Uninspired, but Willing to work. (Also, reflections on Life's Purpose)

I'm not feeling inspired right now, but I'm here in front of you, and probably in a few minutes, I will be feeling inspired. You can see if that's the case or not, and I'll let you know. I hear this excuse from so many people over the years. Oh, I don't. I don't make videos because I just. I just need. It takes me a long time to get inspired and, you know. Yeah. So that's why I don't make videos. Just I. Most of the times I'm not inspired, so I have to get into a certain mood or go to a certain place or, you know, and. Or same thing with writers or people who wish they were writers. Yeah. I don't write because I just. Just don't get inspired. And I'm not inspired right now. I don't feel like in the flow. So I don't write. Here is a secret that I share with many writers, filmmakers, creatives, business leaders, artists. Here's the secret. I'm uninspired, but I'm willing to. That's all. That's all. I just show up more often than you do. And so because I show up more often and I show up again and again and again and again and again to the creative process, I get more confident at it. That's it. That's it. I just simply practice ignoring the fact that I'm uninspired. I practice ignoring the fact that conditions are suboptimal. Right now, I'm in a hotel room. It's stuffy in here. I accompanied my nephew to his college orientation. So while he's there, I'm working from the hotel room. It's not usually where I am, where there's better lighting. This lighting is not great. It's kind of a weird light. Anyway, I don't want to show you, but. But I'm making this anyway because guess what? It's on my schedule to do this, but I don't want to follow a schedule. It's so constricting and it's. It's so. I'm a creative. I'm an idealist. I follow my heart. And that's fine to do all that. It's just that you won't create very much. That's all. That's all. You can follow your heart all you want. You just have to accept the fact that that means you won't create very much. Because if I only created when I'm inspired, you won't see me very often. And when you do see me, it's probably not going to be that good anyway, because you don't. You don't become a great creator by only creating when you're inspired. You become a great creator because you have a lot of experience creating. That's how you become a great creator is whether you want to be a writer, you want to make videos, you want to create great businesses, you want to, you know, practice reaching out for clients. You get good at this stuff by practicing it. And, of course, being mindful in our practice and seeing how we can improve every time. To be honest with you, I have been. My plate has been so full that I really haven't been on the path of mastery for making videos for the past couple of years, to be honest with you. And I have the intention for. Okay, I gotta put on my list. I'm gonna think about when I could start practicing making better videos. But I haven't. I've been on a plateau for making videos for years. That's why my YouTube channel has not grown. My Facebook views really has not grown in my videos for years now. But I've had other priorities. My business has been growing in other ways, and so I haven't taken the priority of making better and better videos. But what is always a priority for me is to not to fail to show up. Because I know that if I ever fall into that trap of thinking I got to work on getting better at making videos, so I'm not going to show up for another video until I finally carve out the time to get better at making videos, then that becomes an excuse. And I know myself well enough to know that if I allow that excuse, you're going to not see me for a while. And I don't know if you'll see me again because I never feel inspired. Now let me actually correct it to say I do feel inspired sometimes. And I'll tell you when I feel inspired about 1% of my day. So I'm walking my dog and walking my dog, and sometimes during the dog walk, I'll probably get some kind of idea, some inspirational idea. Ooh, you know. And what happens when I get some idea, oh, yeah, that'd be a great video topic, or that'd be a great business idea or whatever it may be. I stop my dog walk in that moment just for a minute or half a minute. Buddy's very kind to wait for me just to write down the seed of the idea. That's all. That's my only inspired time. Sometimes when I'm showering at night, I'll get another idea and then I'll stop and I write. I'll write it down. I have something called Aqua Notes, which I recommend to you. You can go get on Amazon, it's like $20, and you'll get a whole pad of Aqua Notes, which is basically paper that can. It comes with a little lead pencil and pen, pad of paper that can stick on your shower. You can write down ideas during. In the shower. So I write down ideas when they strike, but I only take one minute to do it. I don't stop the shower. I gotta take the next hour and write. No, I don't do that. Or stop the dog walk. Sorry, buddy. I'm gonna sit down here and write for an hour. No, I only just take a moment because I trust my process. The rest of the time, the 99% of the working time is much more important than the 1% of the inspiration time. So I get this inspiration. It might have come a few days ago. And now it's on my schedule to sit down to write. I don't feel like writing. I never feel like writing. Do you ever feel like writing? No, you don't. That's why you don't write, right? No, that's not how it works. That's not. And by the way, right now, another suboptimal condition is I don't have my earpiece with me, so the sound is probably more echoey than