Changing for Good - What Your Struggle Is Really Telling You

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 Changing For Good. Have you ever felt uncomfortable in your current life? Meaning maybe there's this contentment. Things have been the same for a while, and as a result of that, there's this longing, there's this itching for something to change, but you're not really sure what it is. You look around to the life that you've built around you, and it becomes scary. You don't want to give up the things, right? You spend eight years going to school trying to get a degree, so this way you can become whatever that profession is. And then the idea of letting it all go to start something fresh, to make a change is all too painful. If that sounds like you, then that was definitely where I was in the past as well. And I want to reiterate that it's very common to fall into this trap, so to speak. We'll call it a ditch. We won't even call it trap, because you can always get yourself out of it. And it's something that's gonna reoccur in life unless you take actions to correct it. So what we're really, really talking about here is we're talking about comfort. We're talking about your higher self giving you a good shake and telling you that you need to grow. So let's kind of do that self examination. Where are you? What areas of your life do you feel like that where you know that where you are is not serving you, but yet you're staying there and you're staying in to comfort because discomfort, because maybe you just put so much time to it that you're not willing. You don't want to give it up because it's like, oh my man, but I built this thing and even though it doesn't serve me anymore, I've been doing it. I don't know anything else, right? It feels familiar. Find that area in your life and then just get acquainted with the pain of staying there. Like, what is it going to cost you 1 year, 3 year, 5 year, 10 years out if you stay in this, if you do not change, are you willing to stay here for another 10 years? What would that look like for your life? And then lastly, what is one change you can make? All these, I laugh when I, when I make, when I pose these questions for you, they're all, they're all very similar, first of all, but it's all just getting you to see what it is you want or what the area that you need to change, Identifying what that pain is and just seeing what the one little step and then a greater vision for your life. So I'm going to share you with you the inspiration behind this podcast. I was listening to another podcast and the topic was about just finding yourself. When you find yourself in that state where you know something needs to change. But you're, you know, you've, you've, like I said, you build up this life where you're like, well, I did all this. I don't really want to give it away. But it is in that moment when you're not happy with. You are. That is the first and only sign you need to know that you need to jump ship. It's easy to hold on to the things that don't serve you. But trace that out 10 years and all of a sudden now your life is just. You've been so grained, responsibilities have gotten greater and your life has lost this vital essence. But the good thing is that you can get it back. And it all comes with just making a new decision. I'm in Miami beach, staring at the water, and I will tell you, this has not been without its own challenges. I'll share those with those challenges with you, but I'm also going to want to share just kind of, you know, it looks all nice and pretty, right? Like, wow, he's in Miami. Wow. So easy for him to move. But I want to, I want to share with you the many years of struggle and little mental strife that I had gone to before I actually pulled the trigger to make that move. So as far back as I could remember, I've always wanted to try and experience something new. I wanted to move out of my hometown in Stamford, Connecticut, and I just wanted to experience life on my own. To be independent, to not have to have new surroundings and make new friends like that was one of the desires of mine. But there was a huge fear around that. Like one leaving the comforts of my family, my friends back home, also leaving my identity, right? It's everything. It was like, well, I remember being with a coach and he, I'm sure he was able to see at the time that I was so ingrained of this identity as a coffee roaster that I was very rigid. I didn't allow myself the idea to be like, well, I could be A, B, C, D and E, not just A. So he said, well, who are you, Donnie, if you are, if you're not a coffee roaster? Because with every single identity that you have, there are a series of beliefs that are attached to it. And at the time when he was asking me this, this is when like Stumptown was just taking off in, in the United States. And I'm thinking like, I'm like, man, I, well, I don't wear friggin fedora. Like I don't fit into this, this category. Like everyone's wearing fedoras, they have mustaches. And it sounds funny, but that's actually where my mindset was. And I'm like, but my, my life is so much richer and so much more complex than just being a coffee roaster. Like my, my. The meaning I wanted in my life, the purpose I had behind my life was, was not just to make coffee, was to impact people's lives, to