False Competition

Hi, guys. My name is Donnie Rouse and you are listening to the podcast One Life False Competition. You may have heard the quote saying that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. I'm going to elaborate on that quote and say pursuing success at the cost of your well being is the ultimate failure. And the reason why I'm rephrasing it is because sometimes you might have noble goals and you're doing it for good reasons. But if it's not, if it's at the sacrifice of your well being, then why pursue it at all? It's actually a liability to your life. I was in Brickell last week, Brickell, Miami. I was going to say hi to a friend I had met who owns an establishment called the, I believe it's called the Brick Walk or the Riverwalk. And as we were down there, I was introduced to a couple his friends. One was a Brazilian guy, we will call him Andrew. Very good looking guy, tall. He had done modeling. He was telling me some of his backstory. So he was living in New York City, came from a small town in Brazil, I'm forgetting the name. And he was telling me how when he came to America, he came with the American dream. He came to. To build wealth, to be able to live a full, rich life and to be able to give that life to his family back in Brazil. His realization that he was living this life and that he was actually living day to day and that he wasn't experiencing life in the way that he wanted to experience life in the way that was fulfilling to him. And with all the restrictions that were going on around with COVID it started to give him even more clarity as well as pain to make different decisions, a different choice. As he was sharing his experience with me, he was telling me how when he's in his apartment, he is just interacting with his wife. And he wasn't downplaying the relationship, but he expanded on that with his belief about why we are here. He went on to say, I believe that we are all meant to give something of ourselves, the best of ourselves, to build, to expand, to grow. And that life is meant to be enjoyed, life is meant to be lived, which spoke right to my heart. And he reflecting on, he realized that he was in New York City. He was kind of in that rut. Race. He was in the rut. But there's a funny thing. When you're in that rut, it's very difficult to peek your head out and see what is around you. That is one of the reasons why I love the experience of travel because when you're traveling, you're able to get outside of yourself with all the new stimuli around you. All of a sudden, your brain turns off that autopilot, and your brain's like, okay, everything here is new. Let me turn off. So I could, you know, take everything in and make new associations, new neural pathways. And as a result of doing that, you start to question. You start to question all your values, all your beliefs, everything that you know in life, because you have new experience to give you new meaning. So he was saying how he was in New York City, and he was kind of in that. In that, like, that race, that rat race that so many people find themselves in. And he decided to book a trip to Miami. And in Miami, he came to the realization that he could have the life that he wanted. He could be outdoors, having the social interaction with people and doing work, as well as be happy. I found that rather interesting, and I shared with him a story about one of my really good friends. My really good friend was living in Queens. He was in Brooklyn. Then he ended up moving over to Long Island City in Queensland. And whenever I would interact with this friend, he would go on and on about how New York City is the best city in the world and how he'll live there his entire life, would never leave, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not downplaying. New York City might be that city for you. What I want you to do through me, telling the story, is to question whether or not you're in that rat race or you're actually pursuing that truth. You are aligned with that which you're pursuing, that you're enjoying your experience. So I was talking with my friend, this other friend, and he was telling me how he had, like, he. Initially, he had loved it, but then his job moved him to Philadelphia. In the beginning, he was like, oh, well, you know what? I plan on coming to New York City every single weekend. And I think he actually still worked in the city, but for some reason, he had to be relocated to Philadelphia. So he was kind of, like, still holding on to this rope. He didn't want to let go of the city. But then once he moved to Philadelphia, he realized that after speaking with him on the phone, he said, yeah, oh, my gosh. He's like, I realized, you know, I was in that, like, the rat race. He's like, I couldn't see out until I was able to step out of it. He's saying how all of a sudden now. Now he had more time, he was making more Money and he had a bigger play. Like, all these things, he just started to stack. He's like. But when I was in there, I couldn't see it. I was too focused on being, trying to be better than the other person that I couldn't see out of it easily. But now I'm so much happier. Something similar with my sister through this whole thing of COVID my sister was living in New York City for probably like 20 years. And in that, I know from my interactions with my sister that she was working a lot. Sometimes she would