How the Enjoyment Factor Frees Us to Live Our Best Lives

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Welcome to Success Secrets Exposed with Sally A. Curtis, where we share stories of challenge, success, and inspiration, along with practical tips and strategies to move you forward to your success. And now, here is your host, Sally A. Curtis.

Good evening, good morning, and good day to you all. Welcome to another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Today's episode is going to be sharing with you how the enjoyment factor frees us to live our best lives. And I have a very, very special guest and a very special dear friend, Peter Nicholls, that will be sharing that with us shortly. So for those that are new to the show, I'm a content repurposing whiz. I work with brilliant individuals to help them leverage their IP to engage and entice their audience through the power of visual and emotive graphics. I'm best known for turning books into 2 years' worth of social media posts, helping you create a library of reusable, profitable brand assets that amplify your impact because you connect, because you stand out, your message is heard, and you have the ability to reach more people with ease. So let's get on with the show. Now let me please share with you a little bit more about our guest, Peter Nichols. Now Peter helps those in a life transition, whether that's retiring or looking to re-find enjoyment. Peter believes that every person was born to enjoy living their best life by developing their natural talents along with their passionate interests. The world has certainly changed since COVID and we are ready to see the new ways of how we can actually go about unifying both work enjoyment and as well as our personal growth. Enjoyment has become an important factor and focus in this dramatically changing world that we have been a part of. And Peter's special interest is helping individuals who are feeling the emotional pains of not quite enjoying life. So without any further ado, please help me welcome to the show Peter Nicholls.

Sally, thank you very much. It's great to be here, and I'm really looking forward to the session.

Yeah, likewise. Really looking forward to sharing your incredible insights of 50 years of parks and recreation and enjoyment with the audience, and certainly talking with you bit more about the manifesto that you've recently written. It's been getting lots of traction and lots of really positive comments. So before we jump into talking about the manifesto, I'd love you to share a little bit with us about your backstory that will then lead us into the manifesto.

Yes, thanks, Sally. Yeah, it's more about— it's as much about the circumstances of my past as much as about what I've been doing. When I started out in my working life, I was in a situation which was very different to what it is today. There was, in relative terms to what we're experiencing now, it was so much more stable, much more predictable. We had a great more uniformity where people sort of— I have this mental picture of people in their grey suits and white shirts and and dark ties, all heading off to the city on a Monday morning to work until a Friday night, and then have 2 days, or if for shopping, even the shops were shut at the weekend, a large part of the weekend. So it was a very different time that I started out in my working life. And I think This working for 5 days and 2— it was a very strict difference between the two. And I guess I worked for 5 days in my early years to earn money, and I lived for 2 days. We talk about work-life balance. In those days, it really was— it's work and getting on with life. And it was— I came alive on the weekend more because I was not only very involved in playing field hockey, But I was very strong in the sports administration with hockey. I was made captain of my team when I first started under-14. And by 16, I was already questioning human behaviour in sport. I was finding we were having a lot of young people were playing hockey as juniors but weren't going on to play senior hockey. And I was even then wondering why, why is it? I came to the conclusion that puberty had a lot to do with it, but that's another story. But I was already— In those days, puberty was a bit later than it is these days. But anyway, I was already thinking that way, but I was going to work in a fairly standard type of job in a desktop and quite happy until eventually one day I came alive at about 35 when I went to a recreation planning seminar, which really made me change what I wanted to do. Here I now had a chance to professionally do what I'd been doing in my weekend life. And that for me really, of course— and then when I did the studies, I got very good marks and so went on. But that's when I came up against something that was a very different hurdle to what I'd ever had to overcome before. In your working life as a clerk or in any sort of standard job, you were just part of the mob and you worked hard to get promoted. But now, as a recreation planner, I was finding I was in a field of work that was not being respected. People were saying, apart from being told I was mad for going into the job in the first case, I was finding that people were looking at me and saying, this is not real, that's not real work, Pete, that's not real work. Real work is turning up at 9 o'clock on Monday morning and so on. I had to battle this for Well, I've been battling it ever since. In many ways, I found myself, for instance, to get public funding for recreation was very difficult to do. Sport was a little better because it was starting to get international recognition. But for everything else, and I'll give you a quick example. We have, as you would know, Sally, in South Australia, a long-distance trail called the Heysen Trail. Yes. which is about 1,800 kilometres long. Now, that was developed in those years when recreation was really struggling to get recognition. Governments were saying, why should we put money into developing a long-distance walking trail? They don't bring in money. People don't spend money along a trail. It's not an economic reason to do it. It was basically developed by one man and a couple of helpers and fairly skint financial resources. Yet today, of course, now the Heysen Trail, for those who are here in South Australia particularly, know it as something that is really a high-quality tourist attraction. That was a good example of what it was like to try and work to get money to work in recreation. I began 50 years from about the mid-'70s onwards to fighting the work ethic, which I believe had a lot to do with why the situation occurred. So, and then just very quickly to round that off, eventually I went into my encore career doing my life enjoyment mentor. And I got some work initially. But I ran into trouble there when trying to talk to chief executives about it. I was ahead of my time.