inspire people to live a better, bigger vision for their life. And just identifying myself as a coffee roaster wasn't filling that, that, that role or wasn't giving me the, the juice. And I, I had explained this when I was at this time, I actually had moved to Brooklyn. I sublet in Brooklyn for three months and realized that wasn't for me, but what it really was, it was a step, but it was still, it was still within like a geographic region and I was still in a comfort zone there, right? Because I was going back home literally every single week. So I spent like, I split my time between New York and Connecticut. I mean, I think I was there probably, I was probably in Connecticut more than I was in New York. So I don't even know why the hell I had it. I just like spending money on gas and driving. So the point I wanted to make was this, is that the identity. I didn't want to give up everything that I had built or do you really have to give up? There's always something you take, right? It's kind of a mind trip to think that, well, oh my God, the security, the connection with family, friends, oh, but if I make this change, I lose all of that. But is that True. I want you to ask yourself that. I want you to look at every big change that's happened in your life. We're likely, very, very likely that you were forced into that change. And then think about what it was that you thought you were gonna lose or you were afraid of giving up. And then look at your current reality, right? Those things that you lose, they're temporary. You might lose them for a bit, but then all of a sudden, guess what happens? It comes back. It's like being here with the fear of my friends, but in my relationships suffering as a result. But what has happened as a result of me being down here, Right. It's one. It's forcing me to get out there and meet new people. But also I feel my relationships back home are richer. Why? Well, first of all, now there's more intent when I go home. When I'm choosing to be around certain people or the limited time I have, I'm choosing to spend time with certain people because they enrich and add value to my life versus before. It's kind of like when you're those of you who live in New York or near New York, you're like, ah, Statue of Liberty, the top of the Empire staple. And it's always there. Because it's always there. You just get complacent. And as a result, then you leave. You're like, shit, I was here in New York for 20 years and I haven't even been to Central Park. You know, it's crazy, but that's how the mind works, right? It keeps you in this box. But when you're in that box and listen, there's nothing wrong with being in a box. Nothing wrong with being in a circle either, right? If you are comfortable and you're enjoying your time in there, right? And you could use that box as the metaphor for anything. It could be your job. Maybe you're so happy and fulfilled by your career, but that the extra title doesn't mean anything to you because you enjoy helping people, you enjoy doing what you're doing, and you're fulfilled by that, and it fills your needs, then by all means, this is not one of those things. I'm talking about the box where you are, like, literally pounding at the walls, but you're not realizing that the door is open. You just need to step through. And that stepping through is just taking an action and trusting that the place that you were going to be is better than the place you are now. Yes, it might be scary, but all the things that you're going to experience and encounter as a way, are pushing you forward, are cultivating the experience that you need to get more clarity to say, all right, well, yeah, well, maybe this is not what I want, but you needed to make that change. Because now, as a result of just taking an action, now you are in motion and now you can start making more changes. And it's important to go back to life. It's important to go back to this idea that you are supposed to have it all figured out by a certain time or that you're supposed to see results by a certain period of time. All of us start at different places, and the only difference is where or what step we take next, what action we take next. And as long as you don't give up, you are going to get wherever that promised land is. I just keep pointing out to the ocean over here. It's kind of funny because I see boats out there and I just keep pointing. Good metaphor for life. But you'll eventually get there. And I want to share something with you. And this pertains to my coffee roasting. If you knew how much pain and struggle went into the coffee that I created, you would. Well, first of all, you'd probably be, Donnie, I praise you. You're a coffee God. But there was so much hardship in part of it because there's always something to be figured out. There was always a better cup that I was looking for. There's always something I was looking to improve or something that I didn't like and that I had to fix. And then on top of just learning about the coffee bean and understanding the nuances of the roasting process itself, throw on top of that now changing roasting environments, because every you change your roasting environment, it's like moving to a new city. Like, shit, I don't even know where the food store is. Oh, my God. I went to Trader Joe's