work from the morning to like 11 o' clock at night. So she didn't have much of a social life. In which case, what's the point of living in New York City if you can't experience it? Because the whole point of living in New York City is to have that experience of like, the nightlife, the restaurants, the clubs, whatever it may be. That's why the networking, that's why you go to New York City, in my opinion, theater, arts, whatever it is. But if you're working every single day and you're not getting any satisfaction, why are you doing it? So with COVID my sister ended up spending the majority of the time back home in Stanford, Connecticut. As a result of spending that time there, she actually was able to spend more time with friends, friends with family, meeting up with friends that she had from high school, having a social life. Now all of a sudden, her relationships started getting richer and her relationship, even with us, her siblings, started improving. And I know, beyond the reason of a doubt, I don't even have to ask her, but I know that she's happier as a result of it. Because your relationships are the one area of your life, your relationships are good. Chances are it's going to spill over into all your other areas of your life. If you have great relationships, you're going to have a great life, you're going to be happy. I don't know if that's 100% true, but I believe that because I know people in my life who have the most amazing relationships. And I look at them like, wow. I see how they respond with other people. I see what's important. Long story short, going back to. I know I just gave you three stories. I gave you my Brazilian friend, my friend who was living in Brooklyn, and I gave the story of my sister. But we're going to go back to the Brazilian gentleman, and he was going on to say, listen, it's all about taking your best and sharing it to the world, combining it and to see what comes out of it. It's so easy to get into that competitive spirit to say, well, this is what I have to do, I have to do it my way. I can't get any help. And to fall in this trap of the significance of feeling that we have to do it only our way and it's got to be all in us. When the truth is that we will build something more beautiful, something with more longevity if we share with others. We're meant to share our experiences with others and give our gifts to others. And so I invite you to look for areas in your own life where you feel like you got to do it on your own, but maybe if you involved other people, how it could grow to something even more beautiful. In closing, I want to give you a few questions. So what is well being to mean? What do you want your experience of life to be? Write that down and then what are you currently pursuing? And I'll use my friend's story as an example. He was choosing to have an experience of life because he wanted to give back to his family. He wanted to give finance some of that financial abundance to his family. But the reality was, chances are his family probably wouldn't even care. I have a lot of friends all around the world, like some in impoverished countries, some who are very affluent and the people who have sometimes have lefts the simplicity of life, they value some things differently. They don't need all that. So maybe you're pursuing something for someone else when they're not asking you to do it and they don't even care. So why are you pursuing the thing you're going after? Who are you doing it for? And then what do you want your life to experience, to be? And in order to live that experience, how would you have to live today? This is one of the things I find myself always having to check into because there's always, alright, build your company. Like I travel around and like I'm like, oh, I have to build this bigger. I have to be international. All right, but what is it? What's gonna make me happy, right? What is it that's gonna. What is right for my life? Maybe that is, maybe growing an international coffee company is some point in the future. But what is my experience right now? How do I want to live? What are the emotions I want to feel? That's what's important. Because life is about emotion and everything is happening in this present moment. I firmly believe that if you align with that feeling, everything else is just going to fall in place for you. I feel a little bit fragmented in this. I gave you a bunch of different stories and a couple different kind of insights that I want you to walk away with, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. If you did, please give it a thumbs up. Subscribe Share my podcast with your friends and family. If you have any questions, you can send me a message via Instagram Onny D O N N Y R A U S and then if you like awesome coffee, check out my coffee company, RouseCoffee, where the emphasis is on experiencing life. It's about taking that moment in your day to say, what is it that I want to create? What is it that I want? What is life for you? Like, what do you want to experience? Because I believe that you'll like My workshop is live your one life and the coffee is about living your one moment, about taking that moment to say this is what matters now, to stop the distractions and to plant yourself in that ritual of your day to say, this moment is for me. I hope you enjoyed this podcast guys. God bless. I will talk to you next week. Thank you.