And I think you've touched on a couple of things, certainly some differences and where paradigms are continuing to shift work. And I think you described it very well with the gray suits and the the white shirts. The real— and the term real work, real work was when you put on a gray suit with a white shirt and a marginally colored tie, not an out-there colored tie. But work was defined as you did 9 to 5 and you were stressed. It was work. And you also talked about the weekend was when you came alive, was when you lived, was when you actually got to enjoy stuff. So there really was that distinction of work and play, not that you could play at work and enjoy work like you enjoy a sport or a recreational type.

It was hard work.

Yeah, it was hard work. And if you look at people that are my age and your age, Peter, when they talk about work retrospectively, they'll talk about work being hard. And how they've done certain things to transition to find more fulfillment within the work that they do. And that's really where we're coming to with the manifesto that you've written, is sort of trying to break down some of these old paradigms of how work is work and weekends is weekend. Therefore, work and life is actually separate versus actually being unified, which is what we've seen. those people that weren't experiencing that really seeking out and questioning through the pandemic and COVID. I remember when the pandemic first hit, you and I were talking about that I was, through the clients that I serve, because they serve individuals in corporate land, was that there were so many poor people asking the question, why am I here? And it wasn't just why am I here at work, but why am I here on this planet? What is my purpose? So they suddenly started to want to seek more, which is obviously where some of the inspiration and things has come from, from the manifesto that you've written. So let's perhaps talk a little bit about the manifesto and what it is about this enjoyment factor that you've started to recognize, whether that's for the— and we'll talk about the individuals, the organizations, and just then the collective. But what is it about about the enjoyment factor that makes it so vital for living our best life?

Yeah, it's— look, I think the first thing to point out about enjoyment, it is very much about the individual. The individual was the one who felt it, who said, like you said, why am I here? What this— it's funny, you know, you and I remember an old politician named Paul Keating. who said the recession was the one we had to have. The COVID I suspect, was the thing— was the pause we had to have because people were getting stressed out at the time. And then suddenly when it all came and they had to actually stop for a great long period of time and think about it, it was a very individual thing no matter what the business said. Now, when we talk about enjoyment, enjoyment is a very personal thing. I can't tell you what you should enjoy. You are the only person who can decide what you enjoy. It's— you are in control. It's the time you are absolutely in control. And when— anytime you enjoy yourself, whether it be during work or at the weekend, you are actually being your true self. You're actually using and expressing gifts that you've got. You sometimes might not even recognize that you're doing so. you are actively being the person you were meant to be using the gifts that you've got. This is all a sort of thinking that was going through people's minds. Not so much where's the company going, where's business going, where's the world going, where am I going? What's going to happen to me? And so when I talk about enjoyment, enjoyment is the area which is the positive part of life. I mean, a lot of people think about enjoyment as, you know, a bit of fun and then, you know, had a good time and that's it. But in the context that you and I are talking about it, if you're not enjoying life, you're really not— for a start, you're stressed. And all these issues, like we were told something like 70% of the employed population were not engaged in their work. There was this real square pegs in round holes is an expression I would use, that what we were doing. So I'm actually saying it's free choice, you're in control, it's using your talents. This is what life— we are suddenly saying, this is what I want to work through, this is what is going to tell me why I'm here, because through what I enjoy is what it means. I have a one-liner. I don't know if I just might just say this, Sally, a one-liner, which is Been the basis of my business for years. When you lose yourself in what you love, you find yourself. The real you comes to the surface.

Yeah, very much so. And if we look at that analogy and map that across the sport— sports from a context perspective, sporting— renowned sporting people know that when they hit the zone, they've got all their skills, their natural talents, their training is just enabling them to be in that moment and enjoy really what they're doing. They're in the zone. And that's what you're saying here. When you're actually enjoying yourself in whatever pursuit that may be, whether that's work or play or a combination of work and play that can be combined together, you actually lose yourself. Therefore, you find yourself. And that's— those moments are when you lose time and those types of things because you've just thoroughly enjoyed yourself. I know myself, I lose time and go, you know, I'm highly motivated by food, as Peter knows. And I, you know, watch the clock and I have some more food now and those types of things. But when I lose myself in an activity that I'm— and it's generally unpacking and discovering, you know, new gifts or talents or new insights, then, you know, I forget about everything. Everything just sort of drops away. And then when I come up from that, I sort of go, oh God, I'm really hungry because I've just been in that zone and just in pure, pure enjoyment. So I think that's such a beautiful way of saying it, Peter. It's, and it's that enjoy being you because it's that enjoyment factor that actually drives us.

