Live the Sweet Life - A European State of Mind

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. You are listening to the podcast One Life. Live the Sweet Life. Is it possible to live in a European state of mind, even if you're here in the United States? Said differently, is it positive to live any kind of state of mind, wherever you are? The reason this podcast was inspired was I was doing my coffee deliveries and I was up in Fairfield, and as I was pulling out, I heard two gentlemen talking. And they both had accents, European accents, and comes to turn out, one was France, one was from Poland. So as I was about to pull away in my car, I heard one of the gentlemen talk about the lifestyle and how he works so hard. He's always stressed here. There never seems like there's enough time to do anything. And he was going on and on and on about this. And it struck any time anyone speaks at all about any kind of traveler and experience or even like the dolce vita, the slowing down, it immediately grabs my attention. So as I was pulling out, I actually went back into drive and I pulled in, back into the parking spot, and I got out of the car and I approached the two guys. They were actually sitting at two different tables. But before I get you any further, is it possible, can you live a European state of mind here at home? Can you have the experiences that you would have living at home or being in this hometown that you're in? I'm not going to argue yes or no, but I'm going to tell my story and I'm going to let you decide whether or not you can or can't. Because ultimately, it's really in your mind. And I would have been one to argue that no. You know, travel gives you this certain type of experience, which it does. It widens your borders. It gets you out of that box that we live in every day. But there's. There's another side to it, and I'll get to it in the story. So as we were. I got out of my car, I said, you mind if I. You know, I was like, I heard you talking about the European way of life, and it intrigued me. I was like, do you mind if. What were you guys talking about? So they went on to say how he moved. The gentleman, the French guy, he moved over here when he was younger. And he said at the time it was very fitting for his lifestyle. There's a lot of opportunity, and it was always, go, go, go, go, go. But now he noticed that all he felt was stress, that there was never enough time to do anything. The Polish gentleman, who was sitting a couple tables back echoed the entire thing. He was, yeah, you know, when I go to Poland, he's like, I go hiking, I go fishing. And when I'm here, it's literally work all the time. There's not time to do anything. Just from listening to this, you could actually already see a fault in the thinking, a fault in the focus. So why can't you take time to relax? Is anybody making you rush and not have time for the rest of your life? One of the gentlemen, the gentleman, the Polish guy, was a business owner, so he had his own business. Was anyone holding him back from going fishing? Was anyone holding him back from going hiking? Either of them? We were there and we were having, like. We were just talking a conversation, and I shared an experience with them. I said, you know what? I have friends. You know, I just got back from Portugal, and I agree. When I was in Portugal, everyone seemed to just kind of take the time. They take the time to go out. They take the time to be with friends, even if they're married. My married friends overseas would take the time to, after work, even if it's somewhat late, to just make. Take a moment to go out with friends, have a coffee or something. They don't let life pass them by because there's always too much to do. Then I started speaking about the coffee ritual. Specifically in Italy. Is that when Italy, if you were to give somebody a takeaway cup, they would throw it back in your face. Maybe. But it probably would not, because they don't drink the coffee necessarily just because they want the taste. They drink the coffee because it's a pause in their day. It's a break from. From like the. The work schedule. It's a time for them to maybe say a few words to a friend, to have the moment to sit at the bar, exchange a few words with a barista, whatever it may be. But that's not how we do it here. When Was the last time you grabbed a coffee just for the sake of taking that time out of your day just to sit down and enjoy? It doesn't have to be at a cafe. It doesn't be anywhere, right? You could take. Take a moment to be in the moment at any moment. That was good. I'll have to replay that little saying for that little phrase, but it's the truth. So as I stood up and I said, here, do not move. I'll be right back, I asked, did you drink espresso? One guy said, yes. I asked the French guy. I was like, do you drink espresso? He's like, yes, but it's a little bit too late. I said, I'll get you decaf. So I went inside and I spoke to the barista or the cashier and said, can I please have three espressos, two regular, one decaf? They were serving Kimbo, one of my favorite brands. And as I was talking with her, I noticed that Kimbo has this long cup. It's very narrow. It's similar to the cups that I had just experienced when I was in Portugal. They don't serve coffee like that anywhere else