Wisdom picked up from a chat with Louise
Good morning everyone, hope you're good. There's no real, agenda to today's voice or not, it's gonna think out loud, could be dangerous, who knows. But, I did see Louise yesterday and you know as many the total members know, she's on the mend which is good to see. We had a really nice chat like we used to do back in the day when I'd pop around we'd up chatting for hours. And you know we chatted about really important stuff actually and things that know aren't spoke about a lot and one of the chats of course is going to make some of you go, Oh!
Speaker 1:Is about death. And if you're scared to chat about death I think that's where the problem starts. But But the ancients used to speak about death all the time. Momentum More was a thing front of mind for everybody. They'd remind themselves remember you're mortal, remember you'll die and there's a lot of wisdom to be had in remembering that.
Speaker 1:We are so far removed from death and illness stuff in today's world like we don't see people actually die, hospitals even go in there and the things that all wardened off and this is we're talking about. You don't really see all the pain and suffering people go through. You only see highlight reel on social media. So we're really far removed from this thing called death and illness and you know serious stuff. We don't, I feel a lot of us feel like it's not real, like that's not gonna happen to me.
Speaker 1:That's not gonna happen to me. Or you feel like it's so far away that it's pointless thinking about now. But these things hit you when you don't expect them and then you start thinking oh my days like I wish I told someone this, wish I was more present doing that, wish I didn't delay this and we're speaking of various things and one of the things I brought up was, I remember my mother telling me that her and her best mates, they used to come around every morning, my mother, her best mate Christine who's my, one of her best mates back end Phil's, mother and a few others would have you know like a little tea in the morning, auntie after school sit down. And they say you know when we get our bus passes, bus pass we go and you know explore places, we'd go here and there. I think that's when you're 65 and the sad news is my mother all of her best friends have passed away, cancer and illnesses and stuff and none of them have reached 65 yet.
Speaker 1:No there's no 65 but they all had these plans to do things at 65 and when this happened and that and they never failed to really do it when they did have the time. And it's quite sad isn't it, when you think of it that way. Like how many of us are delaying well, we'll go on a trip with my friends of a lifetime in like four years, five years, I know COVID's playing a part now but like we'll do this and this time. We don't we don't know if we have that time. We don't know if we have it, and, we don't wanna be caught.
Speaker 1:You don't wanna be caught, off guard and then slapped in the face and not being able to do those things. And that's how a lot of us think about things as we think we'll have the time to do it, then it's snatched away from us. And this goes for goals, friends, family spend most time. So we spoke about that. We spoke about how it's important and leading on how it's important in the morning to kind of have that like, you know, just cup of tea with your mates every morning, have a chat.
Speaker 1:I remember I had very fond memories of waking up in the morning, you know, obviously gaming all night. My mother and her mate Christine, we're talking and sometimes few others talking about stuff and we'd get into deep chat, good chat with Christine. I remember getting here sometimes we'll chop each other. You know, we love good chats, mother will there, we love cup of tea and he'll set you up for the day basically, real set you up for the day. Kind of like his voice notes.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they're a manifestation of that, but just having those chats in the morning. Kind of like I remember Christine being a very rational voice in my life. Mean if you remember her thinking, you know, questioning things, I'd say, why that then? But why that? Why that?
Speaker 1:And she would never let go of it and you'd end up laughing because she knew you knew she was right, but she she asked, you know, explain why. What's the rationale? But, you know, what is the real reason behind that behind that, you know, talk shit and you get called out for it. It would be funny. So me Louise talked about like we need to get out and our lives can now live next door obviously, we need to stack in these things in like these morning cups of tea going, come on his chats and after work you know after work tea the decompress and like those small things and making the most of the days and you know not just thinking waking up and go go go work work work.
Speaker 1:I think Irene did a good point on the mother's Q and A as well about like the Mediterranean culture versus British Mediterranean culture. You have wait till twelve on holidays before you move and enjoy your time in Britain and maybe like maybe like maybe you can compare it to New York these go, go, go places. Don't really give yourself the time it's just always stress and anxiety and up and go and you're missing out on the main important things. So yeah we spoke about that and then leading back to the death part and I was explaining that you know that's why I've got a massive portrait of Steve Jobs and Napoleon on my kitchen wall. So every time I get a coffee in the morning I see these two massive hit portraits in front of me and in between them there's the symbol of momentum Ori, remember you'll die and it's like these two men will have achieved more than I'll ever dream of achieving and they'll still be forgotten in history.
