Are you on the right train?

Month after month, year after year, you do the stand up sit down dance. And each time you do it, the thought of sitting back down and continuing your journey towards a place you don't want to go makes you feel unhappy, unfulfilled, unenthused, stressed and anxious. But if you can't see an alternative, as you don't have clarity on where you'd like to go instead of, you see no option but to keep going. You're listening to the Circle C Project.

Welcome to the Triple CE Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live lifeless. I'm your host, Ryan Spence, Big Lord, Rock Hat, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big hairy audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you.

Really want to be.

So now with friends, I invite you.

To grab a drink, take a seat.

And allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit.

Hey hey. Welcome to episode 54 of the Triple C Project. Before I dive into this week's episode, if you hang out with me here, you're really going to want to join my email list. I got to be honest, I've been neglecting it a little bit, but I'm back with all the good stuff. What do you get? Well, not only do you get this podcast directly into your inbox each week, but you're also going to hear stories, some stories I've told on the podcast, but I'll go a bit deeper. I will share tools, strategies, and you'll be one of the first to hear about any new stuff that I offer that I've got going on. And I always have ideas. So trust me, there's going to be a few things happening over the course of this year, so you're going to want to get on there. To be first, head to iamrianspence.com and download the Confidence Journal. Stick in your email and that will get you on the list. The link is also in the show notes. I look forward to seeing you there on the lit list. Okay, let's get to it. So do you like riding on trains? I've been getting a few trains lately. I do love being in my car, but long journeys. So where I live it's about two and a half hours down to London. I like to get on the train, get on, get a seat, get a drink, sit back, do a bit of Work, watch a movie. You know, just as they say, let the train, take the straight. And I've been doing that a lot lately because I. If you follow me on social media, you might know this, but your boy's a teacher. Well, a lecturer, to be honest. I recently started lecturing at a university here in London in the uk. It was an opportunity that I never anticipated. It's nothing I ever thought of doing. But I got asked and I said yes, and now I'm doing it. And I gotta be honest with you, I actually really enjoy teaching. Building out the module is a lot of work because it's a brand new module, but actually being able to combine my experience in private practice as a lawyer and my experience as a coach and to kind of help these law students kind of start to think about making the right decision for their own lives and their own careers and helping them develop the skills that are going to allow them to progress in life. Whether that's in the way that they communicate, the way that they write, they speak, the things that. The way that they think for me is a real honor and I love it. And this never would have come about if I hadn't put myself out there. So on these trips to London, I do a lot of pondering as well, because sitting on a train, it's a good time to just take a bit of time to let your mind run free. So I love my, my weekly trip to London for that. And as I do that, and I've been doing this a few weeks now, it always brings me back to a particular part of my book where I talk about being on a train. And I'm going to share that passage of the book with you because I think it will be helpful for you to start to think about things on these lines if you're not doing that already. So I'm going to read this particular bit here from chapter one, page 26, if you have the paperback. Think of the train as your career. You likely gone on your career train because everyone told you the same old story. Go to school, get good grades, go to college or university, start a job at a top law firm or large corporation and work your way up the ladder. That's life, that's success. And you did that. You had different ideas and bigger dreams, but you were told they weren't realistic so many times that you believed it. So you did the right thing, obeyed the rules and got on the train without seriously questioning whether it was the right train for you. You followed the crowd and as you saw everyone else rushing for the same train, you figured you must be heading in the right direction. Maybe for you, this was becoming a partner in a law or accountancy firm, a director at a bank, or heading up a department at a major corporation. But as the years have passed, you've slowly come to realise that you don't want to go where this particular train is heading. So you stand up, look around the carriage, searching for other people who think the same as you, trying to catch someone's eyes to validate your fears. But you notice everyone else is sitting comfortably. You sit back down, thinking you must be wrong, so you should suck it up, stay on the train. Month after month, you year after year, you do the stand up, sit down dance. And each time you do it, the thought of sitting back down and continuing your journey towards a place you don't want to go makes you feel unhappy, unfulfilled, unenthused, stressed and anxious. But as you can't see an alternative, as you don't have clarity on where you'd like to go, instead you see no option but to keep going, no matter how miserable it makes you to sit at your desk day after day, working on matters of no interest, trekking from pointless meeting to pointless meeting, knowing the plans you made weeks ago are about to be destroyed by the urgent deal that's landed on your desk. Even though you know from experience that the unrealistic deadline won't be met and no one will care. Does this sound familiar? Now, I wanted to share that because as I say, when I sit on the train, this always comes into my mind. And I love that metaphor of a