recently. They changed every. Trader Joe's is not set up the same. I went into Trader Joe's and I couldn't find anything. I was there for like two hours trying to find the same things that I get all the time when I was living back home. But it was that same, the same type of experience when I switched coffee roasters every single time. And as a result, the coffee would come worse before it get better because I had to learn an entirely new system on how to roast. But guess what happens after all these problems come in and you realize that you have to adapt. You learn and it gets better. I was talking with a friend who had tried my coffee and she's like, you know what? I, I love your coffee. Me and my daughter, we shared it. She goes, it was delicious. And then I was telling her how I just produced a, I did a new batch of my Ethiopia Dark and how it was like phenomenal. I told her how like I brought it to the roastery and everyone was complimenting me on it. And she's like, oh, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta order some of this. So tell me, Donnie, what is it that you do like? So how does your coffee different from other people? And I used that and I thought about it for a second. I said, oh God, I'm not really sure about this because when people ask me I could be very self critical with regard to my coffee because it's my art. And I would feel like, you know, like criticism on the coffee is. Was criticism on me, when the truth of the matter is, is that it's not everybody's cup of coffee, right? Or your cup of tea, whatever, if you want, pun intended. But I, it was the only coffee that I would ever drink because I loved, you know, I loved the flavor and I roasted it the way that I like my coffee. And as a result, I have a customer base that all loves the way I roast the coffee. But when she asked me that question, I, I thought about it and I said the answer to that is that I'm not, I'm willing, no, I'm willing to take chances. I'm willing to make changes, I'm willing to make mistakes. I'm willing to literally, if I made a change to a batch of coffee and I had to dump all of that out, which could be, I don't even know how much, you know, how much money. Some of the coffees are quite expensive, right? So if I have to dump 30 pounds of it, I have the roasting cost, the cost of the green coffee and just my time. But I was always willing, even if it was just for the sake of learning and pushing the boundaries. And as a result, now I, now I see the benefit. I see all those problems that I had literally over my entire coffee experience. And it's not like it's going to stop either, right? There's always going to be these problems that are going to hit up and it just means that you grow to, to accommodate and to be able to handle more problems and you have the answers. If I didn't face all of these problems and stick with it, then there's no way I would be the coffee roaster that I am today. There's no Way I would be able to extract those flavors out of the coffee. And that's what I told her. And she goes, wow. You know, wow, it's fascinating. But isn't that true of life? Right? It throws problems at you, problem after problem, and you're given a decision. You could say, oh, shit, this is too scary. Let me recoil and. And go back. But you know, when you go back, it's the same thing. So why would you ever go back? And what do you do is if you're sure on your reason, you know that the only way to go move forward is to take a step forward. I always had this curiosity. I needed to know how to unlock the potential of the beam. Just like I needed with espresso. I needed to know how to pull that perfect shot. And it led me to decades of searching. Your life is the same way. So keep searching. So what is this entire episode? What is this all about? Why am I even bringing this topic up? Is it just to tell me, switch jobs? To switch jobs, try a different coffee? If you want to try my coffee more than welcome. Because just as these big things are in life, like taking the job or deciding to get into a relationship or deciding to leave one, the same is true of all of those experiences that you want to have are the things that you are going to remember for the rest of your life. And that's really why I'm here. I like to promote people, to push people to experience the things that they want to experience in life. Meaning, like the things that, you know, when you get to the end of your life, you're going to be like, man, I wish I did that, but now I can't. But I want you to get to that place where you're like, you know what? I did do that. And oh, my God, what a blast. That was one of the top experiences of my life. That's where I want you to go. But even those experiences require you to break through the comfort, require you to change, right? Don't like vacationing in Miami beach every summer. Go explore something else. So let's bring it back to your life. What are the areas where are you in your life? Where are you feeling stuck? Where you know that you have to make a change. You know that you need to do something, but you feel held up because you've put in all this time and you're afraid of giving up all the things that you worked for. I'm gonna change the questions. And we're not even going to the pain board. Now imagine that you made the Change and