Who's Life Is It Anyway?

Hi, guys. My name is Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life. Whose life is it anyway? Whose vision are you living for your life? Is it one that you've consciously chosen, or is it one that someone else has chosen for you? Maybe the culture, your religious upbringing, or your parents? One way to determine whose life you're living is to check into the feelings, the emotions that you feel on a daily basis. Is it one of struggle? Is it one where it just feels like a challenge, where you're doing the work day in and day out, but you don't find fulfillment? It feels like something you have to do? Or maybe your life is full of shoulds. You should do this, you should do that. You're should all over the place. Well, I'm gonna save you from shoulding all over yourself. If we want to live a passionate life, and I believe that is the purpose, that is the goal for each and every one of us to live a passionate and joyous life, then we have to take the reins. We have to guide this car called our life in a direction that's going to be fulfilling for us. And there's no one path to say that this is how you have to live your life. This is how it's supposed to be. So if we can first let go of that false belief, then we can open our minds, expand our minds to say, well, what is the type of life that I want to create for myself? What will I find most fulfilling? A couple weeks back, I was in Miami, Florida, and this was my first trip since COVID And while I was there, I was meeting tons of people. I didn't get much work done, which was the purpose of the trip, but I met tons of people, and I was having these great experiences while I was there. One of my business accountability groups that I'm in, the people who were in the group, we were on the call and they noticed that they're like, wow, you just look different. You look like you are in your element. And then I said, yeah, you know, I noticed there was a difference in me. I felt completely wide open. Now, you could look to the fact that maybe we. You know, I was literally indoors for nearly the entire year. So in this week and a half that I was in Miami, I had more interactions in one week and a half than I did the entire year. So you would. You might assume that that was the reason that I was so vibrant, because it was like being set free again. But I beg to differ there. One of the things that lights me up inside is people and changing environments. I don't really like to be in one place for too long because it starts to get stale. I start to get bored. And as a result of taking this trip, I realize exactly that. But there was a story in my mind saying, well, listen, I have to go back to Stanford. This is how I have to run my business. This is an old story now, because as a result of this trip, I started telling myself a new story that it is possible. And what made it possible was seeing, well, one, having other people call out on me, seeing the difference that. The difference in me saying, wow, you look completely open. You look like you're enjoying it. You look like you know the ideas. I was saying how passionate I was for my business. But while I was home, I didn't. Wasn't really feeling like I had that passion. I felt like it was. I was missing something. So what is the point I'm trying to make here? The point I'm trying to make is that when we feel like we're supposed to be a certain way, supposed to do things a certain way, we might be hitting a dead end, we might be hitting a wall. What have my purpose? One of my goals has always been to be able to have that freedom and the flexibility to work and travel at the same time. And as a result of doing this trip, I saw the difference in myself, I saw the difference how I felt, and I realized that I didn't have to have my business be that ball and chain anymore. Something similar was. I was reading, I was cleaning my desk, and I came across this thing called a personality decoder. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with astrology or numerology or something along those lines. And in there, it spelt out my personality to a T. It talked about my urge to travel. It talked about the creativity, about staying with one thing and getting bored too easy. So it went into the positives as well as the negatives of my personality. When I read this packet, I was almost brought to tears because I was like, oh, my God, this is me. Exactly. And there's nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with my desires because my family, friends, everyone tells me, oh, well, you know, this is how you're supposed to do it when it might not be aligned with my inner truth. And as a business owner or as the author of our lives, we are the ones that get to write that story to complete that book. So as the author of your life, what do you want? How do you want your life to play out. One of the things that I like to think about is, is our lives as a movie. Each of us is the director of our own movie. And while there's other cast members, it's almost like there's movies going on simultaneously. But the thing we have to be careful about is having other people project their movie onto our screen. Because as a result of them projecting onto our screen, we realize that we're no longer in our own movie. We're playing a role in someone else's. That all goes to say that if you don't have a vision for your life, someone else does. So what is it that you want? What is it that people have told you that, no, no, you can't do it that way. That's not realistic. You know, you have to just do work. You know, they, maybe your friends, maybe your family told you that your dreams, that you had to start a business, to maybe do courses, to teach English somewhere abroad, that. That was unrealistic. And as a result, you gave up on that dream. You gave up on that desire. So I'm asking you now, what is it that you want? What is it that you want to experience in life? And if we're looking at that movie of life and imagine that we have the movie instead of like that reel that just keeps on going, we make a snip right here. And from this little cut in the film, you can produce the rest of your life going forward. You get to decide what will you decide? What is it that you want to experience in life? What are the emotions you want to experience on a daily basis? What is important to you? These are the questions that are going to make you go after a life that you're excited and passionate about. Not what should you do or what you have to do. Those are the questions that are literally going to suck the life right out of you. And as I said earlier, the point, the purpose of our life is to live the most passionate and joyous experience. That is the only reason we are alive. Everything we do is to get a feeling, right? Someone may say, I want a million dollars. Why do you want a million dollars? So I could travel the world and buy nice things for my family. Well, why? What will that give you? Um, you know, I may feel like I could contribute. It would give me a sense of excitement. And you start to go on, you realize that what we're really after is just emotion. That's all we're after. So you don't have to go after the fancy car, the million dollar job. You could have that quality of life now by choosing. By choosing. I had mentioned in a prior podcast one of the most mind blowing things I'd ever done was this journal exercise. It was talking about success and what success means to you. And one of the questions went in to say, well, once you've achieved success, what does your day look like? What would you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep? As I was journaling, I was doing this exercise and I realized after looking back, everything I wrote on my paper were things that I could do in this exact moment. I didn't need to feel like I had to be do anything but to say that, alright, well, once I was successful, I could go for a run in the morning, appreciate the sunrise, do all these things. I was like, wait a minute, this, this doesn't make sense. We are successful now. The sooner we acknowledge that, the sooner we will free ourselves and open up that energy to go after whatever it is that we want to go after. I want you guys to experience the most passionate expression of your life. We all deserve that. You don't need anyone's permission. If you do need someone's permission, I give you permission. Go after the life that is going to make you feel alive and passionate. That is all I've got for you guys today. If you enjoyed this, please consider listening to the One Life podcast and sharing it with friends. Invite them because maybe they're struggling with something, maybe they're in a job that they hate and they have these desires that their family has kind of forbidden them to do and they just need a voice of encouragement. Share it with them. You could please take a picture of you on your social media. Share this podcast with your crowd. One Life Podcast with Donny Rouse. Again, One Life Podcast with Donny Rouse. And if you're interested in doing one of my workshops called Live youe One Life, you can do so by visiting www.d o n n y r a u s com again. Www.d o n n y R a u s com. That is all I got for you guys today. God bless and I'll see you next week.