train. Yes, I know it's my book and I wrote it. But you can own and love what you've created. I mean, if you don't, who will? So it always comes back to my mind. And it's funny because this week when I was on the trip, I realized that it's three years since I walked out of my office in Big Law for the last time. And if you had told me that I'd have done all the things and be where I am now, I probably wouldn't have believed you. Because at that time of walking out, I was starting to believe that I could do something different. But I still had no idea what that looked like. And I still didn't have the level of belief and confidence that I have now. But so much has happened in the last three years that would not have happened if I hadn't developed that clarity, confidence and courage. Teaching a university is one. I mean that as I Said was never on my radar. It's nothing that I ever thought that I would want to do. It's certainly not something that I thought I would get asked to do. And yet here I am. I could put the title of lecturer on my profile on LinkedIn. I did that. I never could have foreseen that, not in a million years. But that came about because I put myself out there. I knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to achieve, and I believed that I could do it. And I had the conviction to start putting myself out there, sharing content, telling stories about my experience, about how I saw things, and about how I had helped people get out of the situations that I had been in. And it's through all of that sharing that the person found me and asked me if I wanted to do this. And I thought I was going to get on the call and go through this whole rigorous interview process. And I. I still wasn't sure I wanted to do it. I was just curious. But they were excited to have me. And that was like, whoa, that blew my mind, you know, because again, until that point, I still felt like this. I don't know, this kind of little person sort of banging on the door, trying to kind of shout about this institution, the way that this, this. This industry of big law works and all the things that were wrong with it. They're trying to kind of help people see there was another way. And yet here I was being offered an opportunity to help people before they got to that stage, to share the benefit of my experience and my wisdom. So that was humbling and exciting, and it made me kind of think about other things that have been achieved in the time since I left. I wrote the book, obviously, that I just read you a passage of about my experience, something that's been on my. On my to do list, not even to do list, but my wish list for, I don't know, God knows how many years, but actually committed to just sitting down and doing it. And even though there were definitely parts where I'm like, if I say that, is that really going to annoy people? Are people going to really have issues with that? But I believed enough in what I was saying that I was like, fuck it, I'm just going to put it out there. And as I always say to my clients, to myself is, you can't be wrong if you're speaking your truth. And I know that everything that I say in the book is true. It is my truth. And I also know that the book is helping people reframe their Own thoughts, change their own path, believe that they can do more or explore what it is that they want to do instead of what it is they're already doing. And that book would not have come out and would not have helped those people if I hadn't built that belief to walk away and not look back. I've managed to teach yoga to some amazing people in the corporate world and influence their lives that way. Whether it's just giving them something a couple of times a week to help their wellbeing, to get them moving, to help them deal with the stresses of life, I've been able to share my passion, my wisdom, and help them through those situations. Again, I never thought I would be teaching people yoga when I was sat there into the early hours, reviewing paperwork, reviewing documents, I mean, and just thinking, God, is this my life for the next 20, 30 years? I never in a million years would have thought that I'd be stirred at the front of a yoga studio with a number of people there with their mats in front of them, hanging on my every word and moving through a sequence that I was directing them through. Never would have thought that. But again, it could only happen by me putting myself out there, by me doing the work to get clear on what I wanted and trying things, experimenting, seeing what worked. And this is really what this episode is about. It's really just to show to you that a lot can happen once you take that first step. I never knew that the things that I've just talked about would necessarily happen. But by deciding that I was never going back, I had to think about how I was going to move forward. And then I had to actually start to move forward. And in moving forward, I figured out what I liked, what I didn't like, what worked for me, what didn't work for me, the direction that I wanted to go in, who I wanted to help. And things became a whole lot clearer just by moving. And some days I moved full speed ahead and I got a shitload done, and I felt really accomplished. Some days I moved very slowly. I maybe did one tiny thing, but that tiny thing was still momentum. It was still helping me to move forward. And so I want you to listen to this episode, and even if you've listened to the other 53 and you listen and you get really fired up, and then you kind of go back to your day and you get sucked back into that life of lethargy and doing the same things that you've always done. I really, really want you to listen to this episode and listen to it Again and as many times as you need to. And take that moment, take the inspiration to decide you're going to take a step forward, a step away from the situation you're in that you don't want to be in. A step towards the life it is. You want to live the life you're trying to create for yourself, a life that's lit. Don't worry about what's going to happen and how it's going to work out, as I hope that I have shown