30 Life Lessons
Good morning, everybody. We've made it to the end of week two. So if you're still listening to these, podcast episodes, you're still in the game, well done. All we gotta do is keep out there each day and things will change. So I'm just proud of all of you who have made it so far.
Speaker 1:Because you know it's the first one or two weeks it's always the rope yes to this, like, ah, can I do it? But once you get into swing of things momentum builds and if you still haven't got into stuff, please don't worry too much about it, just start. The best time to start is now. But we had a really good performance wellness session with Hewlett yesterday about stress and about like, Hewlett talking about if you wanted to kill someone with stress, what would you do? It's like, well, you'd give no outlets for stress.
Speaker 1:And most of us kind of don't give ourselves outlets for stress until it actually is too much and we just boil over. If you think about it, if we can give ourselves outlets, we should do it frequently. So whether that's a walking, tough work out, playing some instrument or whatever it is, don't wait until the very end where you nearly explored. Other stuff is like no predictability and that comes from you know if you've got no predictability in your work and then no predictability in your food, no predictability in when you're training and all this kind of uncertainty. Is that good?
Speaker 1:Do you mean maybe we need to get some more predictability in our lives. There's other things that he'll cover and I think everybody should go through that session because stress is a massive thing to deal with and I think I've spoken about Ernest Voicenoid a lot but we spoke at the end about the universe and I'll get into that at the end. Some people don't like talking about the universe and it's going to end one day but I think it's important to learn actually. But it got me thinking and I remember I created this list before of, 30 lessons, 30 life lessons. I collected these a few years ago, wrote them out and I sent them out as an email once you join, you know, live like Louisa Turtle.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go through them again. So some of you might have heard them, some of you might not. And some are resonant, some won't. But here's 30 lessons from nearly thirty years of being alive in this amazing on this amazing planet going, you know, 10 whatever is 1,000 to 10,000 miles per hour through space right now around a massive ball of fire, but we'll get to that. Okay.
Speaker 1:Number one, start your day off with a walk. That's the first lesson I say and I think still holds true now. Twenty minute walk, ten minute jog, something short, something to get the blood moving. You know, being static as a human in the mornings not great, you want to get up and move and I now get up, read and then walk or work out. I feel that's a bit better for me.
Speaker 1:But just as long as you do something in the morning that's like moving. Number two, have empathy always. You know, everyone's going through shit, guys. We've all got to these inner demons we're fighting. We need to have more compassion, something I've worked on.
Speaker 1:And we can't keep thinking from our point of view only because on this planet, there's 7,000,000,000 people and there's 7,000,000,000 different worlds out there. That's a crazy thing. There's 7,000,000,000 different earths and worlds and things because people got different view of things. So always try and think, you're going to meet people who are going through shit, you're to meet people who are struggling, meet people who are going through stuff that you're never going to know about. So the best we can do is not make days or things harder for those people and especially for ourselves as well because conflict with other people is not going to do much for us.
Speaker 1:Three is to to set a huge goal. The of this more like aspiration, people go small and then they miss and then they feel bad or they go small and reach a small goal and they feel good. But sometimes when we go big, bigger that when we feel a bit uncomfortable with the goal, and we try but we don't quite make it, we've made so much more ground. And I think for me this comes from you know starting a fitness business at 16, starting a rugby business after that you know, applying for jobs, you know, maybe I didn't feel comfortable doing because then I never run a team before and stuff like that. Setting up a company with Louise and Ryan and, know, doing Zooms and talking to people and all this stuff, like talking to experts, bringing them You know, these are big things that like, know, maybe if we play too safe, never try them because we think, nah, that can't be for me.
Speaker 1:But you've got to set some big goals sometimes and give it a go. Number four, fitness is the number one keyword for the mind. Fitness exercise releases endorphins, makes you feel good, gets you stronger. You always feel good after a workout and sweating. It's just something about exercise.
Speaker 1:And again, I've spoken about this when people are really depressed they can't get out the house. So this quite apply to everybody but can all try and when we do feel stressed and we can exercise we should do it and not try and delay. Know sometimes you go, Oh, I know it's going to feel better but I don't want to. But you genuinely you you can walk out the door. Be grateful that you can walk out the door because some people can't do it literally in their rooms can't leave.
Speaker 1:So we should make the most of our ability to be able to do things. Again, you could go even deeper than there's people who have got disabilities and stuff. Of us on the turtle membership or whatever, you know, we can walk and run and work out and we should utilize those because, you know, you hear stories all the time, especially in rugby, the rugby industry, like, you hear stories of rugby players who are playing peak of that age, boom, going to a tackle, spine injury, in wheelchairs, can't move. I speak to this guy, Michael, who's a phenomenal person. I'll try and bring him in for a chat.