usual. Anyway, conditions are always suboptimal. To be honest with you, even if I'm at home, I'm at home. Maybe there's construction going on outside or some other noise going on outside, or if there's no external suboptimal condition, I'm not feeling like it. I just don't feel. I never feel like writing. I never feel like working. Hello. I never feel. If you were to say, george, you have all the money in the world and all the world's problems have been solved and you don't need to grow at all. I'm not going to be working. I'll be watching whatever. Hulu, Netflix, YouTube. I'll be playing video games. I'll be eating potato chips on the couch. No, I'll be out walking the dog or whatever. Maybe that's a little exercise I should get. You know, I'm never going to be working. I'm not going to be creating courses. You'll never see a course from me. You'll never see an article from me. You'll never see a video or a book from me. Never. I never feel like doing it. Never, ever in 10 years have I never felt like working. But here's what happens. I make myself work anyway. And once I get into it for five minutes, half an hour, sometimes 45 minutes in a session, then I feel glad that I worked. And that's when I know I'm on purpose. Because we're not in this life to feel comfortable people. We are not in this. The purpose of this life is not pleasure. The purpose of this life is not comfort. Comfort and pleasure are respites for our souls and our bodies as we pursue the purpose of life. The purpose of life is not to have a good time. You can do that in heaven when you die, okay? You'll have plenty of good times in heaven when you die. While we're here in this Soul Gym. It's just like when you go to a gym, you don't go, yeah, I'm here in this gymnasium because I'm here for the air conditioning. Woohoo. I'm here for the showers. Oh my God, it's so great. The showers are amazing. I hope you don't pay for a gym membership. Go to a gym, go all the way just for a shower. I hope you have a shower at home. I hope you're not homeless. That's okay. So the purpose of this life is not to have a good time. It's not vacations. It's not to finally have the life of our dreams. This is what has led so many people astray. Maybe you as well. You're following the business coaches and the marketing experts that are selling you on the dream that. The dream, the purpose of life is to be on vacation all the time is to, you know, to live, live permanently on vacation all the time. No, no, no. The purpose of this life is growth. The purpose of this life is to become a better person. That's why we're here. We're not here to just. Because if the purpose of life is just to enjoy ourselves, all we need is just some marijuana or other drugs, potato chips. And we don't really need very much money, you know, just need to suck it up and go to our job. Just suck it up. And then wait for the evenings and weekends to play our video games and be on drugs. That's. That sucks. Because then you'll never be growing. You'll become smaller and smaller and smaller. You'll become more selfish, resentful when you can't have it your way. It's not becoming a better person. We are here on this Earth Soul Gym to become more courageous, more loving. Those two, more wise. Generally, those are the, you know, courageous, loving and wise, compassionate. Those take work. It's not easy to become loving. It's not easy to be courageous. It's not easy to be wise. Being on drugs, playing video games doesn't make you more wise or courageous or loving. Being on vacations all the time doesn't make you more courageous or loving or wise. Working makes you more courageous, loving and wise and working also happens to give you enough money to occasionally go on vacations as a respite for our souls, as respite as a break for our soul's journey of becoming more courageous, loving and wise. Okay, you see what I mean? Self care is not the purpose of life. Self care is a respite along the way. I have plenty of self care during my day, as you know. I have four naps a day. I go on my walk, I watch YouTube and Hulu and Netflix in the evenings, and I don't work at nights and weekends. I go on vacations, of course I do, but that's only just so that I can have the energy to do the real stuff, which is to work, which is to help, which is to serve. Work is for the purpose of serving others, exploring your soul and building your virtues. That's why we work, not for the money. The money is just helping us get more self care. But the self care, if we indulge in self care only we become addictive, becomes addictive and we become smaller and smaller and smaller souls, right? So please, please, everybody, stop this ridiculous fantasy. Stop following these stupid Instagram people or whatever who they look like they're on vacation all the time and they're always inspired. And when they make a video for you, you think they're always inspired all the time. And they're like, look, look at me and my yacht and my million dollar home and my, you know, I'm on this vacation again and I'm inspired. And wouldn't you like to have this life where you' inspired all the time and you're like having a good time all the time? Is that supposed to be the purpose of. But they don't tell you they're not inspired all the time. They're lying to you. Nobody's inspired all the time. Not even the people who are on vacations all the time, so called. They have their down moments. They have their doubts, like, am I really on purpose? And if I were coaching them, I'd be like, well, you're on purpose when you're serving. You're on purpose when you're helping. You're on Purpose when you're growing. But if you're just like, you