All Up Hill - A Progressively Better Life

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want or what's important to them. See, I'm here to cut through all that noise, connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to slave away at a corporate job that I hated, but I broke through the social norms and pursued my passion. As a result, I own my own coffee company, I'm espresso sommelier, and I get to travel the world. You too can live a life that you love, but it starts with getting clear about what you want. It starts with a new decision. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life All Uphill. When you think about your life, do you tell yourself that life is just beginning or things getting worse? You see, the meaning that you give life is the experience you're going to have. And this meaning could be different for the different aspects of your life, the different areas in your career or your relationship. You may say, you know what, you have this belief system that things don't get better, they just get worse. And as a result, you're progressively seeing things going for the worse, taking a step towards worse. But maybe because of some experiences you had in your health, losing some weight, eating better, and just having more energy, now all of a sudden you're telling yourself, you know what? Every day I'm feeling better and better. And as a result of that, now all of a sudden you're taking more steps, you're getting out, you're being more active, and more life energy is coming to you. The intention of this podcast here is just to understand the stories that you are telling yourself because they are what is controlling or are controlling your life. Some questions to ponder. What is the story you've been telling yourself? When you talk to your friends, do you go into the rhetoric like, yeah, you know what, it's all downhill from here. You know, the best days are behind us. And if so, question number two. How does that make you feel? Right? If you don't feel like the best days are ahead of you or like good things are to come, how do you respond to life? Next question is, what actions are you willing to take? What if you flip that? What if life were getting better? What if this were the beginning? How would that change your outlook on life? And then lastly, what new actions would you take as a result of that? And how would that differ from the answers you gave just a moment ago? I was at a farmer's market yesterday and I was Talking to a bunch of my customers and travel was a big theme. I was telling one of my neighbors that I was going to Colombia in October, and she was like, you know what? I'm so excited. I have something I want to tell you. We're booking a trip to Antarctica. A friend of ours invited us. So we're going to Antarctica, and we're going to sail through Drake's Passage, go around the continent, and then travel a little bit in South America. So we would have hit all seven continents. I thought, man, oh, my God, I want to do that. That sounds awesome. So it was. The day started me focusing on one of the things that brings me joy, which is my travels. As I was talking to different customers, everyone comes in. It's funny being a coffee vendor, because in a lot of ways, I'm like a bartender. People are sharing their experiences, their feelings about life. Towards the middle of my day, one woman came in. We were talking about college. I was telling her how I just brought my niece to college and how my brother, his wife and I were all like, man, we should. What we would do if we would go back to those college years. We would love to go back and revisit those. She was telling us how she just dropped off her daughter, and she was telling her daughter, experience it all. You know, do everything. And her daughter was like, well, you know, I have some reservations. I don't want to do these things over here. And her mom was, listen, do it all. It's all downhill from here. As she's telling me this, I'm thinking to myself, man, if it's all down. Because that's. If she's telling her. Her daughter that, like, this is. What she's sharing with me is a window into her life, a window into her experience, her belief system, saying that after college, it was all downhill. I was thinking about my own life. I was like, well, how does that apply? Do I believe that? And I brought up to one of my friends, my friend Eric, who I was speaking with later on, I said, well, you know, how does. What do you feel about that? I was like, well, I think most. He's like, well, I think. And he shared with me. He's like, well, I think the best experiences that I had immediately after post college, when I was living in New York City, those were the best times. And it would kind of like trickle down after that. And then I chimed in, I was, well, I think after. Much later than college, like, when I really started traveling, get out of the world. Those are the best days of My life and the experience felt a little bit different now than it did even five years ago. And there's a bunch of different reasons, supporting thoughts and beliefs that kind of contribute to that belief system. But when I spoke to this woman yesterday, when she was telling me her story, as I reflected on, made me reflect on the stories in my own mind. Like, how have I been responding? Right? It's easy to say, well, yes, life is just beginning. I feel optimistic about it. But how do you respond? How do you act in your day to day? In some areas, I wasn't acting in that way. I was actually reacting to my life. So it made me take a step back and say, well, where am I reacting to life? Where am I acting? Out of the belief that it's getting worse as opposed to better. And then it allowed me to make some shifts just to the beliefs and more so to catch my mind when it was going down that road. Because the mind is. Think of your mind as a giant canvas. Well, no, the mind's not the canvas. Life is the canvas. Your mind is that pen that just keeps scribbling all over that canvas. It doesn't matter how much it scribbles on that canvas, right? It doesn't change life. It doesn't change what is that canvas is always there, even if there's all that writing over it. So first you got to take that mind out of it, quiet it down, because it's fogging up your vision. Start to dream again. Think if life were to begin right now, if this was the beginning, if life was only going to get better from this point forward, or even better, depending where you are in life. How would I feel? What would that look like? What specifically actions or what specific events would take place? If you answer these kinds of questions, you'll notice that you're going to feel dramatically different than you did if you were thinking the thoughts. Life is getting worse. The best years are behind me. As I thought about these questions, I thought about the future trips I want to have. I thought about the energy that I want to bring. Because it's so easy when you're surrounded by shit. And I mean, it's in a good way, right? Because shit