Path To Joy

Hi, my name is Donnie Rouse and you are listening to the podcast One Life Path to Joy. Our emotions are one of the most powerful contributing factors in our lives. And when you look at why our emotions are so important, why they are so impactful in our lives, it's because it's a feedback loop. Our emotions can our emotions play on the actions we're willing to take and then the actions we willing to take or we do take into our emotions? Prior to discovering or becoming clear about what exactly this meant, I was in the dark. And I didn't fully understand what it meant to control my focus. There were times in my past where I used this extreme sense of focus to. To succeed in an outcome that I was going for, such as in school, as well as in my weightlifting competition. But then there were other parts of my life where I couldn't grasp it. I couldn't seem to grasp and maintain this level of inspiration that I had when I had started the project that I sit that I set out with. So what exactly was that? So I looked back when I was in college. I. It was my sophomore year. My freshman year was not a good year for me, partially because I was in and out of the Doctors for Lyme disease. And I started dating a girl. And as a result of dating the girl, I literally every single day we would spend time together. And both of our grades suffered as a result of that. But there was an instance there where I became very clear about what it was that I wanted. And what I wanted was to get into the school of business and I wanted to major in finance because at the time, I thought I wanted to be a stockbroker. Can you imagine me, stockbroker? And what happened was, it was this clarity. I had this spark of inspiration. And in that one moment, everything that needed to be done became very clear to me. I started taking action, I started studying. And as a result of that, I was getting literally straight A's in every single one of my classes. I had friends who were around me who they would call them the lost years because I didn't exist. I didn't go out with them, I didn't hang out with them. But once I started getting the results, everyone started getting inspired themselves, like, well, wow, if he can do it, then why can't I? And every year, I kind of built up this. As I would get my report card, I would see, I would get A's. And it was this positive reinforcement letting me know that I was on the right path. And upon seeing that, I would do even Better the next year and spend more time studying. And then in the next year until I graduated. And within my major I was something like a 3.3.83 I believe was my major nearly, nearly perfect. I think I got a B in the school of business. So there was something there that was causing me to like that allowed me to get these grades. And the state came from part of my focus, but I wasn't yet aware of what it was. Fast forward to my weightlifting competition. Now, this is many years later I decided that I was going to do weightlifting competition. It was spurred from a friend of mine who doubted my ability to be able to compete with him. So this comment just kind of sparked this inspiration. I was like, you know what? I am going to compete with you. And then literally the next day or two, I was at the person who was putting on the competition. I was at his desk signing up for the competition. And when he told me, listen, you don't have to do this yet. The competition is not for another like seven months. You can come back and then we could fill up the paper, I was like, no, you don't understand. I have to do this now. I have to sign this now because I know there's a commitment there. And by doing so, by locking myself in there and feeding and taking action on that inspiration, I was able to move forward knowing that I had committed to a result. So you're probably looking at this, but, well, what does this have to do with emotion? You just told me that emotions control their states. And you're telling me now that you do these things, you have these outcomes, these visions that you wanted, but they're not saying anything about the emotion. Well, yes they are. The emotion came from my focus. Seeing my having my friend doubt my ability to compete was my focus. As a result of having that focus, it fed my emotion to prove him wrong. And that was my focus. And that emotion that it filled me with was determination and the will to prove them wrong. In college, the emotion was pretty much the same thing. Although it wasn't someone challenging me, it was me challenging myself. Because in that instance, my world flashed before my eyes. My thought process when I was in the university was, if I don't completely do a 180, my life is over. That's what I thought. I graduate and then I spend one year in finance and I go into coffee. But at the time, that was my thinking. And it was that thinking that pushed me forward semester after semester, year after year to finish the way I did. Fast forward now. Now I'M in a different phase of my life. I've had my coffee company going for the last 10 years, but now I'm hungry. I'm looking for something different. I'm looking to create a different experience for my life. And so I joined a community of like minded individuals who do coaching. Nevertheless, I never