This Moment - Where Inspiration Happens

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. In this moment, where does inspiration happen? Where do you get those, those tugs by the universe, God, source, whatever you want to call it, to pull you in the direction that you know that you'll be most happy. Or maybe it's just that thing that you know you have to do, but because you're so lost in your day, because there's so much noise in the background, you can't even hear this little whisper. And that's exactly what it is, this guiding voice that literally is there at your availability 24 7. It's not a loud voice, it's a small whisper guiding. You say, move here, do this, don't do that, avoid this. But where so many people get caught up, including yours really, is that we allow the noise of our environment, the noise of the world, the noise of our mind to overpower and overshadow this true voice that's in there that knows exactly what we want, exactly what we need to do in order to get it. Yesterday I was doing some work. I went to get my car worked on. It was an early morning, one of the first appointments of the morning. By the time I got out of getting my car done, it was about 10 o'. Clock. At 10 o' clock in the morning, by that point, I'm like, all right, so what do I do now? I didn't really know how to spend the rest of my day. I ended up going down to the auto repair place. I ended up picking up some filters, some of the recommended service things that I needed to do in order to keep my car running smoothly. I installed them. I did like this repair on my car battery. And now it was probably around 12 o' clock in the afternoon. I'm, you know, I go into my room and I'm trying to do work at my desk. And I'm sitting there and my eyes, my, like my Mind, everything's shouting, no, I do not want to be here. But I'm trying to force myself to do some work. I'm sitting at my desk, I'm not getting a whole lot done. And then I said, you know what, I just need to close my eyes. I need to go lay down for a little bit. So I lay down on my bed. I snoozed for probably about like 30 minutes or so. Then I woke up and I was like, I need to get outside. The day was beautiful yesterday. So I walked out, I went outside and I called my father to meet at my brother's house because we had to pick some stuff up and my father needed my help because the stuff was heavy. While I was there, I took my computer and I said I was about to get in the car to come back home to try to attempt to do more work. And then I said to myself, you know what, let me just grab my computer, let me go on his porch and let me just see if I could connect to his Internet. I didn't have the code, so I ended up just using my phone. But in that moment, like, I was in a new surrounding and I pulled my computer out and all of a sudden I started just. I sent one email, which set off a chain reaction, and it was like to a processing authority. And literally I got more done in 30 minutes than I probably would have done the entire day. So what happened? Like, what happened? How is this even possible? How can you condense like a day's worth of work into 30 minutes? It's because you become completely focused on what's important, what matters, what needs to get done, not all the other noise that's in your environment. So let's this. So I'm talking about work, but this is not where I wanted to go. I want to talk about your life. I want to talk about the things that you. That are pulling at your heartstrings. And the intention of this is to really connect. You understand that it takes a connection to the moment in order to connect to all these things that you want, the things that are going to make you feel alive. But the only way to connect to that moment is to break away from all the noise is to give your mind something different to focus on or not focus on. Sometimes reading a book can do that because instead of your mind wandering around like a noisy monkey, it's focused on taking in each word. And as a result, your mind's busy and it leaves you open to absorb what's on the page. Very much is true about having a new experience. I was Talking with my 10, my friend Tara yesterday. We were talking about travels. I was telling her about my upcoming trip to Portugal, and I was saying how. Well, I think I was. I don't remember exactly what the conversation was about, but it went along the lines of me telling her that I have absolutely nothing planned. And how I like that, because I have nothing planned. My consciousness is open to everything. I'm taking in things because everything is new. I'm meeting new people. And it's because I'm in this experience of new. This experience where nothing is planned, because life doesn't happen when it's planned. All of a sudden, I'm open to life happening for me. I'm open to all the messages, everything, all the good juice. And she said, well, you know, I have to plan everything. She's like, I don't know what I would do if I just went in there without planning the thing she said would make her anxious. Then I challenged. I said, well, let's look at. Let's pick one of your best experiences. She goes, well, I've traveled and I've had amazing times. I've had great memories. All right, let's go with that. I said, think about one of those memories. What was it that made that memory so special? Was it because you planned something, or was it because something unexpected happened? She's like, well, she thought about it for a while, and I came and I said, it's because something unexpected. Because if you had a plan, every single thing, and you knew how