that I've seen. And it was kind of odd being like an Italian company serving in this elongated cup. Just a difference in cup. All different places have their own kind of drinkware. Just something I noticed. So I commented. I said, yeah, they just had these same cups in Poland. It's kind of OD that an Italian company serves espresso in these cups. Without even saying anything, the girl behind the counter went on to say, oh, my God, yeah, Portugal, man, I wish I could go there. Sounds like, amazing. And she went on to tell me all these dreams that she has about traveling the world. Well, she's got Puerto Rican, Italian, and she might have been Portuguese, too. She goes, I would love to go to any of those places. Anywhere you gave me a ticket, I would want to go. She'd go, oh, man. What it would be like just to have the freedom to travel, Even if I worked somewhere abroad, what I would do just to have that experience, it's kind of. I was like, wow. All right. Well, this is kind of. All these serendipitous things are happening to me in this moment. So I was telling her, I gave her my contact info. I said, listen, if you ever want to talk at all about anything travel related, I promise you, like, I'm more than happy to help out because I've done it and I love it. You know, I went on to. I told Her. I've been to 46 countries thus far, and I plan on doing many more. But I would help her do whatever she desired if you just reach out to me. So I left and brought the three espressos outside. I'm sitting outside with the French guy and the Polish guy. It sounds like the start of a good joke, but we were just literally started talking. I don't even remember what specifically we were talking about. We just started laughing about different things. One of the Polish guy has a jiu jitsu company, and he was telling me how one of his competitors, who has a studio right next across from him, he's like, oh, you know what? Who introduced him to espresso? He's like, I did. It was just like meaningless talk. But at the same time, it was so meaningful because at that moment, everybody was slowing down. Everyone was taking the time to be in the moment. This was my intention here. My intention was to show them that you don't have to necessarily be anywhere to have, like, that dolce vita to live the European lifestyle, but you do have to be conscious, and you do have to have the intention to take the moment and to make the moment. So we were sitting there and I might have even expressed, you know what? When I have European friends come to the United States, it's like I'm in European time, right? Because things change because their philosophies on life are different. All of a sudden. Now I'm taking breaks. I'm doing things in my day that feel good. How often do you do that? I'm not asking them in the story. I'm asking you, how often do you take moments in your day for enjoyment, to take that little break, that little pause? Maybe it's a cup of coffee, maybe it's a cup of tea. Maybe it is just a deep inhale and exhale outside once a day. Hopefully more than that. How often do you take the time if you've traveled? My siblings just. Actually just got back from Greece. My brother and his wife, they were talking about, like, oh, my God, it was amazing there. I would love to be there. I would love to go to Greece. I'm like, well, this is what I said to the two gentlemen. I said, well, yeah, it's great to have that lifestyle, but why is everybody fighting to come here? Because people want to work. So remember, why did you come to this country? And they're like, well, yeah, it was a life decision that I made. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm grateful for being here as well, because had I not been born in the United States and started my business and built it up to the point where now I can travel, I travel all the world and I'm extremely lucky to do that. But I've also made the decision to build this business, to make it so that I have that flexibility. Very few places in the world where you're able to do that now. It's change where with the right job you could work from anywhere and you could have that lifestyle. But I digress. The point I am trying to make is that when and how often do you take the time to be present in life, to take that pause to enjoy life, whether it be with a cup of coffee. What has been the difference between your travels anywhere in the world, if you've been fortunate enough to travel versus what you're doing here now where you feel like you don't have time, it's important that you become very self aware of what is happening, right? Because otherwise you're literally just going to keep spinning your head saying oh my God, I'm stressed, I have no time. From my own experience, I noticed that when I've been abroad, not like rarely do I even look at my phone. Rarely. Well, I mean I don't really look at news here, but rarely do I even look at a tv. Now if you scan your life and you say, well, how much contact do you have with media in a given day and how does it affect you, right? There is very little good that's on the news. Well, I don't believe there's any really good on the news. People will kind of throw fits at me because I say I don't watch the news because it's meaningless. There's so much banter and everything else is trying