thought I actually would get into coaching, but I like to play around with the words a little bit. I like to call it a guide. Because deep down I do believe that each of us has the ability and deserves to live life on our terms. We deserve to live a life that we love and are passionate about. So while when I signed up for this course that I was taking, it wasn't with the intention of actually ever doing kind of coaching, although it kind of like went in that direction. But as a result of doing this course, then all of a sudden these different things came into my life. So I don't believe there are any accidents. So stuff like writing a book, doing a workshop, like doing journaling, doing journalism about coffee overseas, all these different ideas came in as a result of me joining this, this group. And I would immediately take action on all these different items and then the action would fall away. So going back to the motion, what was going on? What was flawed in my thinking? What was it? Wasn't that something? And then after time, I realized there wasn't really anything flawed with my thinking. I had just forgotten what my purpose was. I've forgotten what inspired me to do it in the first place. Each of those times when I started writing my book, when I had came up with the idea to journalism, when I came here and did the podcast, I mean the podcast, this has been going strong now for almost a year. And it's because I had it started. When I started this podcast, there was a very vivid vision. I was in this beautiful studio in Westport, Connecticut and had this nice mic stand and I felt like I imagined myself being famous and not, well, not really. Fame wasn't a part of it, but I just. Because of the setup, I imagined it being legit. So it's almost like starting at your end goal in a way, because they had the entire setup, the camera, you name it, they had it there. So that was enough to plug me into that spot where I was like, wow, this is what it's like once you make it as a podcast, you know, because I had all. And I thought about the people I would interview. And so I've kept that going. And in a lot of ways the vision for the podcast has shifted now. Now I'm doing more interviews with people and that is kind of like the same thing. We're talking about emotion. Right? Hone back in. Are you still with me? So the emotion. So with podcasts, I had this vision and I made a habit out of it where now when every time I know I have to step up to the microphone, I'm going to do the content, even when it kind of irks me inside. I remember how I feel when I'm here and I remember how I feel knowing that I'm sharing this with you and looking back at these other tasks that I kind of fell off, like the book, the writing about coffee overseas while I'm traveling and these things that would give me the freedom of lifestyle that I so much desire. Well, what happened to those? The workshop, what happened to those? The online courses, what happened to those? What happened was I was acting. When I went to do these things, it was two different things, but they both have to deal with emotion. Two, not four. If you see me, I'm making up the two sign, but I'm holding up two hands. But it's only two, one hand up. And what it was was a couple things. One was I wasn't putting myself in this place of inspiration where I. Where I was when I initially got the idea and I took my first action. Secondly, when I went to work on this task, when I went to work towards the completion of this, this objective, I wasn't putting myself in that state. So if you remember, what I first said in the opening is that our state determines our action, our action returns our state. It's this constant feedback loop. You take shitty, you're in a shitty state. You're going to take shitty action. And it loops around. When you're in a great state, you're going to take bigger action because you feel more confident, you feel good. I was trying to take actions on all these tasks that I was trying to complete, to do my book, to do journalism, to complete this coaching course. And I was coming in a lousy state, which showed itself in the work that I was doing. Last night I was doing a elevator pitch, which is my unique selling proposition for my business. And why was I doing it? Last night it was like 11 o' clock at night and I wanted to go to sleep early, but part of the morning, that morning started off a little bit rough. I was a headache. I was a little bit out of it because I had been indoors the entire day. But I managed to sneak outside to do a couple walks, which always changes my state. My creativity comes when I go for these walks. Now. I used to walk without a phone. Now I don't like it, but I still bring my phone. Because all of a sudden all these ideas will just come flooding in and I'm like, I can't remember. There's too many things coming at me. And because my mind is relaxed and all of a sudden all this creative stuff just flows. So 11 o', clock, I'm getting ready to go to bed and I'm feeling pretty relaxed. And then all of a sudden I get this, you know what? I think I'm going to work on my usp. And all of a sudden I'm like, yeah, what the heck? Let me just sit down, let me do it for a couple minutes. I did it for a couple minutes and I ended up rocking