Speaker 1:He he played rugby. He was like, six foot five, and he was in South Africa. And he was driving the car with his wife, and he crashed into a rhino. Right? And he snapped a spinal cord, and he was now, quadriplegic.
Speaker 1:And, you know, he said when his friends saw him, they couldn't handle it because he was the big bright light of the the room. He would walk in six foot five with plus huge presence now in a wheelchair and he said his friends couldn't they see him. He was telling me, used to have phone calls with him all the time. He's like, my friends didn't want to see me because they couldn't handle it. I was like, that sucks.
Speaker 1:He's like, yeah, know, how do you think I feel? And I was like, can't comprehend how you'd feel. And he's, you know, now he's doing a charity, he's doing amazing things for other people and he's got a completely new life from it and he's an amazing person. But you know, anything can happen. So if we can do things today we do it.
Speaker 1:I think that's a simple rule we should live by. Number five, trust your gut. I mean, it's as simple I think most of us go against it a lot. Number six, eat for function, 80% of time, joy for 20. So the eightytwenty rule kind of simple there.
Speaker 1:I'd probably say sixtyforty now in this world. Number seven, life is 10% what happens to you, 90 how you react. Yep. A 100%. It's all it's all about how we respond guys.
Speaker 1:Number eight, read more. Read autobiographies from people inspire you. We live in an age where you can absorb the knowledge that someone has gathered over the lifetime in a few days. I think that is still mind blowing. And even the ability to read and I go again, 1871 was when in The United Kingdom they opened schools for free for working class people so they could learn to read and write.
Speaker 1:Before that the working class person could not read and write, they could only speak. The elite class didn't need them to read and write. They only started needing them to read and write when the industrial revolution revolution was flying and they needed more competent people to do machinery and stuff. So having these people read and write was a benefit to them and that's why it was pushed through. In parliament they were fighting against it before that for the common person to be able to buy a book even.
Speaker 1:You weren't allowed to buy a book. You weren't allowed to have knowledge, but you know, books were power, reading was power. And that's that's no long ago. And obviously we speak about, well, how do people two thousand years ago read? Well, they were the top classes, weren't they?
Speaker 1:A lot of people learned to read like slaves and stuff back in ancient Greece and Rome. But look, it's most of human existence, most people haven't been able to read and write but we do it like we all can do it right now, easy. So we should make the most of that as well. Surely. Surely, should make the most of that.
Speaker 1:That's up to you to decide, bro. Just saying. Nine, try and live in the moment, of course. Only the now really exists. Number 10, consistency beats everything.
Speaker 1:You must understand that twenty minutes a day for one year is better than on and off training for one hour every other week. Same fitness, like doing five workouts this week and one next week and none the week after, then two the week after that versus three workouts a week. There's no comparison. Three a week, consistency is better. Number 11, this too shall pass.
Speaker 1:Humans are amazing. We get over everything and anything. Think about your life now. All the terrible times you've been through, you've got through it. You're still here standing listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1:So remember you can get through tough times. And if you go through a bad period now know it, know that it will pass it, it's not forever. Even the happy moments then they don't last and that's a beautiful thing as well. You go through amazing times, it's never gonna last mate, don't worry about it, Enjoy now. Don't think about it.
Speaker 1:Bad times, the light is there somewhere. Can't say exactly when but it's there. 12, lift heavy weights, lift heavy stuff. I think this is a good point. Like I think getting strength training and being able to get some anger out lifting stuff, feeling powerful and strong, I've always thought that it's a good feeling.
Speaker 1:And I think some people think you're not as feeble as you think in a sense, a lot of people think they're weak and they look get some power in you, get some life in you, get some anger in a good sense like you know tune up that body, your human body is unbelievable. Get it working, boom you feel class. Number 13, meal prep is 90% of the battle when it comes to nutrition. Again 100% true if you can do meal prep. Number 14, turn notifications off on your phone 100%.
Speaker 1:The buzz of the other phones dictates our actions and our attention so get rid of that. 16, say normal. Yeah, if you know me personally I say normal a lot of things. Don't let people steal your time. But if again here we're saying if you feel stressed and you feel isolated you say yes to more things and try and get out of the rut so it does apply but yeah in general your time should be protected.
Speaker 1:Number 17, focus more on the people that matter and on the flip side put more time and effort into the people that matter in your life. You know, we try and hold on to these old friendships just because they're old or like this and not because it's old and we've done it for a while. You know, it's the sunk cost fallacy like we've put so much time and effort or money into something. We can't just leave it there because we've invested so much but sometimes we've to cut loose. We've got reduce.
Speaker 1:We've got to do addition via subtraction. 18, track, track, track. No, track where you eat, track your finances, reading, time spent on your phone. Tracking enables us to be self aware, gives us superpowers. Tracking enables us to measure and the only way to understand something is to really measure something and from measurement becomes accurate changes that can lead to positive outcomes.