know, drinking your martini on the beach, you're just having a break, which breaks are important, obviously, as I always say, frequent creative rest breaks are super important for the energy generation, for the rest or the change of pace, so that you can then come back and do what you're here for, which is to serve, which is to grow, which is to explore your soul's purpose. Not to explore the world, to go to another forest, to go to another beach, go to another mountain. That's just for your soul's rest for a moment. Just like when you're at a gym, you go to the bathroom, you rest. Okay? God, that was a great workout session. I'm going to rest for a moment before I do my second set. You see what I mean? That's the going on vacations. That's, you know, so connecting the two. Because there's this. There's this fantasy, which sounds good, but I want to tell you it's a fantasy that you're supposed to be inspired all the time. That's how you know. You know you're on purpose. I know I'm on purpose. Now I'm feeling inspired, right? Because now I can really feel like I'm serving you and hopefully serving you, but certainly expressing what I. What I have learned to be true. Maybe with a capital T for most human beings anyway. So I know I'm in. I know I'm on purpose when I work through the creative discomfort when I work. I know I'm on purpose when I work through discomfort. And I go, and I'm glad afterwards that I did that versus. Okay, versus the opposite, which is I play video games, I go on vacations only, you know, not work. I do whatever. And then I feel bad afterwards that maybe I wasn't on purpose. Maybe I. Maybe that's not been. The purpose of my life is just have all this fun, right? Yeah. Somehow it feels empty after a while. You can only sit on a beach or you can only party for a while before you start feeling empty. That maybe this is not maybe something. There's more to life than this. Yes, there is. Yes, there is. There is more to life than partying and video games and drugs or whatever it is. Choose your fancy vacations. There's more to life. There's a lot more to life. It's called creativity. It's called service. And ideally, it's creativity through service. Wouldn't that be great? And ideally, it's personal growth through the creativity of service. Because now you've got all three. You've got your serving people, which if you do it strategically, you'll make money. Right. You've got the creativity, which is unlimited, which makes you bigger, your soul bigger and bigger and bigger. And then you've got the personal growth, which makes your soul bigger and bigger and more and more wise, courageous and loving. So, okay, to come back to, to come back to this. By the way, this video is quite different from the blog post that's associated with it. But that's part of the creativity, right? That's part of. I don't have to make my videos. My videos are not scripted. My videos come from. I've written the blog post now and I'm like, okay, generally it's going in that direction, but my videos can go in a very different direction. And that's okay. That's okay. So what about you? It's time for you to have an authentic reflection about how do you relate to the discomfort of work? Do you think that work is somehow a necessary evil? No, work is not a necessary evil. If you look at it from the soul's perspective, work is for serving others, making the planet better. And in the process of making the planet better and humanity and all beings better, you make yourself better, you make yourself more patient, you make yourself more diligent, you make yourself more joyfully diligent. It's not a diligence of, oh, I hate work, but I'm going to grip my teeth through it. No, you don't have to do that. There's a higher perspective which is. And here's the thing, I am actually enjoy most of my day even when I'm in discomfort of work, which is again the beginning of every session. The beginning. I've never, I never feel like creating a course, never. But I sit down to do it anyway because it's on my schedule. But there is an under lying current of joy that is there for me all day long because I have come to the realization for me, this is how I. This is. You may have a different way of coming to that undercurrent of joy, that tapping into the undercurrent of joy which is available to you at all times. The peace that surpasses understanding. That's what I want for you. That's truly what I want for you. Yes, learn Facebook ads. Yes, learn how to create courses. Yes, learn how to make money. Yes, learn how to have an authentic business that's relatively shallow compared to the underlying current of joy and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Is really what I hope for you, what I wish for you. And you need to do whatever you need to do to get there. Some people call it enlightenment. I don't know if I'm enlightened, I don't know. But whatever enlightenment is, I don't care about getting there as long as I have what I have now, which is that underlying level of peace and joy at all times, which is for me, how I got there is realizing that this life is just a drop in the ocean. I mean, I basically read a lot of near death experiences. And you know, by the way, the air conditioning is making a grating noise right now. I don't know if you can hear it, but conditions are always suboptimal. But I show up anyway and make videos and be creative and try to serve you and try to grow and be patient, you know, and all that stuff. So do what you need to do. That is the most important thing. I don't care if you ever work with me. You need to first get your spiritual path. That is the most important thing. The spiritual path is