it out of the park. When I say rocking out of the park, you're like, what the hell does that mean? Rocking it out of the park with a USB unique selling proposition. Rocking it out of the park means I created a statement that hit true to me. Hitting true to me meant it described my purpose, it described the people that I was looking to reach. And as a result, it struck that, like that heart chord or the. What do they play? The heartstrings? Heart chords. I can't remember what the saying is, but that's what has struck with me. And it got me emotional and really excited to finally hone in on what it was that I wanted to give my purpose with my business, that I wanted to give the world and who I wanted to help. And it couldn't have come at a different time. I was trying to do this the entire day. I was trying to do it for the last week, but it didn't come. Why? Because I was in a shitty state. It wasn't until I was in a really good state where I was feeling good and I said, you know what? This is what I'm feeling called to do. Let me go for it, let me write it, start writing it down. And then it just flowed. And so what can we take from all of this, right? My end realization was that I'm in control of my state in that unless I put myself in that state, I'm not going to get the results I want. I'm not going to bring the joy to my life that I deserve. So the conclusion, we have to bring that state, we have to create that state on our own. It's up to us how we show up every single day. I was reading, I'm going to butcher her name I know it. Rhonda Bryan, she wrote the book the Secret, and she goes every day, decide to be happy. Happiness is a decision. I did an interview with Isaac Litsky, the New York Times bestselling author of Eyes Wide Open, and he said the same thing. He said, decide. You have to decide to be happy because we forget that everything we feel is a choice. And you might have. That might trigger some feelings. You might say, like, oh, well, you know, you think I want to feel this way? You think I want to feel down? You think I want to feel angry? No, you don't want to feel it. But it's become such an easy, such a reused neural pathway that it's just become second nature to you, right? It's like, think of it this way. I mean, imagine. Imagine you're angry at somebody, right? You're looking at them, and all of a sudden there's a. There's someone like a. Doing a clown dance or something like that in the background. It's going to start to throw you off. But when you start to focus on that and you change your focus from the person you're angry at or whatever the anger issue is to the person behind you, you actually might start to laugh. And it might seem like a weird example, like, what the heck's that doing? The fact is that you're making a conscious choice to focus on what's beyond you. You're making the conscious choice to take your focus away from that anger and to put it towards something else. That is what it means to choose your emotions. That's what it means to make the decision to be happy. And again, it's not something that is going to come easy at first because we've trained ourselves not to, right? We've trained ourselves to go into these areas where we feel angry and we. We like the anger because anger makes us feel confident, anger makes us feel certain, anger makes us feel significant. So in closing, if there's anything I could leave you with in this episode, it is just to become aware when you see yourself. When you are able to step back and see yourself feeling angry, fearing that anger building, just take a step back and just say, wow, that's interesting. When you're able to be aware and conscious of it already, right there, you're starting to separate the thought, and that is where the chain starts. We'll get into. In other podcasts, we'll get into ways of changing your state, how to change emotions literally to anything you want. I have my own little theory on this that I've been practicing during my walks, and it's pretty freaking awesome. But the first thing is to become aware of your state. And guys, that is it. This is the first. If you're hearing this, if you're watching this, I should say for the first time, this is the date right now is the 28th of April. 2020. 20. 20. 20. 2020. Yeah, it is 2020. And if you're watching this on this date, it's because you are part of my Facebook group and you have the privilege. If you are not watching this live, then that means you should join because you are going to see this much, much later now. But that is it. Guys. Thank you so, so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this, this podcasting session. If you like this, share it, invite other people to the groups. This way they can view this video and yeah, just. I want you to know more than anything that you deserve to be happy. You deserve you. I'm giving you permission to follow your dreams, to live the life you love, because you're worthy. You're more than capable. You just have to believe in yourself and make a few adjustments just to learn how that mind, that crazy machine in your head works. But once you get that down, I promise you that you can do it. That is it, guys. Have a beautiful rest of your weekend. Thank you for tuning in and I will see you next week. God bless.