to get your attention. And the point I'm trying to make right now is they're trying to get your attention. I'm trying to get your attention by you listening this. But I'm trying to benefit you. I'm trying to give you a gift for you to realize, to become aware that this is your life and if you want to, you know, enjoy, take the time and take the time, take the moment right now to just be and enjoy the moment. But how often are you on social media doing stuff that shit that doesn't even matter, that no one else is going to care about. If anything, it's probably breaking down your own self confidence because you're putting different filters on your face and you're posing and making sure that everyone looks like you're having A great time. But what it's doing is taking you out of the here and now. Become conscious of the patterns. And I would say the. Not even the patterns like the, the word I'm looking for is the disassociation patterns that you have. When we disassociate, we dissociate by doing our, like our habits with, around maybe grabbing a coffee whenever something you know, you don't even know why you're grabbing a coffee or checking on social media when you just checked two minutes ago or five seconds ago and nothing new happened. But you feel like you got to go on just in case someone liked one of your photos. Something become aware because this is what is stealing your lifeblood. This is what's stealing those precious moments that you can do or be using literally just to breathe in the fresh air, take a step outside, spend some quality time with someone you love. So in closing the story, when I was speaking to these guys, the point of I went in, I grabbed the coffees to show them that you don't need to have that Europe, you don't need to be in Europe to live the European lifestyle. We had a moment right there as they both got up, they were like, they thanked me for the experience and they said, oh, now we have our little European group. And that is how it happens. Taking the time to just be and enjoy the moment. So again, I do want to go back to those questions because I really, more than anything, I want you to become self aware of where you're spending your time, where you're distracting yourself. So this way you can get it back and you could start to take those moments of enjoyment because really all you have is this moment. Hence the reason why this podcast is named One Life. Because you only have one life. And with time being our greatest asset, we have to be conscious of where we're spending it. So let's go back to the beginning. One, the question was, is it possible to live a European lifestyle? Or in essence like the, like La Dolce Vita, take the time for enjoyment wherever you are, or if you're living in Europe, maybe it's like the American lifestyle, right? Because when we get out of our square, the box that we live in mean the day to day routines. That's where we start to break and we start to look at life differently. Two, what do you do differently when you're on vacation versus when you're home? Three, how much time do you spend in distraction? I once went to a seminar, I said, you're never going to tell yourself the Truth. Because you don't want to know the truth. You don't want to know how much time you spend in distraction. I think majority of people spend the majority of their time distracted. The phone, it's a great piece of technology, but it's taking away our life in many regards. So we want to be conscious of how much time we're spending on the screen, how much time we're spending doing these things that distract us. Maybe it is grabbing a cup of coffee, maybe that's a distraction. But if it is, I want you to transform that ritual. Rather than use it as a distraction, use it as a tool to get present. And you know when you're present, right? You feel like you could feel when you're present. When you're present, everything comes into focus. Things become clearer, like the sounds become more crisp. And then last question. How can you start to integrate those things into your day? How can you start to take time for yourself in your day so that you enjoy it more? That is all I've got for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this. I am very passionate about, like, I mean, I love traveling, I love Europe. And it's because it gets me outside my box. It lets me have a different perspective on life. And that perspective is what I'm sharing with you is from having that perspective, I realize, like the different value systems that are all around the world. And yet all it takes is a shift in the perspective in order for you to see it, what's right there in front of you. Right. The change doesn't happen like we experience. I've said it a million times and I'll say it again. We don't experience the world. We experience ourselves through the filters that we see the world. If you enjoyed this, please give it a thumbs up. Maybe two thumbs up. Or if you have more than two hands, like four thumbs up. But give it a thumbs up. If you have any questions, comments, or if you'd like to subscribe, you can visit www.donnyrouse.com again. Www.dot O n n y r a u s dot com. That is all I got for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this. Remember, you get one life. Live it. God bless and I will see you again soon.