Choose Your Own Adventure

Hi, guys. My name is Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life. Choose your own adventure. If you could choose your own adventure, what would you choose? What would you want to experience? How would you want to live your life? One of the things that we forget is that we do get to choose our own adventure. We are in charge of our lives, and the choices we make today are going to influence the choices we're able to make tomorrow, the actions we take tomorrow. Everything in life is a give and take. So if you lean too much on one side, sometimes it's at the sacrifice of another, which may be good and bad. I'm being very vague here purposely, because I want you to think about all the different areas of your life. Maybe it's your health. Maybe you focus so much on your health that your health is extremely good. Maybe it's at the cost of your finances. Or maybe you've been working so, so hard at your job that you're miserable in and you've been forgetting that life is more than just the work that you're doing day to day. It's about the experience you have, the people in your life that you love and you want to spend time with. So hopefully by the end of this episode, you will start to question maybe some of the decisions that you've been making habitually, without even patterns you've been in. Because one of my favorite quotes is this. It goes, you were always one decision away from a totally different life. When I look back at my life, I was actually, I was speaking with a friend of mine and I had referenced him again, my friend Leonard. We were talking about life and I was telling him how I was getting ready to do a trip abroad. And he says, man, you know what? I wish I had spoken to someone when I was younger who said, listen, you know, like, this is the married life and once you have kids, this is what your life is going to be like. And he said he wishes he had spoke to someone who traveled more. So this way he could have done that earlier. Not saying that he regrets anything, but it's just very, very different. And he said, well, you know what? At the end of this conversation we have, he said, what? I'm willing to bet that you set your life up for that. Right? It's something that you wanted to do. So you took the, you made the decisions, you took the action in order to give yourself that lifestyle. I never had really thought about that. As he said that, it just kind of like the switch went off. I was, you know what? Yeah, you're actually correct. Travel was always something that was very important to me. So as a result, I put it as a priority on, on the experiences that I wanted to have. And with that, like, I, I made, I did the business, I made sure that it was mobile, where I could step away. Or in the beginning, it was just very, very seasonal. So I was able to get away in the winters, escape the cold, which is always amazing. But it made me aware of the conscious choices that I was making to choose my own adventure, to choose the experiences that I wanted to have in life. And how often we go unconscious. Not we like, you know, a lot of people go unconscious. Maybe some areas you're unconscious of the decisions you're making. Other areas you're very, very conscious. But hopefully after listening to this episode, you'll, you'll start to see, like, where am I being unconscious? Where am I making decisions on autopilot? And how can I. What is it that I really, really want so I can move in that direction? That's the title. Like, choose your own adventure. Because one thing I don't want you to forget is that at every moment you have a choice. You could say no, you can say yes, you can say, I'm leaving the relationship, I'm traveling across the world, I am doing whatever. You always have a choice. And it could happen like that. Going back to that quote I mentioned at the beginning, you're always one decision away from a totally different life. There is so much in that quote that first meets the eye. You may think, well, what does that mean? All right, there's so much. There's so much more in the one, one decision could change my life. Yeah, I get it. But it's not just the big decisions that change your life. It's the small decisions as well that change your life. Probably. Like, I don't even know if it's been a decade back. I was out, I was with a friend. He had just broken a battle. He had just gotten out of a relationship. It was like a three year relationship. He was feeling pretty down. Friends of mine invited me out to a restaurant and I invited my friend. I said, listen, you need to get the heck out of the house. Why don't you just come with me, let's go out for a drink, you know, get your mind off things and it'll be good for you. Surprisingly, he obliged. We ended up going to this bar, he met a bunch of my friends, then end up meeting a friend of a friend whom he just kind of clicked with. And now I don't even know how many years it's been. They are married. And it just goes to show you that it's not like the big decision that shape your life. It's all the little small decisions. And this is part of like the choosing your own adventure. Choosing your own adventure is what are the experience you want to have right in this moment? What are the little things that you can do that will give some more color, some more spice, some more variety to your life? Yes, I totally want you to know what it is that you want. But it's a little bit more than that, right? Well, actually it's a little bit simpler than constantly looking at that North