Cozy Prison

Hi guys. My name is Donnie Rouse and you are listening to the podcast One Life Cozy Prison. It's been said that the life you desire is just on the other side of your comfort zone. What exactly does that mean? It means in order for you to grow, you got to step out beyond your current circumstances. You have to do something different. It could be with your body, it could be with your career, it could be with your emotional life. Maybe you want to travel a lot more but are afraid to book that ticket because of these times we live in. Are you in a place or a situation that you don't want to be in, but you stay in it because it's safe and familiar? See, in order to gain life you want, you've got to give something up. A few weeks back, I was in Miami and while on the street, I met these two girls from Los Angeles. We kind of hit it off immediately and they were going out to lunch at a, to a ceviche place and they invited me to come along. So even though I just ate, I decided to go along just for the conversation. While we were sitting down, as I do with most people I meet, I started to get into travel. I asked them, well, where have you been? Where do you want to go? Trying to see if there's any place that I've been that maybe they haven't. So this way I could kind of give them that burst inspiration, that spark to book that trip. Or maybe I could get inspired myself by a place they've been that I haven't. One of the girls was a big world traveler and she was saying all the list of reasons why she loved doing it. When it came time for the other girl to speak, she admitted that she hadn't traveled very much, but she did have a desire. She wanted to go to South Korea to teach English. Curious as to why she chose South Korea, I kind of gave her this look, like squinting my eyes and twisting my head. She said, you know, I'm not sure where it came from, but it's just something I want to do. It looks like a cool city. So I said, okay, that's fine. Then I asked her, I said, well, what's stopping you? Take away the fact that there's not much international travel going on right now, but what's prevented you from doing that in the past? She looked at me and she said, well, I live in Santa Monica on the beach. I have a rent controlled apartment and I pay $700 a month. Some of you listening to this are probably like, what a beachside apartment? For $700. She went on to say that that same apartment, if she were to put it on the free market, would be somewhere around like, $3,500. So she's saving a considerable amount of money in an apartment by the water in Santa Monica, one of the most desirable places in Los Angeles. Time had passed, and our server came over, a girl from Argentina. And I asked her the same thing. I said, well, where would you go if you could live anywhere? She said, greece. And there's another. She said, a specific island in Greece. And she said, another place that very few people I'd ever asked that question to have spit out. And so I was kind of like, really? Why that place? I can't even remember it. That's how obscure it is. And so we had lunch. And then as we were leaving, actually before we were leaving, I returned to the girl. I said, okay, well, how do you like living in Los Angeles? How do you like living in Santa Monica? She got quiet, and I saw the look in her face change. She said, every day I wake up and I wonder, why am I still here? She wasn't even happy with the place. She wasn't happy in her current situation where she was living, but yet she wasn't going to give it up. Maybe it was because the money that she was paying versus what she could get in the free market. Maybe it's just the law of familiarity. She was afraid to step outside of that comfort zone, to experience something new. I don't know. But one of the things I do know is that if she were to have that trip, if she were to get that experience, she wouldn't look back once at what she had to give up to get there. She wouldn't even come back the same person. Because the experience, when you go out into the world, when you experience something new, it changes you. Your perception of the world changes. You realize that, wow, there's so much more to the world than what I'm currently living in. And when you come back, your experience most, for some people, for me, I'm much more grateful, much more grounded, much more simple. Life is much more simple because I shed all the bullshit that we're told that we need in order to live a happy, fulfilling life. Leaving the restaurant, we were on the street talking, and our server came out talking to her with the consideration of moving to Miami. I said, hey, well, I'm new here and I'm not really sure what are the different areas that Miami has and what's the scene like. She went on to tell me she goes well, it's probably going to be very different from for you than it is for me. You see, I grew up here, so I don't really like Miami at all. But people who come here from out of town love the place. I said, wow, two people in a row, unhappy with their current situation, unhappy with the place they're living in, but unwilling to make the change. Let me ask you a question. What is your cozy prison? What is that big desire you have? And what is the story about? The thing that you tell is holding you back, and is that the truth? So if we're not careful, we create these stories as to why we can't do certain things. And that story, if we say it enough, that story, we accept and we believe it as truth. And it becomes our limitation. It becomes our crutch. If we just change a few words of that sentence, it completely changes the entire belief. Shatters it. Actually. I'm going to leave you with one more question. This is the most powerful one of all. By making that decision, by going after the thing and giving up that story, what experiences, what opportunities would come into your life as a result? As humans, we tend to think about the thing that we're giving up and what we're going to be lacking. And we give more points to that, more credit to what we're giving up than what we're going to gain. It's been said, I've gone to seminars. I said, someone is willing to hold on. They're willing to do more to hold on to $10 than to make $100. And I want you to know that in order for you to get the very thing you want to experience that experience, you want in life to be happy, to do anything, something has to be given up. And I promise you, what you're giving up is nothing compared to what you're going to gain. That is all I've got for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode. If you enjoyed this, I encourage you to please subscribe. Share the podcast One Life Podcast with Donny Rouse with your friends, your family. Take a screenshot, share it on social media. Also, if you go to www.donny d o n n y r a u s.com I'm doing workshops pretty much on a weekly basis with the premise of getting you to figure out what it is that's gonna make you feel alive. What is the thing that you're driving towards as well as understanding. Where are you getting hung up? What's holding you back? What's preventing you from going after the very thing that you want. And the last part of that workshop is taking an action step. For some of the people listening, it's working privately with me. For others, it's maybe making that move, going to that new city, making that trip. But the point is to give you clarity, the point is ask you a different set of questions that you typically ask day to day, because by asking a different question, you're going to get a different answer. That is all I've got for you guys today. Thank you so, so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode of One Life podcast with Donny Rouse. God bless, and I will see you soon.