imagine you are successful on that, right? Whatever it is that you wanted to make, the change that you've been successful at it. And Grant, let me tell you this too, right? There's always gonna be struggles. Nothing ever comes at our struggles. I didn't even touch upon like the. I was going to mention the stuff that I'm going through with my apartment. I didn't. Maybe I'll save that for another episode. But there are always going to be struggles and the more comfortable you can be with that and the more you could look and look at it from, you know, look up front and try to plan or, you know, at the least mitigate what some of those, those trip ups might be. It'll make your experience smoother. But the truth is that you're never going to be able to anticipate all the trip ups. But again, know that the trip ups are there because they're there to prepare you. They're there to help you grow. So imagine making that change. What is your life like now? And I want you to remember all those things that you were afraid of giving up because you were afraid of losing maybe the connection, maybe, you know, being able to go into a Trader Joe's, spend five minutes instead of two hours, like whatever, you know, whatever it may be, see those things as not being lost, but actually coming with you and being in a more enriched experience in your new life or after this change. And then just look back, right? Look back and be like, you know, what was it worth the change? Was it worth just trying to. I'll leave you with this note. When I was talking with my coach and we were. We're talking about the. My Miami experience. And I'll share this with my. Here in my apartment. There's. I'm currently going through this whole like mold remediation thing where like the, you know, the unit is off because there was like a smell and then there the mold and the ducks who now they're coming here, they're going to like blast the entire place. And it's been stressful because it's prevented me from, you know, from coming on here, being more frequent here, doing things with my one life course. My email list for Roscoff, it just, it's. It wasn't something that I anticipated. But at the same time, it's kind of funny. I'm actually really grateful for the experience because it's challenging me to see like, you know, well, one, just, just to be able to plan my day and realizing that like I don't have to Tick off all these boxes in order to make progress. Right. Things with my, like, my one life course is one of my priorities right now. And there are, like, some key things that I could do that will get the ball moving forward. And so it helped me realize that and a bunch of other lessons, but that is what I'm dealing with. So I was talking with my coach, and as I was explaining a lot of the struggles, I mean, one with the apartment, another one with, you know, getting out there, making new friends. And when I told her, I was telling her, I was like, well, you know, despite everything that I'm telling you, when I check in with my heart, I know that it was the right decision. I know that I do not regret it, that it was the move I needed to make. And she said, well, that's awesome. Congratulations for being aware and just trust in the process. So what I'm telling you and what I want you to do is check in. Ask yourself, is this where I want to stay? Pick an area of your life, pick a problem that you're dealing with. Is this where I want to stay? When that answer comes to you, say, okay, well, what is the step I can do? And just trust that any step that is going to move you away from what you do not want is the right step. Is the right step. You're bigger, stronger, more capable than anything you could ever imagine. But like every single person on this planet, we are all bound by the same experience, the same pains of growth and change and maybe just understanding that, maybe just realizing that what you're seeing here on me, watching me here, and all the people on YouTube who are making it look like their lives are fabulous, understanding that they had struggled too, that they had to learn and just trust in the process, and they had to keep going because eventually something catches and it sticks. If all of a sudden now what you were having trouble with becomes your new reality and it becomes easy, I hope this makes sense to you. I hope this impacts you. I hope it encourages you just to look at the path you're going down and say, you know what? Yes, I want to continue on this path, or no, I want to abandon this and I want to try something else and then go out and do that thing. And this all comes around the basis that you only get one life. So before I go into my trail off, I want you to. If you love this video, please share it with five people. If you have any questions, comments, you could send them to me via my website@www.donnierouse.com again www.d o n n y r a u s.com again, please share this with five people because that is how we get this message out and we grow the podcast. Greatly appreciate it here now the time. Remember, you only get one life. Live fully, live passionately, and most of all, live now. God bless you guys. Thank you so, so much for tuning in. I wish you the most purest, most blissful, exciting, inspired life you can create. God bless you all and I'll see you again next week.