it was going to happen, life would be boring. We forget that life, the excitement of life comes from, like, the unknowns. But we develop this aversion to the unknowns because we're afraid of what may go wrong. So if we. We have to start to hone in and guide our thoughts to work for us rather than against us. Now I'd given her example. I was like, well, chances are you met somebody or you had some experience that was not planned, right? Yeah, you might have planned some of the things. But it's the unexpected thing. If you knew who you were going to meet, exactly what time you're going to meet, what you were going to have for dinner. It doesn't really sound that exciting giving you one of my own adventures when, you know, one of the most alive times I've ever felt was I was in Thailand and I met a girl on a plane, and she was headed to this place called Pai. So I was like, all right, well, I'm spending the day In Chiang Mai. So, you know, maybe I'll rent a scooter and I'll come up there tomorrow morning, rent a scooter. Coming out, I pull out and my mind was like. I was very uneasy because I'm like, I've never driven in another country. I think Thailand was the opposite side of the road as well. Or maybe that was Krabi. I can't remember. And I'm going through this industrial zone and I'm freaking out. Actually, let me backtrack. I asked myself, Gary, I was scared shitless because I had to sit out, and I'm like, well, should I go? Should I not go? I'd already explored the city the day before on a scooter, and I'd seen a lot of the main attractions. It's not that big of a city. And I said, all right, well, what if I wasn't afraid? What choice would it make? The choice became clear. I was like, oh, I would go. I would just do it. So I started driving out. I came into this industrial zone and I was tempted to turn back. And all of a sudden, my Google Navigator in my ear because I had my headphones on said, turn left. I look left and there is this road going into the mountains that looks stunning, looked peaceful. Everything was lush green. And then I remember turning left and then literally screaming at the top of my lungs as if, like, you know, like, yeah, putting my arm up in the air as I started to proceed up this hill. I mean, I'm not even going to go into the entire story here, but so many things happened, and it was beyond what I could have ever had imagined because I didn't plan a single thing. I just knew what the end. That end destination was. And I left myself open to the experiences. So that is what I was. The message I was trying to get her tell her, is just, yes, there is some planning that needs to happen, but leave yourself open to every possibility. Don't plan and structure everything, because then you're not allowing the spice to come in. I've had trips like that, too. Where. When I was in Italy or even when I was in Ireland most recently, because there were so many people traveling, I had to plan a lot of stuff in advance. And I had put too much on my itinerary. So I spent a lot of the time in the car. There wasn't much room for the unknown to be flexible. Same thing. All right, so we're talking about trips here, but that's not. Again, it's to show a point, but it's not where I want to take you. Where I want to take you is how you can apply this to your day. Like, how do you. How do you become present in your day? Like, what can you do? So this way you open yourself up to hearing those. Those voices, that guidance that is innate, that it's inside of you. Part of it is. Well, one of the things is through rituals. It's one of the main reasons I do my. Like, I enjoy my coffee is because I use that ritual to connect myself. I use that ritual to become quiet. Usually I will read or I'll take my journal and I'll go outside and I'll just journal for a little while. And I noticed, just like I did right now, like I was actually going to do a completely different post, but then I went outside to do a little journaling and then this came up because I felt like my intention when I was writing was what is it that I need to share that would make an impact in someone's life? And when I said that what I was initially gonna do, I don't even remember what it was anymore, left my mind. And this came in. So coffee. Coffee, connecting you to life. What other rituals do you like? What rituals do you have that give you that ability? And if you don't have any, it's time for you to make some. So let's start with some questions. What are the rituals you have that connect you to the moment, that allow your mind to ease and peace so that you could connect to your greater desires? Second, how often do you partake in those rituals? If you're doing it never, or once a week. That needs a change. If you're doing it daily, at least once a day, I'm going to suggest doing it at least twice a day, preferably three times a day. And then how do you feel when you take that time when you let your mind relax and you start to look, you start to see, wow, the trees, they're blossoming. The grass is green. And you see birds, like bouncing around, chirping. How does that make you feel? It connects you. I'm willing to, beyond a doubt. It connects you to the present moment. It connects you here. And what is available to you when you do connect there. And then next, after we've said, okay, how many rituals? How many times? How do we connect? How many times? What's the frequency? Now? If it's. I'm willing to bet I don't know many people who take time to really, really be in their day or moments of their day. So how can we connect more. What things can we do