you, by speaking it into existence, by putting yourself out there, by letting people know that you're out there doing these things. You have these interests, you have these passions, you want to make things this change. Opportunities will arise, people will find you. And you don't know what it is that you're going to do because it may not have ever crossed your mind. It may not be something that even exists yet, but it will appear and you'll be like, that's it. That's the thing I need to be doing that really lights up my soul. It's kind of like what happened to me with coaching. I never planned to be a coach even once I'd left Big Law and I started teaching yoga and people could see that I was just better in myself. I was more relaxed, I was more at peace with myself. And I was getting asked to have a conversation with, oh, my friend is having a tough time at work, maybe you could have a chat with them. Or this person is not really enjoying their job and is kind of like thinking about a new direction. Would you have a chat to them and share your experience? Even in all of that, when I was doing those things just because people asked me to and I was happy to do it, and the people I was speaking to were saying how valuable and how helpful it was to them, I still was like, I just want to teach yoga. That's what I want to do. I put up a little bit of resistance, but in the end, the. The noise became so loud that I just felt, okay, let me, let me explore this. Let me experiment. Let me just try this out. And it wasn't until trying I realized, I love this. I love this shit. I love coaching people. I love sitting down, taking people through whatever it is they're going through, seeing those light bulb moments come on as they realize that I never thought about it that way before. Seeing these breakthroughs happen, hearing their stories, you know, I mean, a few weeks, months, years down the line of just how much their life has changed because they started to see themselves differently. They started to see what was possible for them and they stopped being locked in this mental cell of limitation, self limitation. That's what lit up my soul and that's why I do what I do now. So this is just to again give you a little bit of inspiration, give you that fire to start you moving forward. Because I love, as I say, just pondering, as I do, these weekly trips down to London to teach these wonderful students of how far I've come, what I'm doing now that I never would have thought I was doing, I never could have foreseen when I was in the lethargy, the misery, as I was at times of big law. And I want this episode to help you see that if you are struggling too, if you're in a situation you don't want to be in, and if you're looking at 10, 20, 30 years down the line and thinking, God, I really can't be here doing this, I want this episode to help you start to think about the fact that that doesn't have to be your life if you don't want it to. You just need to decide that it's not going to be your life, that's not where you're going to be and start to create a picture of what you think you might want it to be, not what you will, because as I say, you'll try things and you have an idea and that might not be the thing for you, but it may lead you to something else. But at least if you start to think about create this picture, you will then start to try things to take you to where it is that you want to get to, you think you might want to get to. But I implore you, I really urge you to just try to just take a step and try. Whatever fears you have, whatever you think other people might say, just try. Don't be stuck here next year, three years from now, five years from now, having done nothing. Because that's the worst possible place that you could be. Okay, I'm going to end it there. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the Triple C Project. As always, I love to hear what you take away from the episode. So please hit me up. Send me an email hey at I am Ryan Spence.com or find me on LinkedIn and Instagram and send me a DM. Tell me what you loved about this episode. Tell me an insight you'll take away. Tell me how you you're going to start changing your life. What's the action you're going to take I made this podcast for you. I really want to just share what I went through, where I've been, and what I'm doing in the hope that it inspires you to think about your own life so that you don't feel you have to do what you've always done or be who you've always been. Because that's not the case. Life is beautiful. Life, as I said, like last week, can be your work of art. You can create it and, yeah, you can create it and carve it and paint it any way that you want. So go ahead, enjoy your weekends, your week, whenever it is that you're listening to this. And as always, stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit.

Thanks for tuning in.

But before you go, the weight of.

Limiting beliefs is heavy. It literally weighs you down and keeps you stuck in that life of lethargy. I know. It's why I stayed in Big Law for so long. And it's why so many of my clients don't believe they can do the things that they want to do. But what causes those limiting beliefs? It's a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence in the belief that you can do the things that you want to do. And I got something for that. It's my Confidence Journal. It's six journal prompts that I created that I've used to help me get from where I am to where I want to be. To help to give me the belief to do the things that seem outside of my control, outside of what I can do. If this sounds like you, you need to get your hands on the journal.

Best thing about it, it's free.

All you have to do is is head to iamryspence.com, hit the button for Confidence Journal and get your copy today. It's going to help you start to reframe your thoughts and get you thinking about what you can do instead of focusing on what you can't do and shed that load of limiting beliefs that you don't need to be carrying. See you again next week. And until that time, stop living a life of lethargy and start living life lit.