will allow the shit that we surround ourselves with are opportunities for us to open our eyes and to grow, right? If everyone's telling that same crappy story, you need to surround yourself with different people. You need to be around people who are passionate about life because that will literally drip and get into your own system and you will start to feel passionate about Life. But if you're around people who find life to be a drain, if they say the best years are behind them, how do you think you're going to respond? What kind of life do you think you're going to live? It's easy, because who you surround yourself with, who you become. So let me take a step back. First and foremost, what is the story we're telling ourselves? Right? Are we telling ourselves that life is over? Are we telling ourselves that the best years behind us? If you are, I want you to stop it in your tracks. Start to say, you know what? This is just a story. My life right now is a blank slate. I don't care what you have going on in your life, your life is a blank slate. There's nothing, nothing is written going forward. It's all. Anything could change in a moment. And it all comes with a change of your perspective. What if this were the beginning? Ask yourself a new question. What if this were the beginning? What if the best was yet to come? What if what I'm going through right now is preparing me for something even better, even grander than I could ever imagine? The questions I'm asking right now are probably feeding you and energizing you. Because what if? Right? Because it's an empowering question. It's not a shitty question that's going to pull you down, but one that's going to propel you forward. And I'm here to tell you that life is whatever you want it to be. If you want it to be a drag, if you want it to be progressively worse, that is exactly what you're going to get. If you wanted to be passionate, full of excitement, full of joy, you have to put your energy there. You have to do the things, make the decisions, have the experiences that are going to bring you in that direction. It's so easy to say, all right, your mind will try to talk you out of the things you know you should do. I'll go in one little rant. So I. Last night I was in my room, I was gonna tryna do some work. I was like, ah, I don't really feel like doing the work. I'm gonna go to see a movie. I went to see the Dragon Ball super movie that's in theaters right now. And as I was driving that, my mind is telling me, oh no, it's too far. I don't feel like it's funny the things you know you want to do. All of a sudden you try to. All these excuses try attaching themselves to the thing you want but because of this story I'm just telling you right now, I'm going to do the things I want to do, do the things that light me up. I went anyways. I ended up going to the wrong theater and then having to rush back to, back to Sono in Norwalk, only to find that the line was packed, there was no parking. So then I ended up going home and watching a little bit TV with the intention of going tonight. But the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes your mind, and I'm not going to say you, can be your worst enemy, but your mind could be working against you. And it's not because your mind is evil or bad. It's just because it's been programmed that way. But you can take control of that programming by surrounding yourself with things that bring you joy and making the decision to say, I am going to do what brings me joy. I'm going to do what makes me happy. When you plant yourself in that, that is when you're going to start to feel alive. That's when you're going to start to feel the things being attracted to you, the things that bring you joy, the things that you are passionate about. It takes a conscious decision and it takes action. So let's go back to those questions. Where are you living right now? Is life dragged? Do you feel like it's progressively getting worse? If so, what actions are you taking? How does that make you feel about life? How much life energy are you willing to give with this belief that life is progressively getting worse or that the best days are behind you? What if we could change that? What if this was the beginning? What if life is about to get better? Life is unfolding for you. What if the grand image of your life, however, you, whatever it is that you want is starting as right now. Everything that happened prior was only preparing you for this, this, this amazing life that you're about to live? What new actions would you take? And how does this belief system, this new story, change the way you feel about life? I encourage you to spend some time with this and just notice the feelings in your body because these feelings are going to give you the insight, say, well, how have I been living? What meaning have I been applying? Also to let you realize that it's really all up in your head. It's really all there. It's all where you're putting your focus. But you have to follow that focus. You have to follow those new thoughts with new action. As I mentioned, I'm going to Colombia this coming October. I Booked a trip on a whim and partially, to be honest with you, partially was part of it was kind of like runaway. I was like, I am overwhelmed with things that are going on in my business. I'm taking off. So fortunately, you know, fortunately for me, I never regretted a single trip that I've taken. And they've always been growing experiences. So hells yes. High five. Give myself a little high five. But I was talking with another friend of mine, my friend Zim, who's overseas currently, and it just reminded me of all the things that light me up and things that I'm saying, oh, no, I can't do this because get those things out, Pull them out. Because you create your destiny. You have the power to create the life however you want. Is it going to be easy? No, it will not be easy. But do not sway. I mean, be flexible in your approach, but do not give up on your vision. That is my message to you. I hope you enjoy this podcast. I hope this in some way made you take a step back to say, well, what is it that I want out of my life? What do I want to experience the next 5, 10, 15, 20, 50 years from now? I don't know how old you are listening to this, but what do you want? And trust that life is getting better, life is happening for you. And that if you want life to get better, it takes new decisions, it takes new actions. You are worth it. Your life is worth it. That is all I've got for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please subscribe, comment, send me a question or if you have experiences you want to share, desires you want to share, I would love to hear them. Send them to me via my website@www.donnyrouse.com. that's d o n n y r a u s dot com. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I appreciate you taking the time to to just for yourself, to just think about life, to think about the things you want. Remember, you get one life. Live it. God bless and I will see you again soon.