Undesirable Power - Emotional Push and Pull

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, Undesirable Power. There are two forces in the human psychology that cause us to change. Change. It's a push and pull. It's either a move towards what we want or a move away from what we don't want. Which one is more powerful to you? So we tend to use one over the other because, well, I know from my own experience, I was always motivated by the push or, yeah, by the push, meaning having the negative experience, looking at what I didn't want, what I wanted to avoid, and have that be the catalyst to move me forward. But if you want to create kind of like that, maximum thrust, if you want to move forward faster, better, more efficient, you have to utilize both. You got to utilize the push with the pull. So which one do you think you are? I have a few questions that I want you to contemplate as a result of listening to this podcast. First of all, I want you to think about a situation in your life that you're not really happy with. One of the examples I'm going to give in the story is someone who is very unhappy, or not really unhappy, to say the least, with their job. And as a result, it was having an effect on their entire life. So it doesn't have to be something as big as that, but if it's more comfortable for you, you could start with something small, like maybe getting to the gym. And then I'm going to ask a series of questions. The first one is, by not changing, what will it cost you one year from now? What will it cost you three years from now? What are you giving up? What are you missing out on as a result of not making the change? And because all of our decisions not only affect us, but they affect those around us. How will not changing affect those people who you love, the people you surround yourself with, Your friends, your family. And then last, because we don't want to always focus on the push. We want to focus on the pull. The thing that's going to pull us towards the desired outcome that we want. How will your experience of life change as a result of taking that action, making that decision? What will it bring into your life? I was on a date, I think it was this past week. I lost track of time. But as I was on this date, I was talking with this person and she was kind of sharing me their experiences at work and literally just kind of opened up the floodgates on me. One of the things she was talking about was her career and how she was very unhappy with it, but it was a stable job. She went on to say, every day I sit at my desk and I say to myself, what the fuck am I doing here? I am literally quoting her. When I asked her what she wanted, she said, well, you know, I wanted. Her desire was she wanted to travel more. Here was the. So I, of course, being a traveler, I gave her a bunch of options, like, well, if that's what you want to do, that's easy. We can totally, you know, I could totally help you plan this out. And the irony was, is that her job was remote. So if she wanted to, she could literally work from everywhere, anywhere in the world and have her American salary, which is invaluable. So I was trying to tell her all, you know, tell her all these things and like all the possibilities that were there, but she couldn't see it. She couldn't see the opportunity right in front of her face. The thing that she was focusing on was, well, but isn't it so risky? Like, what if something happens? What if, you know, I go there? And I think she even quoted like the movie Hostel, which everyone quotes like, as it being like not safe for women to travel. I will say if you're female, yes, you have to pay more attention to your surroundings. But to say that it's less safe, I think is just a limiting story that a lot of women tell themselves. The reason why I say this was because I was very hesitant to travel solo. But then when I was on some of these trips, I would meet women who were traveling by themselves, some of them a lot younger than me, like 15 years old, traveling Europe by themselves, backpacking, you know, and even in Africa, I met like an 18 year old. I'm like, what the heck? Why am I afraid? Well, this, the 18 year old, I was traveling solo when I met them. But the point of the story is that your story can either control, you pull you forward or it hold you back. So if that is the story, I want you to just kind of create a new mental script, but going back to the story. So she was going about how, like, how scary it would be to, you know, to go off on her own to travel solo. And she was also went into, I think, like, the risk. She's like, well, I can't believe that you took that risk. I was telling her how when I started out, like I had left, I was working corporate. I was very unhappy with my job. Great people I worked with, awesome people, but it just wasn't work that was aligned with me. I would literally sit at my desk every single day like, oh my God, is this all there is? I probably used the language that she used too, until one point I hit a threshold and I made the decision to pursue my passion for coffee. And as a result of that, also traveling the world. So do you need to hit that emotional threshold before you can make a change? I will say no, you do not have to hit that emotional threshold. But it's going to take you asking yourself a different set of questions. And those questions will put you in the mindset or in that experience of looking 10 years down the road of not making change. And then what would happen if you made the change. So a lot of times we're more afraid of making the change. So much so that we're willing to stay in the discomfort because we're afraid of the unknown. It's like the devil you know is worse than the devil you don't know. But I'm promising you that the devil you don't know is probably a lot kinder, you know, because at least it forces you into making a decision. Because then once you make that decision, then you could correct. When you're on the fence, you're staying on the fence. There is no decision. No decision is a decision. It's a decision to stay exactly where you are and experience more pain until you hit that threshold. But if we are, you know, living with the premise that life is precious, every moment is a blessing, then we really want to seize every single moment. We want to live every moment to its fullest. Now, in theory, it sounds great. In actuality, life is full of up and downs, right? We can't be happy 100% of the time, but you can monitor and be aware of the thought processes going on in your head and making shifts where you need to make those shifts. So I thought about that, this