Speaker 1:Like we how many people talk about Steve Jobs today? Sometimes some people how many people talk about Napoleon? Only me by the looks of things. I know there's a lot of others. There's actually more books written about Napoleon than Jesus Christ, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar combined.
Speaker 1:So very popular person but what I'm trying to say is we always get so built up about what we can achieve and we've to achieve more and more and the ceiling is so high it's impossible to reach. Someone will always achieve more, there'll be something like if you are striving to try and achieve more and more and more always more and more and more because you want to be this great person. The bad news is, it'll be gone in history, you know. Then the second bad news is, were you present in any of your achievements? Were you present in any of those nice moments?
Speaker 1:Like what did you do with your family and friends in those times? Like did you throw them all away? Like did you have those hollow victories as they're called? And you hear a lot of people in business and talk about these hollow victories. They get the job done, they think it's going to be this massive ecstatic moment but it's not.
Speaker 1:And that's the ultimate failure basically. So I'm trying to get across to you and we were speaking about is like the most important, the most fun things we have when we slow down, we have those chats, we have those cups of tea, we slow it right down, we realize this is not going to be forever. I know it's quite hard to talk about because it is you know we're not used to it in today's world and back in the day they were. We slow right down, we have the cup of tea, we talk about impairments and we live and that's why on our coins we go, you'll get through anything one day at a time. On the flip side, haste slowly.
Speaker 1:So live with urgency, knowing that is there's impermanence to your life, is not going to last forever. But with the knowledge of you know going slowly through it. So you live each day with you make the most of it but you're patient with results that come from that. So we're not saying right now you've got to just go crazy every day training three times a day, that's not what we're saying. What we're saying is how many hours are we wasting per day, per week, per month, per year doing things that just sap our energy away.
Speaker 1:That just kill us. And where we could read put down relationships, good conversation, things that do bring us life back. You know I mean, because there'll always be someone that achieves more than you. Like there's a story about this, it's in a book called Psychology of Money, it's a really good book. There's a story about this guy who was born in the slums of India like you can't really be born in like the bottom of the bar like really bottom bottom.
Speaker 1:Managed to work his way up to being the CEO of McKinsey consultancy firm in America and he was worth a hundred million, okay. So he worked his way from the slums of India to that which is phenomenal like crazy story. What happened was he started hanging around with billionaires. So he was a hundred millions and a billion is 1,000 million. So he started hanging around with billionaires.
Speaker 1:Now he felt inadequate. Now he felt poor and he wanted to be on the billionaire table. So he started doing insider trading, all this dodgy stuff because that's the only way he could have skyrocketed his wealth to the billions fast and he got caught, he got put in jail. Okay? So even people who start from the bottom get trapped in thinking, oh, I need to do more when they come from absolutely nothing, hundred million still wanting to do more.
Speaker 1:So understand this, you will always if you fall into that trap, you fall into that person's type of lifestyle, you're always gonna fall, you're always gonna fail to that type of lifestyle. There'll always be more and bigger things to achieve and you'll overreach and then you'll be dead, be gone. You know what I mean? So you'll overreach, mistakes, shit happens, collapse. Do I mean?
Speaker 1:We want to we want to do as best as we can. Right? But we don't wanna be putting our worth on an x outcome. So what that guy did was he put his entire worth on the outcome that he'd be a billionaire. Now the fact that he became he he came in the slums of India to be one of the top business people in America.
Speaker 1:Like he failed the person he became, he failed to see that and he fell victim to, you know, those outcomes. And you know, if he can fall victim to it from my background, we can. Can we? So it's important to realize that and I just think it's it was sweet. Going into 2022 we set these huge goals.
Speaker 1:Let's set instead of setting huge goals like I wanna earn x money or promotion or whatever else, let's think about the person we want to become as opposed to other stuff like what person do I want to become and what do I need to do in 2022 for that to happen. And the person I become as a side effect basically is a byproduct of the person I want to become, I do become, then you will associate certain successes with that type of person. Now that's the important part is like what person, whatever person you become to be successful in your domain. That's the reality and like you know look at people who have got the traits that you would like the values and you see what they do. Like and this is about like you know how do you become that person?
Speaker 1:Well leaders are readers. I can't remember who said that quote but it's true. So reading should be part of all of your 2022 plans and I'm not saying reading the books I say or turtled as reading books in your field. Like you should know the history of your field inside out. A lot of answers in history should do that.
