturb and it hits all of my Apple products because I already have a MacBook Pro and an iMac, so this just ties in nicely. So as I'm shooting this podcast, it's all on Do Not Disturb so I don't have to see my phone, and Android had a Do Not Disturb at night for sleep. So does Apple. So that goes off at 9.30. Lights out, i don't see any notifications And so I don't get bothered other than a telephone. Phone call will get through from people in my contact book. Outside of that no go, no fly zone. So I've kept myself focused there.
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In the other two aspects that I really have been working on And I think I've got a grasp, but I still have a lot of work is anxiety, because I think about the future a lot And instead of being I need to be present, focused in on whatever task I'm working on to get done and then go to the next. I can't worry about the future I can't control it, just like I can't change the past. It's gone, nothing I can do about it. And sleep. I got to make sure I'm getting plenty of sleep and making sure that I am rested, ready to go and ready to take on the next day, and the only way I know how to do that is by really turning my brain off at night, and reading has really helped me get there, even though at times, depending on what I'm reading, it'll go through my head. At times I might have a weird dream or so. So be it, but it truly relaxes me to where I can actually get sleep, but I'm still fighting my brain turning on and going like crazy. So it's a work in progress. It's better than it was before, but it's not where I want to be. So I know I have to work on it And I think that's bring this full circle.
Speaker 1:
I know we're almost 30 minutes into this, guys hearing me talk about it, but that's just really what I wanted to share with you guys is it's okay to be imperfect, but it's not okay to give up on your dreams and your passions. And being comfortable sitting on the couch and bonbons watching Oprah is no bueno, because I am sure you are not the happiest person in the world. if you're doing that. You're wired to push yourself, to achieve goals, to live a better life, to provide a better life for family, friends, dogs, cats, animals, whatever. But if you're so afraid of failure, it's pretty hard to get there.
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When failure is part of the equation for success, however you define success, there's not. I shouldn't say not. How about this? I don't know anybody that has achieved success in their life without failing. Maybe there are some people out there that have never had to go through these problems or have failures in their life. I just don't personally know anyone. And failure shouldn't be a shamer. When I say shamer, you shouldn't be ashamed of your failure. I know when I failed I was. Now I wear it as a badge of honor Because I can share my stories with others that are potentially going through the same thing and I can help them through it Or they can help me through it, through something I'm going through. That's where you find your tribe of people that you can sit at the table with help each other, get through the tough times.
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But you can't change your life if you're not willing to put the effort into it And being consistent, taking that first step. It doesn't have to be a huge step. If you want to be a runner, start jogging. Start jogging for five or 10 minutes. Do that for a week, work your way into it. I don't know why we're so afraid of these baby steps and making them work, because, truly, when you have baby steps, you're going to build them into bigger steps And then it becomes muscle memory And then it just becomes part of your life And it's like eating or drinking You have to do it, so you will go, do it and you won't miss it. That's where we need to be guys.
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Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for hearing me out. I hope I've inspired or laid the foundation for you. If you need somebody to talk, to reach out, to feel free to reach out to me, ryan, at truevestco. I'll you've always got my contact information, but feel free to reach out. I'll talk to anybody anytime and you wear. I hope you guys have a great day, stay safe, stay healthy, stay happy and go after that life that you want, have a good one.
