Fit Yourself Into Your Life

SPEAKER_04: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the spiritual grind. SPEAKER_02: Good morning. SPEAKER_04: It's uh James James and Jenny here. We appreciate you all tuning in again and listening to this wonderful podcast that we put out every single week. Actually, twice a week. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I try to do one twice a week. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and we appreciate the uh like, follows, and shares that y'all do. Because we've had quite a large jump in in listeners lately and we're liking it. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure. Um we uh I think there was a couple of weeks where we missed one just because it was heavy app week. Yeah. There is a lot too. There are days where my own. SPEAKER_04: Is that like a show here in Daytona? SPEAKER_02: Maybe. SPEAKER_04: It's kinda we have Bike Bike Tober Week and V Beats Week and or Jeep Week and Heavy Ass Week. Yeah, that'll be the next one. There's something going on at the racetrack last night. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, we could hear the noise, but I don't know what it was. SPEAKER_04: I don't know either. I don't really care. SPEAKER_02: Anyway, the yeah, the app uh development, it never ceases to amaze me. The uh well two things about it. The intricate vast amount of details that go into it that I never knew were involved in developing an app. SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah, it's quite intricate. SPEAKER_02: And then our ability to just um adapt and overcome like we always do. Learning whatever we need to learn to pivot, doing whatever we need to do. I, as an creator and illustrator, uh taught myself what a rig is and um how to create the dimensions of like the avatar, the user avatar clothing and stuff. So I'm creating that inventory line now for the app, for the avatars. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: A rig is basically a computer generated umne mannequin, so to speak. SPEAKER_04: Yep. SPEAKER_02: And you have to you can't just create a naked one because of the naked policies and stuff from everything. So you gotta put on like this bodysuit and you gotta think about whether or not you're gonna go skin colored or not. SPEAKER_04: And yeah, that's it. SPEAKER_02: Like there's some there's quite a bit of detail just in getting ready to do the clothing and jewelry inventory. You gotta come up with that base model so that the uh, for example, so the earrings land properly on the avatar when they choose it, uh, or the clothes or the hats or whatever. So I've been creating the wigs and the jewelry and the headbands, sunglasses, all the inventory, sorry. All the inventory for the avatar user. SPEAKER_04: So what's the one thing that fooled you about the app that you've had to that really got you like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think about that. SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, I could there's not even there's it's not one thing. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: It's something every day. SPEAKER_04: Um what did you expect? SPEAKER_02: I don't really know that I had an expectation. I think more so I had limited knowledge. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And I hadn't really even sat and thought about it until we began developing our own app. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. All the time, money, and effort that goes into it. SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, I mean, you think uh there's two different viewpoints on it, you know, the end user experience of what the app looks like on the user side. And I live in kind of that world most of the time because as the creative director and gave myself a new title. After the um board meeting, I'll be giving myself a raise. SPEAKER_04: Okay. Two times zero is still zero. SPEAKER_02: Um, but anyway, so I stay on that side of things uh most of the time, creating uh, you know, the illustrations, and like I said, right now I'm doing the clothing line for the avatars. I'll move into um the uh furniture and choices like that. For the cottage. Uh, I think what happens with me is when we have our developer meetings once or twice a week, and they show me their back end screen. That's been the biggest uh I guess educational moment of what is inteled on the back side of things. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: It doesn't my illustration then does not look like an actual illustration when you look at the back end. SPEAKER_04: It's just like all these random weird letters and dashes and dots and square numbers. SPEAKER_02: And um so it's like, oh, okay, so all those weird hydroglyphs they be they be in my they are like the illustration that I actually see. So for me it was kind of an awakening moment of well, it's actually three experiences. SPEAKER_04: There's three things that goes on. You have the back door, you have back end coding, you have the user interface and the user exchange. So there's three you you're creating user interface. unknown: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: The coders create the the co the back end coding, and then the other part of the team does the user ex or user exchange or interface. Yeah. So the thing that communicates between those two things. SPEAKER_02: Oh, I see. I see. So they're taking the illustration. Part of the team is making it into words that will take the illustration into computer language. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they had change and adapt and make them vectors or whatever so they can be coded. SPEAKER_02: And then there's another part of the team that actually is linking those two together. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, see, that's a whole nother area that I didn't know anything about. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: But that's not you have U, UI, UX. SPEAKER_04: So you have those three things that go on. SPEAKER_02: I recognize the I've learned a ton about it. SPEAKER_04: Acronyms. Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And I know that you guys use them often, but I'm still learning. And wow. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. But it is. SPEAKER_02: It is pretty crazy. SPEAKER_04: This conversation kind of falls right into my topic today. SPEAKER_02: And what I what I uh what I realized too is that we spend our day, we're actually putting in most of the time more hours in our workday currently uh than we did on our J O B, but it doesn't feel like work. I s I sometimes feel guilty because I think, wow, I'm just sitting around creating all this fun stuff, and it just doesn't even feel like work. And so I'm like, golly, I don't really feel like I'm doing anything. But I will look up and it'll I'll have worked like through lunch and not even realized it, or even some days work through supper and it I look up and it's dark outside, and I'm like, okay, you know what? We I come to you and I'll say, Okay, listen, we gotta stop and eat supper. We didn't eat lunch. SPEAKER_04: Right. Yeah, I know, right? We had we're like literally stuck in this one meal a day thing. We keep we keep end up doing that, and we'll come four or five o'clock and be like, we're hungry, right? SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not out of like torture, it doesn't feel torture. It's kind of like we're just enjoying where we're at and and in the now, and it just kind of happens. SPEAKER_04: Right. Like yesterday you were talking about