Speaker 1:Okay, we control things by measuring. We can control tweaks, we can do things tweaks here and there. If we have no, like, eye on anything we do then what changes do we make? We're in darkness. Number 19, most fitness advice is fake news.
Speaker 1:It's true, stick to the fundamentals of what works. This saves you so much mental energy, cognitive load. Right, don't overload your brain with lots of fake fitness stuff. It's just annoying, it's gonna annoy you, don't do it. Number 20, don't look at your phone or emails for at least two hours after waking up or hour or something.
Speaker 1:Okay, don't let the phone suck you in. Number 21, stop making excuses. We are getting soft in a sense. We can get soft. We know we we tend to we know we all we all mourn easily and this is just a true human condition.
Speaker 1:When we mourn, we're greedy, we complain, sometimes act like victims and things like that. And this is just for us to be honest with you. I'm not saying you are a victim. I'm saying look at yourself with a reality check. Is this an excuse?
Speaker 1:Are you being a victim? Is it really something that you need to extend and complain about? Right? Or can we just get on with things and look at what we can do and be proactive about it? That's the only move way forward.
Speaker 1:We deal with the facts. We deal with the facts we have. This is the fact. What do we do next? That's all we need to do.
Speaker 1:Not, I wish this wasn't the fact, and I wish things are different. I hate everything. I wish it wasn't the fact. I'm fighting against that, that's not a fact. And it's it's an endless impossible task because you're wishing something that wasn't a fact to not be there.
Speaker 1:And that's causing pain and conflict. So we need to accept the fact. But what can we do from then on? I think that's where the power is. Motivation can't be relied on.
Speaker 1:Number 22, know people say how do I motivate? How do I motivate? You don't. Motivation is fleeting. It's fleeting.
Speaker 1:And we can get a little motivational pass through the day like in tiny habits but in general the full umbrella of motivation, if we could all be motivated twenty four hours a day we'd be super humans but just not happens. Number 23, we all need help. We do. There is no way we are doing everything in life alone. Is that we need help with health, fitness, work, relationships, friendships.
Speaker 1:Know, if we work together it makes it easier, makes it more enjoyable and it's just you know reaching out. It's fine to ask for help and sometimes it's harder for some people than others but something we all should learn to do. Number 24. We must endure times alone. So on the flip side, we must be able to spend time alone without our phones.
Speaker 1:If you can't spend fifteen minutes alone right, in your room in silence, how do you expect to get through the turbulence that life is? Learn to enjoy your own company. I've mastered it. Understand that you don't have to always be doing something. You'll have to put a lot of work in the shadows when no one's watching as well.
Speaker 1:You alone, in your house, in your home, no one's watching you, no one's giving you encouragement, no one's motivating you, no one's saying well done, and you've got to still do what you want to do to reach your goals or to be the person you want to be. That's why people don't do anything. So you have to be able to do stuff in darkness. And it's not lonely, you're just alone. 25, compromise.
Speaker 1:Oh, have I learned to do this? So you gotta learn to do the compromise guys. You can't be a stone, can't turn into stone, can't bulldoze your way through life. You're not always gonna be right. You're gonna alienate people.
Speaker 1:You're gonna be people are gonna dislike you. And, yeah, just be open to compromise. Go into situations without a end conclusion. You even though you might think this is x, this should be, always go in with open, you know, open to a conclusion that you haven't got before it. And that's when you can compromise and it can be middle ground.
Speaker 1:You can see what is versus what you just want things to be. Number 26, talk last If you're in a group especially, most people don't have two way conversations anymore. They just it's just a, one person talks. What's it called? Monologue.
Speaker 1:That's what we do. We have two people and they do two monologues. They don't listen to each other, they're just waiting to get a point across them. That's what he says, it's not just listen to it sometimes, go to a social place and sometimes just be curious and listen to conversations. They're not talking to each other, they're just not.
Speaker 1:It's away from just talking about themselves and then they get off and that's it then. That's draining. So don't be that person, try and change you. Listen, sometimes you know I've come across this so many times, like so many times. I've been on some dates before where they literally haven't asked me a single question because I'm always talking I'm always asking questions and I'm listening and I'll prod, I'll go deeper.
Speaker 1:I don't want just shallow answer. I don't want just shallow conversation. Someone says, ask them a question, they go this and I go, okay, what about me now? I go, okay, or what about that? Oh, you're not?
Speaker 1:And you keep going. Sometimes you keep going, you keep asking questions but you you know you're talking about them. Then before you know it, time's gone and you haven't asked a single question back. People love talking about themselves. So it can it can go the bad way where you end up not even having a conversation.