Speaker 1:Should be a person, I don't know let's have a look at what we could do. You should be a person that is open to changing their mind. How resilient are you to changing your mind right now about certain ideas and concepts you Are you holding ideas firmly in mind but with the idea you can let go? Or are you someone, who just will never budge? Because if you'll never budge on your opinions now then you're never gonna be the person you want to be, no offense like, just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:So have a think about that and I think, you'd end up being obviously a better person if you go towards that type of stuff than like end outcomes because you'll start overreaching and stuff and doing silly things to get to that goal. Few other things and we spoke about a wide variety of things. So few other things you spoke about so Louise gone through a really tough time, really tough time. Two major surgeries I'm sure she will speak about when she's ready And you know I say to her when we speak just talk and be open and let whatever you want to come out and don't worry about you know me you know making a conversation essentially like trying to offload it. And there's a worry about like, and this is probably similar to everybody who goes through such traumatic times, it's like what is the universe telling me right now?
Speaker 1:Is it punishing me for something I've done? Is it punishing me like I'm going through hell, I must have done something bad, we've been calm and all that stuff. And it's a valid concern and I was saying well the stoics would say and people back in some Socrates and stuff they would look up going through hardship as nature or God or whatever you want to say, giving you a really rough medicine. So the medicine might taste like shit, it might really really be horrible, but it's there to make you a better person. So if you see it from that perspective even though you go through the toughest of time you can see this as a journey, as a terrible terrible, horrible you know medicine.
Speaker 1:But at the end of it what type of person you become from going through it similar to the Hercules concept you go through all that trouble, who would you become at the end you become resilient strong. But you know we can't just blanket quote it with that because things do happen PTSD, anxiety, depression, all these things happen from these severe things that happen and they need to be, you need to have help one to one there. You need to go CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, you need to see a therapist, need to have certain treatments, some people need antidepressants whatever it may be to go over that. So I'm not saying you know don't do them, we're saying those things will need one to one attention. But the day to day thought process so like you know taking one thought and then turn it into a really bad negative one and then catastrophizing.
Speaker 1:We can try and prevent that from happening as much as we can. And another way of looking at it as well is I think Louise saying you know taking this medicine and the medicine worried that the medicine is gonna make her worse. She caused some kind of resistance to the medicine. Actually, know, even though it's something to make her better, there's something about it that's telling her this is resistance and you know you can reframe it. Even though it sounds stupid it can help.
Speaker 1:So it's like well let's try this little experiment, try and reframe this. If we reframe it in the way of Steven Pressfield, even though he talks about resistance as a form of if you feel resistance is something that means you should, as you call and you go towards it even more resistance guides you. And it might not work or make much sense to be honest when it comes to medicine but St. Louis well when you see resistance as that like that resistance you've been told by a doctor to take it, the resistance is there to it that means you might want to, it means that is the right way to go. And actually it could be your body the little infection you got on your body right now you know, it's last ditch attempt to not die.
Speaker 1:Like, know, we can make these little games up, this last ditch attempt to not die is trying to tell you that you shouldn't take it because it knows you take that medicine, you keep going with that then it's game over it. So the last ditch onslaught resistance comes in and you know you can switch things even though you kind of know sometimes you're just trying to just playing with your mind you're playing these little games. I think they work. Gamifying things, don't know like trying to flip perspectives, going back and forth, stretching the mind all works. I think if you stick to one way of thinking, not good.
Speaker 1:And I think that's why it's important if any of you are going through tough times, depression, anxiety stuff, one of the best things to do is to speak with someone who will let you talk and ramble on and rant okay, that's important. And then just you know, can we go back to that? How about this? And you know, just be a devil advocate sometimes and like show the other side different perspective. Go on speak to as many of these people as you can in your life and they will help you massively.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I think a lot of people miss out on that, purely because they think nothing can help them la la la. Like when it comes to depression, you know, it's a biological thing for many people. It is a chemical imbalance so you know, you might want to feel happy but there's no fucking dopamine, serotonin enough to make you feel happy and pleasure. But I'll finish on this one and this is an important one. Actually read about this no longer ago in the book, it's about 100 years old.
Speaker 1:And, Louise is saying she felt she had no energy, no energy, no energy. I might have mentioned this in her voice actually, no energy. And then a bit of good news came in and then all of a sudden, boom, a flip switch, now she's full of beans, full of energy. Okay? Where did that energy come from?