that'll connect us? And only you can answer that. For me, it's coffee. Like, I. My coffee ritual is a moment for me. I stop, I sit outside, I sip my espresso and I wander, I ponder the world. Sometimes I journal, sometimes I'm looking at picture books of literally an atlas, a picture atlas, and I'm thinking about where the heck I want to travel next. Or I'll ask myself a question and just let myself journal and respond and then usually something else will come through. How can you implement more rituals in your day to allow you that space to wonder, to feel inspired, and then schedule them in your day? Because here's the thing, this is probably the main point that I want to drive home is that when you are busy and you wake up and you're like, oh, I don't have time to take a moment. I gotta get to work, I have to have breakfast. You were already in that trap, right? Nothing new, nothing inspired is gonna come through to you unless it's literally shaking you, which is not really a good. Like you don't want to be shaken, right? Like, imagine you're sleeping and someone shakes you. It scares the living crap out of you. But isn't it so much nicer when you. You wake up nicely and then you just feel one with your day. That's where we want to get to. But when you are constantly going, going, going, you can't connect that day. And here, here's the oxymoron. It's not even oxymoron when you take the time to connect to your day. When you make. When you plan and you schedule the rituals in your day, say it's coffee in the morning, outside on my deck, or reading a book, four o' clock in the afternoon, that's what I do. And you have a coffee there. Or maybe at night. Another thing I like to do is I like to literally sit outside when it's dead quiet because nobody goes out at night anymore, no one sits outside. And I like to have that be my time when I do that. Or I should say when you do that, when you schedule the two to three times in your day, it starts to become easier. It starts to become easier to connect to yourself, to unwind, to relax, to get present. If you want to take it a step further, you can make literally a simple spreadsheet and say, write the days and write three checkboxes next to it. And every time you take that break, check off one of the boxes and you get to decide how many times? Preferably you can check in 10 times a day because it doesn't take that long to check in, to become present and to realize and remember why you're doing the thing you're doing. I mean, it could be work that's not fulfilled right. You're doing it because it is a job. But that job is serving a purpose. That job is like, you know what? Yeah, I want to do my best here because, I mean, while I may not have the passion for it, I know that it helps other people or I want to do good because this is what gives my livelihood and I'm putting kids through college, I'm doing all this stuff and connecting to the reasons why. But that's only going to happen by making yourself go there, by creating the rituals to go there first. Ultimately, what it's all about is I want to connect you to life. Even more so than just like, you know why you're doing the thing you do. I want the inspiration to come in and say, you know what? These are the things that I really want to do in life. These are the things that I've been wanting to do for the last 10, 20, 30 years. That would make me like 10. But what are those things? Because they don't leave you, they're gonna stay with you. And I want you to do them because I know how much they would open up your life. One of my desires still is to live abroad, maybe to live in Rome. Although I try to think back like, alright, well, 10 years earlier, what advice would I give myself? 10 years earlier, I would tell myself to move to Europe and then start doing all this stuff. But now I feel a different call and things have been happening, but I want you to experience that fullness. I live my life. I travel at least three times a year, seeing new countries because that's what makes me feel alive. Well, some people, it scares the living shit out of them. Maybe it scares you, but you're not me and I'm not you. So what do you do? I just made a Dr. Seuss rhyme for you. It's all about your life, how you live. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, but it matters what you think. What matters is your experience of it. So just make sure that the experience you're having is one that's right for you. That is all I've got for you guys today. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I hope that this podcast in some way maybe just made you think a little bit differently about your day. And at the very least, made you take some pause in your day. Because life is about so much more than just doing so much. It's about being. I mean, it sounds very like, oh, it's about being, not doing. Of course, we all know that, but how many of us actually do it right on a consistent basis? So it's about taking the time for life again. That's all I've got for you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please consider subscribing so this way you don't miss a single beat. You can get these inspirations, these little nudges to say, hey, remember what you really wanted, those desires you had, Go for them. I'm cheering for you. And I lost my train of thought. But yeah, you can subscribe. You could comment, you could ask a question. You could Visit me at www.donnyrouse.com. again, www.donnierouse.com. god bless you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. And remember, you get one life. Live it. Thank you so much.