the most important thing. Work with a coach, work with a mentor, work with a healer, work with a counselor, or just do whatever reading you need to do. Do whatever meditation you need to do to prioritize your spiritual path. That's the most important thing. And then once you can reliably tap into that not. You shouldn't put off your business until you get enlightened. You know, that's not realistic. But as you are working on your business, you should also be prioritizing. Am I. Are you consistently tapping into that joy? Now? The way I do it throughout my day, remind myself throughout my day, is that I do my energy reboot, which takes me 30 seconds many times a day. And also several times a day I do my longer energy reboot, which takes me three minutes, which is a series of stretches basically along with my 30 second energy reboot. So that's how I stay connected to God basically throughout the day. Now, if you're not staying connected to your God, to your source, to your, you know, way of being in peace and joy and love, then work becomes a chore. Then work sucks, you know, and the work then, then it's like gritting your teeth and having to do this or having to do that versus I get to, I get to show up now. I get to write. Even if I don't feel like writing. I get to do it because it's good for my growth, because I get to serve other people. I get to show up now and do my bookkeeping. I get to show up now and do my taxes. Nobody likes doing their taxes except for tax accountants maybe, or bookkeepers. I'm not a bookkeeper. But I have to do it anyway, right? I get to do it because now I get to practice the joy of paying attention to the details. I get to practice the diligence and the patience. I get to practice the patience of sitting with numbers for a little bit here. All of it, all of your entire day, your entire day is just a stage for your personal growth. That's it. Every single thing you do. Picking up my dog's poop, ok? Cleaning my toilet. I get to do this because I get to practice the service of cleaning up the environment, not letting my dog pollute the environment, right? I get to practice this. I get to practice the patience, the mindfulness. It's kind of gross, but you know what I mean? Like every single thing, no matter how gross or how boring or how confusing or how tedious or how whatever, it's practice. And when you remind yourself of that, you can tap into the underlying level of joy. So anyway, enough preaching for today. I hope this has been useful to you. The blog post that's associated with this video has a couple of really inspiring quotes from great creators. So I hope you'll check out the blog post and get inspired by the creators. Remembering though, that inspiration is nothing. It's 1% of your day. What are you going to do with the other 99% of your day? This is why so many of you go to retreats and workshops and courses and you get inspired and then you don't have the follow through because you have this illusion that you're supposed to be inspired all the time. No, I'm inspired 1% of my day. What about you? Maybe you're lucky and you have like audio to listen to or you have me to listen to or whatever you listen to. Maybe you're inspired 5% of the day, but you still have the 95% of your day that you got to work. So how will you work? I hope you work with joy, but knowing that it's going to be just uncomfortable. It's like at one level it's uncomfortable, right? And confusing and tedious and boring and on and on from frustrating. On one level it's that it's the mind brain level that's feeling that, but the soul level, I hope you'll feel this peace and joy and seeing the brain level and kind of being patient with the brain level going. It's okay, my child. It's okay. My brain. It's okay. I know you're confused and you don't like this technology stuff. You don't like this in these numbers. You don't like not knowing what ideas you're going to write about right now. You don't like reaching out to people and feeling rejected. You don't like. That's all brain stuff. But the soul stuff said, that's okay, my child. It's okay. My brain. This is just practice. So just do it anyway. Please. Please, just do it anyway. Okay, just sit down. Your schedule says to do this, so please just do this anyway. My child, you're loved. You're. You're loved. It's all going to work out for you. And just please do this anyway. Practicing the diligence, practicing the patience. You're going to become better and better and better. All right? So I hope this is helpful. I'm going to take a look now to see if there are any comments on the video. And I always really enjoy seeing your comments and your questions. And if you have a request for me to make a future video, please feel free to do that. So I'm going to go ahead and look at to see if there's any comments. So thank you to those who are joining me now. Lisa and Dorota and Christine and Nick, Tanya, Merit, Susan, Giovanna. So, yeah, Giovanna says, I recognize that the discomfort of work is my container. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Mary says yes. Never feel like working. Bingo. Absolutely. So go forth. Know that, yes, you've got your 1% of the day. When you happen to get that creative urge, when you happen to watch my video or whatever, you're inspired, but you still got the 99% of your day. Treat that 99% as really the most important part of your day, because it is. And it's the practice. It's the practice that's most important. All right. Take care. Be well. And I wish you that underlying peace and joy that can see your brain's frustration and discomfort and confusion. With compassion. With compassion. All right. Be well.