Speaker 1:You can't create energy or nothing. Was it always there but trapped and dormant because of the perspective of the mind? You gotta think. So we started speaking about well maybe you know and it says in this book, nobody, everyone's got the same amount of essential energy. We're trying to say is is you have to find a way to make sure that you can release that energy because once you're able to turn the taps on every day, your days, your life is much easier.
Speaker 1:You hear some people say they find their true calling and they wake up every day with a smile on their face, can't wait to work on it. Work is played to them, they've unlocked that tap. But we've all got the potential to unlock the tap, you do something you hate, the taps are off. Energy cannot be created or destroyed only transferred from one form to another, one of the laws of thermodynamics you've probably heard it over and over. But it's true, the energy is there, we just need a way to make sure that maybe it is the conversion of it into like a release.
Speaker 1:But again think about that, one like Louise is mind blown, you know, one second no energy, two seconds later she's not even, the doctor could have said yeah your results are better and she might not have even been better but all of a sudden her body has changed like she's now vibrant and full of energy. Okay, and that's by a few words by a doctor. Okay, so there must be a way that we can do this ourselves because all we've done that is taken words from someone else, perceived it as a fucking great news and that perception of great news we can do it morph the body into kind of energy, full of energy state basically. So that's an interesting thing is like what gets you going, what unlocks your energy and try and get that going. Like it could be having a good chat with your best mate that gets you unlocked.
Speaker 1:Okay, it could be a workout get you unlocked, could be writing get you unlocked, could be doing creative stuff that gets you unlocked. If you never feel unlocked and you're drained of energy all the time, might be the case that everything you're doing in your lifestyle is just completely against the nature of yourself and you need to go and find what will unlock it. And that it does come from perception as well. So whilst, you know, you you could be in a in a you know, you don't have to be where you wanna be, but it's all about the perception, isn't it? The mind is crazy basically.
Speaker 1:It's hard to tell, but the mind is the mind can be heaven, it can be hell, prison, it can be, utopia, whatever. Could be anything you wanted to be in. Unfortunately for most people, it ends up being a prism. The mind becomes their own prism. And, there's more to be spoken about the mind, isn't it?
Speaker 1:There's a lot more chat need to be done. That's why we do the mother Q and A now. Let's get the mothers, mammy's together talking, let's get people going through similar things talking, let's try and you know get people talking about life not just losing weight and you know lifting weights like that's a way to improve our lives or to like improve our mental health and stuff like that. But if you don't get to the root cause sometimes it's never enough you know you could train all you want but if you're learning about mindfulness techniques and trying to solve the co issue out in the life where it could be you know the job you're in is like the worst thing you do like you can't you feel you can't escape it's like literally hell for you. So no matter how good your training is you're always gonna feel like in hell if you stay in that job.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Like I said, Sal's voice note is gonna go we're gonna go on a journey. We're this journey. If I remember anything else, I'll do another voice note because a lot of good stuff spoken about. Yeah, the mind is crazy and I can't even remember what I've said now because I've gone on for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1:But I hope you found this useful. Thanks to everybody for sending in the messages, as well to Louise. Wishing her well. The baby's doing fine. Louise is on the mend, and we hope for some good more good news coming.
Speaker 1:She will obviously publicly announce things in the future. No pressure on there. No pressure on going to social media because it's not the place to be even if you wanna go in for a few seconds. Know? There's a difference between scrolling and having a quick look than actually being on a messaging.
Speaker 1:You know mean? So it's good news. It's good news. It's good news. And I hope it does get better.
Speaker 1:And we hopefully, we see Louis back. Training a turtle in 2022. There's no doubt about it. But guys, I'm off. I'm off and I hope you enjoy your walk.
Speaker 1:And I hope you get your one big thing done. And I hope something I've said today triggers you to make the most of today. Something, anything. I don't know what I've said. If something triggered, whatever, unleash your energy.
Speaker 1:Smile, go on and you know, get the most of your day. I don't know, something, just make the most of it. For Louise guys, do it for Louise, she's gone through a tough time, live today for her because she gone through and there's nothing more, nothing more that she'd want to do than go for a walk with the buggy, Ryan, me, whatever, Sam and the dogs, there's nothing more she can do, it's such a simple thing so if you've a chance to do that, go and do it and put a smile on your face doing it, don't complain. Max Rulis would say, don't complain to others, not even to yourself. So don't be a complainer guys.
Speaker 1:Enjoy your day. Speak soon.