experience, and I said, well, it's almost like. And I was reading this morning in the book Psycho Cybernetics, and in the book, the guy was. They were saying, imagine someone who needed to get their arm amputated. Like, until you can prove to them that getting their arm amputated is more desirable than keeping it, they'll never give up their arm. So when you think of what does that mean it's more desirable to give up your arm? Like, let's say, what if you were involved in a war and all of a sudden shrapnel literally just sliced off your arm? You wouldn't have a choice, right? Your arm's off. You kind of accept it, all right, I'm going to move forward. I'm going to live my life. But now there's a chance that maybe bacteria might set in and, you know, and cause you to have empty your arm. And it's safer to do it now before it goes into your bloodstream. This is getting, like, really fairly detailed, but, you know, and so the risk is the longer you wait, the more the risk. But isn't that true of life? Life is finite, right? We don't get more time. We kind of have this allotted amount of time. And the things we want, we either have to go after them or say, you know, what we're. Or just give them up altogether. So how do you give up your arm? Kind of like what we were just saying. You come to the decision that keeping the arm is more painful than giving it up. In the case of the arm, you'd say, well, what could be more painful than losing your arm? How about losing your life? How about emotional death? Think of the decision you want to. You're looking to make. While likely, it's not going to cause you physical death. What is the emotional. What are the emotional ramifications of it? Right? Maybe you had the. You had the dream of seeing the Eiffel Tower before, you know, before you had kids. I don't know. I'm just throwing something out there. But now you and your partnering are getting pretty serious with one another, and you realize that while it's not impossible to travel and do those things you want, you may think that, well, it might be more difficult. I mean, that in and of itself is a story, because I know I've met people when I was traveling who, literally, with a back, you know, a kid on a backpack, and they're going around. I think I met them in Africa and they were doing these crazy adventures, and I was like, I admire that. I respect that. They were German, too, which says something, because Germans will go everywhere. But the. That emotional death. So there are consequences. While it might not cause you physical pain, there is emotional trauma that is happening. So in order to get over that hurdle or to get past that, you have to start giving. Getting leverage on yourself. And you get leverage on yourself by realizing what it's going to cost you as well as what you're going to gain from it. So let's bring it back to the questions that I asked you at the beginning. Have you found something in your life that you want to change? Maybe it's a career again. This podcast is meant for you to kind of hone in on that heart desire to center you and say, well, what is it that I want to experience most out of life? With the realization that life is happening now, there are no second chances, right? There are no dress rehearsals. You. You do you know, life is forgiving in some sense. It's not like an end. All right? You make a mistake, you don't make the decision that you know you have to make. The pain gets a little bit louder. You might not make it there, but then you hit another threshold of pain, and then you make the change. I am here just kind of planting those seeds and bringing to the above the ground those things that you know deep inside that you want and that you need to change. So what is one thing that you need to change? That or that you've been contemplating changing? Where you know it's causing you. It's taking away at your value of life or your. I think it was called value of life, quality of life. That's what I'm looking for, the quality of your life. By not changing, what will it cost you one year from now? What will it cost you three years from now? Question number two. What are you giving up as a result of not making the change? Said differently, what are you missing out on by not changing? So often we may look at the. The decision we have to make and be like, oh, my gosh, yes, we're afraid of making it, but we don't put ourselves into the other side like once we made it. Because a lot of time, all that fear, all that stuff, literally, once you've decided the fear, everything disappears and now you're on the other side. Third, how will not changing affect those around you? If you think you're the only one that's affected by this thing that you've been juggling, you're wrong. Because it affects your psychology, it affects your emotional health, and just from that alone, that affects every single person you interact with. How do you think you interact with your family. If you are feeling down and sad, do you show up fully? How about your significant other, your spouse? And then lastly, what will you experience as a result of making the change? How will your life improve? That is the poll. I hope you take the time just to journal because this could be a very, very powerful, powerful, powerful just homework for you because this is literally how most of the decisions are made. Usually you'll have something that has such an intense pull that you literally will not even think about it and make the decision. Or you're sitting there and it's not until you experience enough pain that you actually make the decision. Both are at play. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I realize you could be listening to anything, but you're here with me, spending time, hopefully with a cup of coffee in hand, and I want you to know that I am appreciative and grateful for it. If you love this podcast, please consider subscribing. So this way you do not miss a single episode because it really is repetition. It's a matter of hearing these things over and over and over, reminding you of the truth, reminding of your true desire. That's what's going to get you to move forward. That's what's going to give you the life that you want by constantly putting focus on those things. So again, please subscribe, share it with your friends and if you have any questions, comments, or if you'd like to purchase some of my amazing Rouse coffee, I suggest trying the cold Roman espresso. You can do so by visiting www.donny-o n y rous r a u s.com again donnyrouse.com and that is a wrap. God bless you all. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you again soon.