Speaker 1:You're you're just digging in. But I think in general, especially in work, talk last. Number 27, ego is the enemy. We all like to feel good about ourselves, don't we? Sometimes we're on a roll and our ego builds.
Speaker 1:You start making more money maybe, your ego builds. Well, ego is essentially the enemy and we get what it's there for. It's there to survive. It's there for survival to protect us. But it is very it's dangerous thing.
Speaker 1:Right, ego? A lot of people have it and you can't seem to put it down. Ego death. Ego, ego, ego. That's what we're scared of hurting our ego.
Speaker 1:So ego is the only one scared of being hurt. It just wants to prove itself. That is part of us. Right? But it doesn't have to be us.
Speaker 1:You have to let the ego control you. And it's always a nasty little thing, ego. Never comes across nice. And it's just like if we're all just being egotistical, it's not it's a horrible place to live. And so ego is an it is it is the enemy right in this modern world.
Speaker 1:We need to remove the ego, only pick her up when needed and survival things when that's when it comes into play because you want to really survive. But yeah, you're not your ego though. You don't have to be your ego maybe. Okay, number 28. We are nothing.
Speaker 1:So don't take this the wrong way, but we are nothing. In the scale of the universe, you are you're not even a speck actually. You're literally nothing. Nobody cares if you do this. Nobody cares if you create a business or fail.
Speaker 1:Nobody really cares if you go off to a guy or girl ask him out. Nobody cares if you try something new, doesn't work. Nobody cares if you do this amazing thing. Think of all the people who have achieved all of so many amazing things through history, even a hundred years ago. Do we speak about him?
Speaker 1:Alexander Graham Bell, created a telephone. Do you speak about him every day? You know, even the great Steve Jobs, I speak about him. Do people really speak about him on the on the iPhones? IPhones?
Speaker 1:Go back to other people, you know, Forrest Nightingale and stuff like, oh, maybe speak about him. These people, do we we you know, we're nothing in this in time. Like, it all just disappears. So don't worry about, trying to be achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve all these big things in your life because there's nothing you can achieve big enough that you will remain forever because the universe will die. It all ends.
Speaker 1:So you're gonna chase this thing. You think you're gonna be amazing this, and people have this, like, imaginary audience syndrome, and they think people always looking at them. Once you get into that, I think you the the materialistic world falls falls away. It has for me. Like, what am I gonna win that brand for?
Speaker 1:So people think I'm cool. Why? What am I gonna gain this going? I'm trying to climb to some social ladder. Like, what what what what what's it?
Speaker 1:It may be nice because it makes you feel cool. Yeah. But some people go out of their way to spend all their money on a specific thing just to show her off to gain more status or, you know, signal. It's nuts. It's nothing.
Speaker 1:Brands. I think we're going to look back in the future where there's like, you know, maybe all this materialistic world kind of drops down a bit when we actually have to be looking after ourselves better as a planet and we don't have this kind of extreme capitalist society of just consuming more. In the end, there might be no brands left. And then we look back at this branding seg period of time. We're gonna look at those fools buying into those brands.
Speaker 1:It's got a little logo on the front. I don't know. Number 29, Memento Mori. This is a grim one. Remember, you will die.
Speaker 1:That's that's just what he was saying last night. Remember, you will die. Visualize your day, get up and do things. One day the only thing we have is now. This is only thing that you feel alive in is the present.
Speaker 1:We waste it. We squander it. So everything does end, and it's not a bad thing. It really isn't a bad thing. That's just your ego worrying it's gonna end.
Speaker 1:Like, you know, the universal, everything does end. Right? But we live in we're living in time right now. Right? The universe let me just put into perspective and I'm gonna finish on this one.
Speaker 1:There is one more. I'm with Fatih. It's a similar concept. If we look at the universe right now, the universe only has life as in stars and galaxies and bright stars and sun, you know the suns and all that which are stars. It only has that existence, that amount of life in its total existence.
Speaker 1:So the universe only has life on our point, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, 1%. That is the percentage of the total lifespan of the universe, that's when life exists. So right now that's crazy and I'm going to leave you with this Brian Cox quote because I love it. And he says this, Just as we and all life on earth stand on this tiny speck adrift in infinite space, so life in the universe will only exist for a fleeting bright instant in time. But what But that doesn't make us insignificant because we are the cosmos made conscious.
Speaker 1:Life is the means by which the universe understands itself and you my friends and this podcast are alive in this naw point, naw, naw whatever part of the universe's existence and we're actually the universe of being aware it even exists for this bright spark of light, happy days, oh my days, how are we even here? We human beings that have unbroken chain, it's unbelievable and you get to live today and improve yourself, get stronger, fit, healthy, happier, talk to other humans, enjoy your life, the sun's going to be in your face. Unbelievable. So go and enjoy it. Go enjoy your day and I'll speak to you tomorrow, actually next week.