Star. Because I really do believe it in any moment in time that you are guided. Part of it is just saying yes to life, opening yourself to different possibilities. When I'm too rigid with my thinking, I tend to be. My outer world tends to be very rigid. But when I say yes to small things, maybe it's meeting my sibling for a drink, going out and having a dinner with a friend. Whatever it may be, it's always those little moments that kind of open up to other moments. Or attending my friend's daughter's birthday where I created the cold Roman espresso. She didn't even want me to bring anything, but then I was, you know what? No, I want to bring something because I don't want to come empty handed. I created that. And all of a sudden now my entire business pretty much has been influenced and based on this one product that I make. So that just goes to show you how important one small decision can be on your life. So let me ask you a question. Where are the areas of your life where maybe you feel out of sync? Maybe you, after listening to this, you notice that you've been unconscious in those areas. Once you've identified those, I want you to just start to look at that and say, okay, well, where have I been saying no to life? And when I mean saying no, saying no means you've been so rigid with how things have to be. Usually for me, that's my health. Because I tend to be so rigid with the meal plans and what I can do when I can go out. That it literally was robbing me of the experiences. Because friends might be going out for a drink and I'm like, no, I'm going to go there. I'm going to just drink water or I'm not even going to go at all. Let's get together at one of our houses. Nothing good. I mean, yeah, well, I'll say it. Nothing good happens inside your comfort zone. You got to step out of it. You got to step out of that box. This way, you could expand your horizons, expand your box. Then you create a new box, and then after you step out of that one, you create a new box, and you just kind of keep growing and growing and growing. And it never stops, as long as you don't stop. So when you know that area of your life, maybe it's your social life, maybe you don't, like, you know, you're afraid to go out and meet people. Here's the surprise that most people are afraid of going out and meeting people. One of my friends, remember, he told me he. I met him at a Tony Robbins event, and he was saying he came. I was with a group of people, and he came up to our group and just introduced himself. And he was like, man, it was so out of character of me because I'm always very timid. I'm always afraid to approach groups. I'm like, well, it didn't seem like that. And then he was asking me questions about travel and how to meet people. I was like, well, literally, it's the same thing. When you travel, people are in that same boat that you are. Sometimes they're afraid to start a conversation with anyone else, so they'll literally stay there. But if you engage in the conversation, all of a sudden, things could start to flourish. Maybe you have a new friendship. So let's think of. Choose your own adventure. What is the adventure you want to have in life? Because at every moment, you get to choose. What new decisions do you have to start making today? What decision can you make today? Let's put it that way. Maybe the decision is something as simple as researching a trip or saying yes to the friends who just invited you out to go out with another group of friends. But you were feeling kind of shy because you know what? You don't really want to meet new people because you're nervous, whatever it may be. Take action on one of those. Quick side story. I was talking to my friend Danny's father, and he was saying how when he would travel, he would, you know, whenever he was overseas, he would reflect. After being away for about two weeks, he would reflect on his job. I think he was in investment banking. He would reflect on his job, and he would say, well, why am I doing this? Why am I, like, why am I. I'm miserable at work. Why am I going back to this? He would have this epiphany. But then he would go back to work and he would go right back in the loop. When we have those moments outside that say, okay, this is what life can be, that's like the fork in the road, the decision you have to make to get at a drastically different life, it's saying, okay, well, this is a path you can take or you can go down that same path that you've been going on that's lined with. It has lights, it has these beautiful trees, it's been groomed, but it's always going to be the same. Then you have another path there that kind of has some overgrown trees and stuff like that. You see some sunlight, but you're not really sure what's beyond that initial point. What do you opt for? Do you opt for security and safety, or do you opt for the possibility of having an experience, being happy, going after the thing you know you want? Guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please give it a like. Please share it with your friends and family. If you have any questions, feel free to message me at Donny d o n n y r a u s.com again-o n n y r a u s dot com I do do one life coaching. So if you are interested in anything that I've said in any of my podcasts and you would like to set up a coaching call to see if I am the right coach to guide you, you, you can do so by emailing me via Instagram at D O n Y R A U s. Again at D O n n Y R A U s this has been your morning coffee with Donnie Rouse. God bless you all and I will see you again soon.