you know, the value we were talking about the value of what we've done, and it's astronomical. SPEAKER_02: Right. SPEAKER_04: I mean I mean three to six hundred thousand dollars that we have done well. That's how you probably all of it. SPEAKER_02: So, what you're talking about is the conversation we had yesterday where I was feeling like on those days when we've got to go have meetings with the community, like marketing, or like we gotta go to the bank and do something or or whatever. The business side, the business side of things. I I sometimes will make the comment I didn't get anything done. SPEAKER_01: Right. SPEAKER_02: But I'm steadily working on my phone, you know, creating illustrations and doing different things while all that's going on. But I forget to realize that those meetings are still valid parts of the business and still remember to count them as business hours, yeah. Rather than shortchanging myself and saying, Oh, you didn't get enough done today, so it's devalued almost. Right. And so stopping to realize that all of that has value. And so what you're talking about is uh we ran a little analyzation or I did through chat, and um because I sometimes sit around and think, okay, most of this stuff I'm doing. SPEAKER_04: You asked me, do they even use it? SPEAKER_02: Right. It's really so from my perspective, I I think, okay, you know what? I know I'm just goofing around and playing, or that's how it feels to me. Right. When I do these illustrations and things. And in my mind, I'm doing it so that they have an understanding of what's in my brain, trying to get it out so everybody's on the same page of the the tone, the characters, what I want it to feel like, that kind of thing. And I did. I asked you, I said, Did they even use the illustrations that I create? Is it even being helpful other than just setting the tone? Um, because again, it was me finding value in what I was doing. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And your conversation back to me was quite epiphenal in that uh you said, yeah, they it's the base structure, and then they just take and clean it up a little bit and tweak it. SPEAKER_04: Well, they sent you an image. SPEAKER_02: They don't have to recreate it or even create it initially. It's already created. They just give their little polishing up of it. That made me look at it from a whole different perspective as far as what I was doing. I was like, oh, okay, so what I'm doing is useful. We all want to feel useful when we're doing things. Right. And what I'm doing is is actually useful and beneficial. So then I said, okay, well, you know what? What uh I had chat run some statistics for me on what if I were being paid to do what I'm doing, what does that number look like? And I was quite floored at the numbers that she put forth that I just just the part that I'm doing saving the company money on developing this app, not to mention the things you're doing. So then I was like, well, let me run the uh information through on what all you're doing. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Um, because you know, on your side of things, you've taught yourself how to code, how to put the website together, coming up with, you know, the the stories and the wording and the stuff for the legal part of it. And so I put all that into chat, and the two of us together are saving the company so much money by doing what we're doing, and it just doesn't even feel like work. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I know, right? SPEAKER_02: It is it is so um it's quite a pipinal moment, and it's so amazing when you finally figure out a uh when you go into that place and you figure out what your joy is, and then you figure out a way to make it into something creative that um it pays you to do it. SPEAKER_04: You know, that's right. SPEAKER_02: It's a complete twist of uh a turnaround from the J O B and the work. I actually wrote an article about it um that I'll be putting on the on the blog of changing that word work. It it turned it into an acronym. Um instead of it being work and it being kind of that negative connotation, I gotta go to work. SPEAKER_04: Right. Um you know the the topic that I have for the podcast today that we're already 20 minutes into. SPEAKER_02: Well, everything everything has uh place. SPEAKER_04: Right, it kind of fits right into all this. Actually, it's about uh how do you fit you into your life into your life? SPEAKER_02: How do you fit you into your life into your life? SPEAKER_04: Because we have for the longest time as humans we're taught that we're supposed to make sure that everything else is taken care of. We've got to go, you know, we have to have a house, two and a half kids, a car, and a job, and you're taking care of everything else, but we always forget to fit us into that into our own life. SPEAKER_02: Nice. So, real quick, work. It's an acronym. SPEAKER_04: Don't give it away, it's gonna be on the blog. Oh, towards self. Interesting. SPEAKER_02: Anyway, I just wanted to share that. SPEAKER_04: That's pretty good. SPEAKER_02: You can find that article in the next coming days. SPEAKER_04: Do the edge and back by Dr. Ginny. SPEAKER_02: To the Edge and Back, man. SPEAKER_04: It's on blogger.com. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: But the you know, the we you're sitting there giving examples of how you have learned to fit you into your life. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And we get taught, you know, in many different aspects of all this other stuff. Like, you know, especially as as moms, you're taught to take care of the kids first and take care of the house and take care of the husband, and the husband's taught to take care of the house and and take care of the wife and the kids and the blah blah blah. You know, we're all taught but we always forget to take care of ourselves and inject ourselves into our own lives. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_04: And it it can it can when you get caught up in that loop, it hides reality from you. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: You know, uh and what brings it to light is me and this blood pressure issue that I keep having that's not really an issue, this blood pressure thing I'm dealing with. You know, I was just going through life and not even looking at what I was doing. And and so I'm you know it it brought I wasn't injecting myself into my own life. SPEAKER_02: I see. Say more. SPEAKER_04: And so, like, for example, um let's see here what I want to talk about in this issue. So like I discovered that you're not supposed to use albuterol and rescue inhaler that much. And that's normally that kind of stuff I would look at. But because I was so caught up in everything else and not even living in my own life, I just went through the motions. SPEAKER_02: So when you say not living in your own life, what do you feel like you were doing? I was just saying expound on a little bit more on that. What did it mean there was moments? SPEAKER_04: Like like don't confuse it with there were there were moments of that we were living our life and we were living within our life, but we don't do it consistently like we do for everybody else or everything else. And uh So say more about that. Um, like we went on vacation together, and that was a great vacation. We had a good time. That was us living in our life in our in our own life. But what I guess the best way to to explain what I'm trying to put out there is whatever we do in our life, we get caught up in these cycles. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And we will continuously, you know, like every single day, I get up in the morning at five o'clock, I make the coffee, I make sure the the cats get their treats, I go through this daily or single ritual every single day. But what I don't do is I uh what I'm what I didn't do was do something for me. SPEAKER_02: Right. So if I may, yes, you may um I'll I'll help you break it down. SPEAKER_04: Break it, break it. We can we can we can we can what? SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so what you're describing to me sounds like you're in a subconscious uh routine pattern, which is what most people find themselves in. They just subconsciously, robotically go through their day. They get up, they get ready for work, they go get their Starbucks, they drive to work, same, they usually take the same track uh to work, they clock in, they put their purse down, like they're very creature of habit oriented, and they do that um so much that it creates a habit, and you just kind of do that on autopilot without even having to think about it. Right. Because you've done it so much. Correct. Then you come home, you pick the kids up, you uh, you know, do the dishes maybe so you can cook subscriptions. Make sure you get them going on their homework, and you know, you and I live that life. SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah. SPEAKER_02: Our ourselves. And then maybe get them into bed after their bath, do a load of laundry, get everybody's stuff set up and ready for the next day so you can get up and do it all over again. SPEAKER_00: Right. SPEAKER_02: And but in that, where did you take time to really be in the now, be present in your own reality, and give yourself permission to read a book or meditate, or just check in with yourself? How do I feel? Right, how do I physically feel? How do I mentally feel? How do I emotionally feel? Am I doing for me time to check in with me and ask myself, am I as happy as I can be? SPEAKER_01: Right. SPEAKER_02: Am I doing things that bring me joy? Am I uh giving myself space to take that 30-minute bath because I enjoy it soaking? SPEAKER_04: Right. Well, you see, that's where there are so many things out there that give examples. And I and I will I'm gonna call out everybody that listened to this. You are not taking care of you. SPEAKER_02: Listen to your phone. SPEAKER_04: You are you are are not living your life, and you're not identifying yourself within your own lifestyle. Because if everybody was doing it, we wouldn't have stuff like all these things like uh girls' night out. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: We wouldn't have guys going to the golf course together all the time because it's a guy's day. Yeah. You know, they're we're gonna go play golf or whatever you want to call it. SPEAKER_02: And you know, all these if we were on video, you guys would have just seen him like click his head and kick his hip out with his little air quote fingers in the sky doing the air quote thing. SPEAKER_04: You know, if we were taking you know, uh taking accountability for us within our own lifestyle and the things that we want and say and do, then those things wouldn't exist. You would just be doing them. SPEAKER_02: Right. So so since we're playing in the gaming world, it's almost like you're living life from first person and not stopping to look at your life from the third person overview to make sure that you actually have planted yourself in your own little world that you've created and you're actually interacting with that world. SPEAKER_04: Right. You should be doing something for yourself every single day. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Like in the morning, I get up, I go sit on my patio, and I get to just sit there and play with nature and enjoy the weather and drink my coffee. SPEAKER_04: Right. SPEAKER_02: That's what I do every morning for myself. SPEAKER_04: And it's your choice what it is. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: You know, as long as you're identifying that, hey, you know, I chose this for me today. SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_04: Because, you know, that's what I was looking at. I was so caught up over the last few years of making sure everybody else's life was good, I forgot to take care of mine. unknown: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And that's what happened. That's where this whole thing is going on was because I didn't take care of me, be it health-wise, be it lifestyle, be it whatever the things that I want to do. And, you know, there was moments like everybody does it, like they they plan one and a half vacations a year, ones with the kids, you know, they plan the holidays with the family, they do those little things, but even those, those are just out of habit in societal taught. They're not impulsive, right? They're not self-sustained. Yeah, they're they're what you have identified as what we're supposed to do, which is the reason why you know Walt Disney World is always packed on spring break because that's what everybody's supposed to do. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Instead of going a week early and taking your kids out of school a week early, which you can legally do, yeah, and and just have them make up the work during spring break, the normal spring break. SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_04: You know, there's uh there's always a way to do it to identify yourself. And we as humans get so caught up in the mundane cycle, mundane cycle of repetitive action. SPEAKER_03: Yep. SPEAKER_04: You know, like when we told everybody we were going, we were leaving our job and going all in, everybody's like, oh my God. You know, it was like or or more like, hey, we're leaving our job and doing this. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's the screeching noise of oh my god. SPEAKER_04: Oh my god, I could never do that. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Well, um well, you should. SPEAKER_02: I have gotten that though my whole life. I have been that way my entire life. Right. When it's time to move on, I just get up and move on. And I've had so many people, including my family, uh label me as the black sheep that'll never be anything because when I when it's time to move. Right. I did. I always and I even had my sister one time come to me and we we had uh exchange of some emotional words, and she was like, No, I don't hate you. I'm jealous of you because you always find a way to do exactly what you want to be doing, and you're not caught up in that rut of staying in the same job job, and I'm jealous of you for being able to come to a place where you can get up and go do something different. I want to be able to do that, and I'm like, we'll just do it. Oh, I can't, I can't. This, this, this, this. So yeah, I've always I lived that way, and I firmly believe everybody gets to that point in their life somewhere. SPEAKER_04: Oh where they're like you know, like I remember when my grandfather retired and he he literally went and learned how to fly a plane and then flew him and grandma to Europe. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And I was in his like fourth, you know, he had to take an experienced pilot with him, but they still did it. SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely. SPEAKER_04: And you know, he it was it was a pretty uh crazy ride to watch him expand. And you know, he went he did all sorts of things. He went skydiving. Yeah, you know, he went and done. SPEAKER_02: Well, you and I, even in our lives prior to each other, have done some pretty incredible things, and then coming together, we've done some pretty amazing things. And so when we talk to people, they're they find it hard to believe that in our young age we've done so many different things. But that's that's why and that's how because I'm a dumb old redneck, man. SPEAKER_04: I do all sorts of stuff. SPEAKER_02: We don't let the mundane routine of things sideswipe us into that loop of not going and trying things and doing things. And like if we decide we want to do something, we just go freaking do it, man. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, I but even back in the day, I was still a creature of habit. I was as well. No, I remember every single day I would walk in my office and my secretary would be standing there holding my coffee and a donut as I walked in the door. SPEAKER_02: Was it a blueberry cake donut? SPEAKER_04: It was a blueberry cake donut. She would do it too much. SPEAKER_02: I would have won the newlywed game just then. SPEAKER_04: There was many times that I would I I as I'm walking in, I see her get around the desk and she has it in her hand and she just waits for me to walk by. I grab it, I keep on going. There were so many times that actually happened. SPEAKER_02: Was it black coffee with two ice cubes? SPEAKER_04: Yeah, of course. You know it was. That's what I always do. But very much a mundane creature of habit. But now that I've it's brought to my awareness, because I'm, you know, I've always been that athletic guy when I have football officiated and all that stuff. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And when I'm dealing with a little bit of a health thing, it just drives me insane and my monkey mind goes crazy. And and so when I was in the shower this morning, I'm like, well, I mean, what do you expect when you what to expect when you don't expect it? Yeah. And that's what that that's where I was, because I went checking him in myself. SPEAKER_02: Sounds like the name of a good book. SPEAKER_04: Yep. How to expect the unexpected or something like that. SPEAKER_02: What to expect when you don't expect it. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Dum dum dum. SPEAKER_02: Somebody make a note of that. I'll write a book for that title. SPEAKER_04: But you know, the whole thing for me was is that it was kind of like a little bell went off. Like, well, I mean, well heck, James. What what what did you do to stop and say, What about James? SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly. SPEAKER_04: Because I never did. Never did I never have. Really? SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: I've I've always made it about everybody else. Yeah. I can remember one decision in my life that was about me. And that was it. And that's what I went through. I was going through that list this morning. That's why you asked, you know, I was in my monkey mind because I was going through that list today. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: I can I can literally name one decision that is fully was 100% a selfish decision that I made. SPEAKER_02: See, and there's the trip-up. A selfish decision. SPEAKER_04: In a positive way. I'm not calling it negative. I'm saying, but I'm but everybody would view it as selfish. SPEAKER_02: That's why I called it a trip-up. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Because the definition of selfish has a very negative connotation. And that's what trips people up. Yes. They have been taught that if they do things for themselves and not for the others, selfish, selfish, self-centered bastard. You're so selfish. I can't believe you're gonna do that. What about me? What about me? SPEAKER_04: And so, you know, what I had to tell myself to be selfish. I agree. It's okay to take care of you and be you and do you. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: What I had to do this morning was make it okay within my head and to give myself permission to be what I am, who I am, how I am, and make sure that I'm checking in with that on a regular basis and making sure that I'm living this life for me. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And it's not a hard, not an easy thing to do. It can be, you know, it can be it's hitting it, bumping up with some beliefs. SPEAKER_02: Right. And changing that habit. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and making it intentionally. SPEAKER_02: Yep. It's a deep-seated habit. I think what helped me, and don't get me wrong, I get tripped up in it as well. But you know, what changed it for me is when I went to nursing school, they actually teach a level of that concept. And nursing school nursing school when I went back in the day was very much still designed. Designed like military. Yeah. It's a military-based concept and program. And so what they taught was I can't help anybody if I am not safe. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And so they taught, you know, scene observation, make sure you're safe first, make sure the scene is safe to go on to, and then go in and take care of the patient. Because if something happens to you, then there's two patients. And the scene is not safe, then you both end up critically wounded or even dead. And uh for me, that was uh what changed the word selfish. It kind of gave me permission in my life to redefine that word for me because that that's completely right, and it plays into regular life, civilian life, even if you're not a nurse, is you know, if you're depleted physically, mentally, energetically, or emotionally, you're not gonna be everything you want to be to others anyway. Right. If you're a healer, coach, helper, whatever, whatever your thing is that you do, you're not gonna be much uh help if you're depleted. Right. And so you have to be selfish and make sure that you're uh tending to your own garden and uh keeping it balanced. And I don't just mean keeping yourself physically healthy or mentally healthy, I mean doing a balanced uh uh concept, you know, making sure that you stop and have joy, making sure that you stop and um plug yourself into your own freaking reality and taking time for yourself. If you're tired today, then stop and rest. If you're find yourself craving, uh, you know, listen, I feel I feel like I want to do something fun, then listen to that nudge and go figure out what that is and do it for a minute. SPEAKER_04: You know, that's and I had to go back and work through some things that I had identified as fun that was like fun for me. Like I used to do those annual meetings I would take my managers to to a club in Dallas. And I was identifying that as mine, as I was did it. And it was all about business. It wasn't really for me. Did I have fun? Yeah, I had fun, but it wouldn't it wasn't a typical thing I would have chosen to do. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_04: And so it was like a different I labeled those things wrong, and cause so I went through my life thinking I was doing things for me when I really wasn't. There was always a secondary category or agenda for that event or for that no non-event, whatever it is. Yeah, you know, like I I hear moms, you know, all the time say, Oh, I can't, I've got to take care of the kids. SPEAKER_02: That's a big one. Whenever you become a parent, yeah, everything seems to be wrapped around what the kids do, and we forget as parents to still take time for ourselves, and that everything you do does not have to include the child. SPEAKER_00: Right. SPEAKER_02: The child will be okay if you go and do something that you want to do. SPEAKER_04: Yep. SPEAKER_02: But when we become parents, we think, oh my god, I'm a bad parent if I leave them with the grandparents or the sitters so that I can go and have a massage or sit quietly by my favorite body of water in the park or something, and I don't have child in tow, I'm a bad parent. SPEAKER_04: I remember remember a a friend of mine and his wife. You know, she literally once or twice a year would go to Tahoe with her girlfriend. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And he absolutely was not allowed to go. SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah. SPEAKER_04: Um, and I would and you know, of course, as humans we're taught, oh, what are they doing up there? You know, they're going up there and meeting their boys or whatever, and that the jealousy bone kicks in. SPEAKER_02: And turning it into some m bullshit thing of they're doing something wrong. SPEAKER_04: Right. Like I actually asked him one time. Because he would he would say, you know, you think she's got a boyfriend up there? Or that kind of stuff, you know. And I'd be like, Well, go up there and check it out. Oh no, she divorced me for that. That's that's her time. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And I'd be like, Then why are you asking me stupid questions? SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_04: If you think she's cheating on you, you she's gonna divorce you anyway, and if you go up there, she's gonna divorce you anyway. So d either quiet the monkey mind, deal with it, have fun, go do your time while she's gone for three or four days, whatever it is. SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_04: And or or tote your ass up there. Or tote your ass up there and check it out. SPEAKER_03: Check it out. SPEAKER_04: Well, what if she's not? Well then quit doing that to yourself. And so that's the that's the process by which we work as humans. We will so not let ourselves enjoy us, enjoy ourselves. SPEAKER_02: Or the reality that you've created. SPEAKER_04: And anybody that says that their joy is based upon the helping others is lying. SPEAKER_02: Lying, tigers and bears. SPEAKER_04: They are lying to themselves. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Because your joy does not come from somebody else's joy. SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_04: Even though I don't care what you do. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Because you have to stop and say, what isn't my joy? SPEAKER_03: Right. SPEAKER_04: Where what is it that makes me happy? Because you're not you're you're you're slowly depleting yourself. Slowly or and slowly and slowly, the little that little number is fading. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that health gauge. SPEAKER_04: Until you reinstill yourself because you are not as good you're not as 100% good for anybody until you're 100% good for yourself. SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_04: And and so it's like a it and it can be a trap, man. You just gotta you just gotta really pay attention to it. Don't fall for the for the all the slogans, the gotta take care of the kids, or you know, I have to work on Saturdays or whatever that is. Yeah who cares, find time. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if we go down the rabbit hole with it, you know, all of those little sayings and adages were created uh, you know, long before we came along to keep society in that um factory mindset, staying with the same company, doing the same thing, getting everybody programmed into that robotic, second nature, going through the motions mindset so that they had so that the big companies had less turnover, more people staying for the pension. Yep. Um, they didn't want people to take time for themselves and contemplate and you know, meditate and be creative. They didn't want that, right? Because it took them out of it had the opportunity to bring them into a place of, oh, damn, this is boring. I stand here all day long putting this shit in this box on this conveyor belt. This is not what I fucking want my life to look like. Right, right. And the minute that somebody pops out of that template, then it had the potential of shaking the whole system up and the they losing control of everything. Yeah. And so the rabbit hole concept is is that through the generations, you know, we've been nicely programmed that this is just like what life looks like. Right. And, you know, interestingly enough, I think the generation that came after us was a little more on the other side of that, of wanting to work from home, wanting to come out of that paradigm, so to speak. Yeah. And then I think, more interestingly enough, I think COVID helped shift the scale of uh everybody having to segregate and be confined to their house. I think the government created that to regain control, but I think what it did is it turned around and it bit them in the butt. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: And it made everybody realize and come to this realization that, hey, you know what? Because we had to get creative and figure out how to still do our jobs, but we couldn't go to the office anymore. We've now realized that our job can actually be done from home. Yeah. And a lot of people did not want to come back to the office after COVID. They wanted to continue to work from home. SPEAKER_04: I know there's some jobs that still aren't. SPEAKER_02: That's right. That's what I was gonna say. There are some of them that still just work from home, and companies are finding out that it actually is costing them less in their overhead and their overall expenditure to allow the people to work from home. So they're embracing it now. SPEAKER_01: Yep. SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of putting the government in a bit of a tailspin, and everything is being like the whole grid is being reconstructed and moving us towards coming out of that robotic mindset of not thinking for yourself. Right. Just going into that second nature, get up, go to work, drive to work, fight the traffic, blah, blah, blah, blah, barf me blah um mindset. Because you gotta be successful, and you can't be successful unless you be in the same job and wait for your pension. And I mean, hell these days, I don't even think pensions exist. They don't. SPEAKER_04: It's all 401k very hardly ever. I mean, there's a couple of companies that still do it, like Verizon still does it. SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure probably the government jobs. SPEAKER_04: You know, the the other part of that too is when you think for yourself like this, moving around and doing different things that make you happy is a whole lot less thought. SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, it's kind of like being a kid again. I mean, if you take a kid into a playroom and they've got this playroom full of toys and you just observe what they're doing, right? You'll watch them, they'll play with this toy for a little while, and then the energy fades. So then they'll move to the sandbox and they'll play with that for a minute. I only had one toy. And then they'll listen, we're not here to talk about your sob story of being poor or whatever. So um, but if you just watch them, they'll move about the toy room and they'll play with this one for a while, and they'll play with that one for a while. SPEAKER_04: And oh, they'll throw them all out of the box and then get crawl inside the box. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly. But then what you'll also notice is is that if you don't interrupt them and you're just silently watching them, when they get tired, they literally will fall asleep in the floor of the playbook. And lay down right there, take a little nap because that was the next joyful thing that they needed to do. SPEAKER_00: Yep. SPEAKER_02: Then, you know, while they're napping, you bring their little celery sticks and their little dread cereal and their little cup and put it on their little table. They'll munch and nibble as they play in their room, and it can it'll end up being a whole day of play, and you're just like putting their food on their little table in their cage. SPEAKER_04: Yep. SPEAKER_02: I have done that with my own children and watched them observe them in their little play area. They just go through and they navigate the whole room and uh doing their thing. There's no rules and no, oh my god, I haven't played with this one in 5.5 minutes, so I've got to go back and play with this one. And if you take and you kind of live your life in that way, that's what we mean by finding the next thing that brings you that little moment of joy. It can be absolutely anything thing. And whenever you're going through your life doing that, that's when it's a big game changer, man. It's just a game changer. Yeah, it helps you strip away the have-to's, the shoulds, the must-do's, the task list concept. And then you know, I get it. There's I can hear the buzz now. How do we do that when we're already trapped in a nine to five? You know, you gotta start small. If you've created this whole um subconscious lifestyle where you're not plugging yourself in, you take it in baby steps. SPEAKER_04: Well, I can tell people the easiest way to get out of working for somebody else. And this is a little bit without jumping off the cliff and having to go broke is is empower yourself to do more than one thing at a time. Because that's where that's where a lot of people they get caught. Oh, I work 40 hours a week here, I'm a father, a mother, and you know, I have eight hours at church on Sunday. And so they they talk themselves into not having time to do something else. And if there's something you love joy and enjoy doing, then start small. SPEAKER_02: Work it into the schedule, work it into your schedule. SPEAKER_04: Like you know, like uh the guy that I know that's known him for a long time, he dr he loves to draw. He always wanted to be an artist. unknown: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And but he had quit drawing because he didn't have time. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: You know, he had already labeled himself as I work 45 hours a week, uh blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, well, you just take you start with one hour. unknown: No. SPEAKER_04: Find yourself one hour, even if it's or one minute or whatever. SPEAKER_02: I mean, some people won't even allow themselves to find an hour. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: If it's five minutes to just sit and do that one thing, you may even have to you may even be the kind of person that can only do it five minutes at a time or ten minutes at a time. I heard that start somewhere though. SPEAKER_04: I heard Zig Ziglar actually lecture on this many years ago about how people can transition from one thing to the next much easier when they do two things. A is they they commit two hours a week to whatever their idea is that they're coming up with. And they pay themselves a dollar for every minute into their savings account that they spend doing it. And they start prioritizing it. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I can hear the buzz of I don't have a dollar. SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah, that I mean that's what you know we mean. Well, you know, that's what that's what he no it was in the lecture about you're you're the only person that's saying you're broke. SPEAKER_02: And I get the concept. I get it. SPEAKER_04: Right. Even if you even if it's a penny. Pay yourself a penny. SPEAKER_02: Or do this. This is something that I actually did. I couldn't conceptualize when it was just me and my two children of our blended family um paying myself money to do that because everything had all of the dollars had places where they went. So what I did is when I wanted a new something or another, shoes, shirt, whatever, I gave it a value, whatever it cost at the store. $40 shirt that I wouldn't normally buy because the kids are more important and uh, you know, that$40 will buy each of them, uh whatever. Well, so when I found something that I wanted to buy and it was, you know,$40,$40, then I I know yours. SPEAKER_04: Go ahead and tell your system. I know your system. The envelope system. Go ahead. SPEAKER_02: I know the envelope system came along a little later after that. That's right. SPEAKER_04: It was Jar, wasn't it? Mason Jarge or something. SPEAKER_02: I did the envelope system later on, yeah, but that was based on the uh what's his guy's name? Uh, Dave Ramsey can be a back in the day. Throwback. SPEAKER_04: What a way to contain yourself. SPEAKER_02: Instead of putting a dollar a minute into a savings account concept. Whenever I had done that, I didn't put it in a savings account. I gave myself permission to go buy the shirt. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, same kind of concept. SPEAKER_02: It is the same concept, but instead of just I it wasn't rewarding to me to see $40 in my savings account. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Like I needed something tangible to give myself a reward. SPEAKER_04: Like I got a neighbor one time that he was tired of working. He he worked in some factory. He worked in a he worked in a cabinet factory. And he loved mowing his lawn. SPEAKER_03: Oh, really? Yeah, he did. SPEAKER_04: He just loved it. He loved mowing and weed eating and and taking care of his flowers. And you know, he would talk about, you know, maybe you guys should start a landscape business. And I was like, well, why don't you? SPEAKER_02: If you all had video right now, you would see me turning up my nose and making a very ugly face. But not at all. SPEAKER_04: He's like, Oh man, it takes so much money to do it. I was like, start somewhere. Put a hundred bucks here, five bucks there, whatever it is. SPEAKER_02: Exactly. SPEAKER_04: Start somewhere and get it built up. And then like 18 months later or so, he pulled up with this magnet on the side of his truck with a trailer. It had a medium quality mower, push mower, weed eater and blower. And he was like, he honked his horn. SPEAKER_02: He's like, Look, look at me now. SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, Well, great. Do you have any contracts? Yes. And he, you know, I assumed that he had gone out and got contracts before he went and bought all this stuff. And he's like, Nope. I'm like, he's I'm like, so uh when are you gonna start you like mowing the weekends? He's like, nope, I quit my job yesterday. unknown: Oh my god. SPEAKER_04: Oh my god, you went all in. Great. You know, I was that's what I was excited for him. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And so I hired him to do my own. SPEAKER_03: Oh, there you go. SPEAKER_04: And so I I was his first contract, but and he grew into a very large company. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Large commercial company, actually. SPEAKER_02: Probably very quickly too, because he was doing one of his passion. SPEAKER_04: He loved it because he was and he was really good with flowers and things, and you know, which I killed all of them. And so I I mean I used to pay him to come over and do my hard anyway. And so I just signed a contract with him. And uh, but it was really cool to watch him grow, you know, and and within probably a year he had like five or six crews. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: It was insane. He was just taken off, had commercial contracts and everything. He was uh he did a great job, but it's that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about, is is finding finding your life within your own life. SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_04: And that's what people have to do. We have to refocus ourselves on us. Yes, I mean I'm not saying don't care for anybody, you know, don't take it way too extreme for in your human monkey minds. What I'm saying is, right? SPEAKER_02: Don't be an egotistical, pompous ass and just go around being shitty and rude to other people. SPEAKER_04: It's all about me in life. What I'm saying is it's okay to make time for yourself and check in with you. Even if you do it once a month for an hour, even you know, whatever you can do. Yeah, find time to identify you within your own life, become part of your life. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Instead of making your life about everybody else. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: When you'll do that, make it anything health, wealth, happiness, hobbies, whatever that is. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Make it make it all about a moment in time just about you. SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_04: Because and I think you'll find your self-worth will climb astronomically. SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, and not only that, but you'll find uh that the creative energy and the juices of your creativity will begin to flow, and you'll find other things that you never imagined you would would end up finding enjoyment out of. And what I mean by that is, you know, I always knew and had this internal notch that I would write a book. SPEAKER_04: But I know you talked about it for years before you and I was I'd always be like, well, go write it. SPEAKER_02: And it just obviously one time. But being stuck in that nine to five kind of rut mentality, robotic mindset, it kind of stifled my creative flow. This is all in the article, by the way. Nice. And when you begin to give yourself those little pockets of time, you'll you'll find that there's a little more creativity that gets to bud and bloom. SPEAKER_04: Yes. SPEAKER_02: And then you'll do something and you'll be like, oh my God, that was fun. I never thought that I would enjoy doing that. Like for me, creating these illustrations, it started with having to create after I wrote my first book, creating the front cover. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: So I went on and played with the um, I don't remember what app I used, and played with that a little bit, and I was like, oh, you know what? This is kind of fun. I kind of like this. So then I began to play. And so now I just play with it all the time because I find such enjoyment. Like this morning while I was having my coffee and you were in the shower, I created a whole scene of the lakeside um chronicles chronicles of the nature beings that I play with in my in my little bubble when I'm having coffee in the morning. Just for fun, I created a little illustration of this lakeside chronicle. And one of the birds is Elvis singing to the fish in the lake. And I mean, and I never would have said if somebody had asked me, do you like doing graphic designing or uh creative illustrations? I would have said, No, I don't like that. I don't even know the first thing about it. And what I found on this new journey that we're on is it is a lot of freaking fun. I enjoy it so much. SPEAKER_01: Yeah. SPEAKER_02: Or even just writing my little articles, I enjoy that immensely. It's an opportunity for me to cry about my all this stuff that lives in my head. SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of that. And I you know, I want to tell the story of Thomas real quick before we we're getting close to the end. But Thomas was a CPA that I had many years ago. Vicky, my banker, introduced me to. And he did all of my counting. And the first time I met him, Vicky went with me and we went over to his office and knocked on his door. He's like, Come in. And uh I walk in, I was like, Tommy. And he's got a bow tie. And he's just got the suspenders, and he then he turns around, he says, My name's Thomas. Oh, sorry, Tommy. SPEAKER_02: But anyway, so we're like so you turned right around and called him Tommy again. SPEAKER_04: Yes, I did. SPEAKER_02: That sounds like you. SPEAKER_04: And anyway, so uh we I ended up hiring him, you know, because he was obviously really good at what he does, because Vicky recommended him, and we we go through the motion, and he becomes my accountant for years. For years and years and years. And then one day I was in his office and his and as I noticed on his desk he had a file and sticking on top of that file was divorce papers. I was like, Oh, Tommy. Because he let he started allowing me to call him Tommy. You you good, man? And uh he was he just like he turned, he starts crying. He's like, My wife says that I'm just too uptight. I'm not any fun. SPEAKER_00: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Well, you I mean, those two have kind of like Christmas parties, they've been at we know that I've known them now for years. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Well, that's not cool. Let me, you know what, I tell you what. I want to can I call your wife? And and so I sit and I I sit down with Tommy and like Tommy, he said, What do you explain to me what you're doing? I calls her. I call her that and that from my office that that afternoon, and I have a conversation with her. And she says, he's just so uptight, man. He's he's an accountant, you know, those cold old accountants. unknown: Okay. SPEAKER_04: And she says, I'm tired of living this way. I want to have fun. Blah, blah, blah. She at this time she was probably late 50s, early sixties. SPEAKER_03: Okay. SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Well, okay, I'll tell you what, I want you two to come meet me. And I went and got Tommy, brought him to my office, and right out in front of the business park was a great big fountain. And Tommy, or I didn't go pick Tommy up, but one of my people picked Tommy up for me. SPEAKER_02: One of your people. SPEAKER_04: And Tommy and he he we me and his wife, I'm not gonna name their names, but we're standing on this side of that fountain. And Tommy gets out of the car on the other side of the fountain while it's still moving, and he runs and face dives into this fountain. SPEAKER_03: Did you tell him to do that? SPEAKER_04: No, he did that completely on his own. And he came up on the other side, he bumped his head, his head was bleeding, he came up on the other side just laughing like a teenager that just that you know, that had just got, you know, the biggest trophy of his life or whatever. SPEAKER_03: Okay. SPEAKER_04: And then he gets up and does it again. And his wife looks at me and she's like, What got into him? Did you talk to him? I'm like, No, I didn't tell him to do any of this. And so we go over there and he's just laughing. He's literally that gut laugh, that true deep laughing. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And he comes up, he's soaking wet, still got his bow tie on. And but the rest of him is completely down. And I said, and I and I'm never gonna I will never ever forget what he said that day. And he said, we know he called his wife's name. You're right. On the way over here, some birdie told me in my ear, you should just relax and have fun and be a child again. Because you've lost yourself in your own self. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And I was like, huh. He takes his wife's hand and pulls her in the fountain with him. unknown: Oh my god. SPEAKER_00: Did she find as he did? SPEAKER_04: They're both laughing, and they're literally sitting in the fountain throwing water at each other for a good 20 minutes. And uh and so I I walked over, got him a gift card, and told him to go to dinner on me. And uh, but they they literally sat there for two, three hours. SPEAKER_02: In the fountain. SPEAKER_04: In the fountain. SPEAKER_02: And nobody got them in trouble. That was my fountain. Oh, okay. SPEAKER_04: But nobody, nobody, you know, they just played in this fountain. That's all they did. They played like two six-year-old kids throwing water at each other without a care in the world. Without a care in the world. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And it saved their marriage. It really stuck with me. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: And it was a lot of people. SPEAKER_02: In his own world. SPEAKER_04: He did. I lost myself in my own world. Yeah. SPEAKER_02: That's right. SPEAKER_04: We we can you can do that easily. So I challenge everybody out there to take five minutes and identify where you are in your own world. SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Where do you put yourself on that baking order? SPEAKER_03: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Because if you're not first, you're not going to be first on anybody else's, and you're definitely not giving 100% of yourself to help anybody else. SPEAKER_02: That's right. One of the things I do with my clients on occasion when they're kind of in that mode is I'll present them with this question. If the building is on fire, who are the top five people that you rescue? SPEAKER_04: Mean myself and I. SPEAKER_02: And nine times out of ten, they themselves are not even on that list. SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I agree. SPEAKER_02: And so I point that out to them. And it really is kind of a pivotal point of uh of their healing and their uh coaching process is coming to the realization that if it's a critical situation, you didn't even put yourself on the list. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, most of the time people don't at all. They they just react and save themselves anyway. But because a lot of people they don't know how they're gonna act in that situation. SPEAKER_02: Right. It's a pretty but it's a program total mindset that I want them to come to the realization and awareness of is that when presented with the question, you didn't even stop to put yourself on the list at all, much less in the top five. SPEAKER_04: Right. Yeah, it's it's right. SPEAKER_02: And that's usually them not living in their own reality, they're just literally going through it like a robot. SPEAKER_04: Yep. SPEAKER_02: Just humdruming and through the day, day in and day out. SPEAKER_04: Time clocks, watches, wall clocks should all go away. It would change life. SPEAKER_02: I hey, listen, you don't you gotta tell me that I don't live by them anyway, right? SPEAKER_04: Right. SPEAKER_02: What what is it that you have to do to trick me so that we are on time when we do have no time? SPEAKER_04: Tell you two hours early. SPEAKER_02: Is it two now? Wow. Because it used to be like 30 minutes, then it went to an hour. SPEAKER_04: It's never been 30 minutes because you you tell me, yeah, just tell me 30 minutes early, that way I'm on time. And that's always been at least an hour. Always. Really? Oh, yeah, totally. SPEAKER_02: And you had did you have to learn that the hard way, or did you just automatically I still do it like yesterday. SPEAKER_04: You're you come out there like do we have time? SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I'm thinking, okay, we gotta get going and Well, that was Friday. SPEAKER_04: I mean, I guess that was Friday, not yesterday. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Because we had an appointment at the bank. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Anyway, hey, hey, guys. Uh I you feel complete? SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm good. SPEAKER_04: Thank you all for listening. Um, like, follow, and share. Hey, don't forget to go check out the new web domain for the phone app that we'll be launching hopefully sometime before the end of this year. Pretty sure it will. W.lucidiumworld.com. That is lucid ium world.com. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you've got that uh all kind of structured out so they can see. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you can kind of really get a really good flow on it. The map thing I'm still working on a little bit, uh, but it's gonna be awesome. SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be the salty tarot migrated into the Lucidium world. She didn't go away. SPEAKER_04: That's right. Lucidium Walt the Salty Tarot is in Lucidium World. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she has her own parlor within the world. SPEAKER_04: And hey, if you are a metaphysical, spiritual practitioner, creator, business, lecturer, teacher, I mean, we're talking tarot, we're talking ruin, we're talking palm reading, energy work, any practitioner, any store or a creator if you create things. That's right. Numerologist, anything. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you craft actual like jewelry or clothing or any of that. SPEAKER_04: Yeah, or even if you just sell it. SPEAKER_02: Yeah. SPEAKER_04: Um, and you want to be a part of this app, pay attention to it. Go ahead and send us a uh um contact page that's on the the home page of the website, send us an email, and uh we can and I will send you the information on it because there's gonna be a place in this app where the practitioners can go live one-on-one with you. SPEAKER_03: That's right. SPEAKER_04: Of any modality. You know, it is a paid server, just like uh like uh telehealth that you have now for medical. Now we're gonna have that for metaphysical. SPEAKER_02: That's right. SPEAKER_04: And same thing with stores. SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then for merchandise. SPEAKER_04: Yep, that's right. And so it's gonna be it's uh it's it's an awesome thing. SPEAKER_02: And you get discounts when you also if you have educational uh modules where you teach online, uh there's a place in the library where people can bring their educational workshops and plug those into the app as well where the end user can, while they're playing the game, go through the educational part of it. We're morphing those two worlds together. SPEAKER_04: Or you can just drop us an email at admin at lucidiumworld.com. SPEAKER_02: Yep, so that we can look at your content and get you going on that side of things. SPEAKER_04: Yep. Hey guys, don't forget to like, follow, and share. Apparently, our YouTube channel is actually the Merc Centers for some reason. I don't know what happened. But all of our YouTube stuff is on the Merc Centers YouTube page. SPEAKER_03: Okay. SPEAKER_04: Who knows? Who knows? I'll figure it out later. But anyway, uh like, follow, share, and don't forget to ring that bell. Hey guys, y'all have an awesome day. SPEAKER_02: Love ya.