It's only you that's going to just make your choices in life. And the other part too, you are now no longer responsible to a corporate body for your future. Your future is totally within your own hands now. And so that's where what you enjoy is going to be a huge factor. in your decisions about what you're going to do in future. Can I just make another point about you, Sally, and any professional person who's working for themselves has tended to find what we're talking about. You, at an early age, you said that what I'm really passionate about is this, and this is the work I want to do, and I know why, and I know what talents I need to develop, and it's all worked together. The sports person, whether you actually become an Olympic champion or simply want to play A-grade sport. You know what you want to do. You've got goals in mind. You've got a sense of purpose. All those things which are so valuable to that sort of life are really important to all of us. But so many of us have had that knocked out of us over the years by the work, the idea of work is work and everything else is a waste of good work time.

Yeah, very well said. And that's part of that paradigm shift is that we get fulfillment, therefore we get enjoyment out of the work that we're doing. by understanding how we can enjoy the elements of that work, work elements that we can do. And I think that's what's very important for— and corporate land and small business owners that have staff are really starting to understand. And this has been the shift that we'll talk on as well, is that when you can actually help people feel more certain, understand the purpose of why they're there and contributing to the corporate goals, if we look at that as it relates to a sports person, they know why they're getting up in the morning, they know what their routine is, they know why they're doing that routine, they know what they're looking to attain. And that in itself is fulfilling for an individual. And that fulfillment and understanding is what was— is one of the paradigms that's sort of really been shifted since COVID because staff have been asking for more of that. And now their employers or their team leaders are starting to understand more of that, which creates better individuals, which creates happier individuals, which creates better work outcomes for organisations, etc., as well. So let's have a little bit of— yeah, please go ahead.

I'm just going to say that to keep it simple too, when you go back, do you think about one of the most productive years of your life was the first 5 years? I mean, I'm speaking typically. It may not have been the case for everybody. But typically, you would go from a gurgling baby to enough skills to go to school in just 5 years. And what do you do? Simply enjoy moment to moment, doing what you love with the people you love being with. And that's what life's been all about. And really, that continues in many ways till we get to the stage where we start thinking we've got to find a job. And I'm thinking then you guys up to probably about adolescent years, you're still doing— and this is what I really want to do with life. And that's where we really grow. But then the work-life ethic, which we'll get on to, tends to knock the stuffing out of that and says, no, that's all a waste of good time. You need to find a real job. And then that's where the problems start to arise.

Yeah, yeah, very much so. So let's have a little bit of a talk about— you talk about the traditional work ethic is inhibiting the application of the essence of the elements within the manifesto. And we've talked a little bit about how it sort of previously has sort of held back the individual to explore more of that. And we've also talked about that the enjoyment factor, when people become more, I suppose, self-aware and start to value the things that they actually are really good at and therefore enjoy, it actually helps them to develop more of their abilities, et cetera. And it brings and creates, I suppose, a better and more well-rounded human. So let's talk a little bit more around this inhibiting that you talked about.

I think an important point to make straight away is I'm not opposed to work. This is not a question that work is bad for you. This is a question of what the status has been given to hard work in relation to life growth and life enjoyment. The work ethic has imposed some fairly inhibiting principles about the way we live, not the question of working. So I think that's important to make that point first. I'm not opposed to work. It's a question of enjoying the work is very much more the issue. And the work ethic has had a number of principles. The first one, it's actually built this great big wall Which is the one I found. I was on the enjoyment side of the wall where work was work and there's this big wall against enjoyment, leisure, having fun, being yourself. All those things were very much on the other side, which you were required to leave till Saturday or Sunday. The boss knew best. Do what the boss says. Get the sort of job that's going to make you money. And that's what the work ethic was all about. Don't mention mental health at the workplace. They don't want to know it. All these sorts of issues are quite recent, of course. So this is not something that disappeared 20, 30 years ago. It's still an issue today. And I guess one of my points is COVID is helping to break down the traditional idea, which frankly goes back 19th century, you know, Industrial Revolution, which said that work is the way to salvation and this sort of— and I think what was the old 16th century expression? Leisure or enjoyment is the work of the devil. Idle hands are the work of the devil. That sort of thinking has persisted to today. And that's caused a lot of things more than just the work we do. It's got things like when do you retire and when you finish up work, that's the end of it. Life ends when you leave work. This sort of thinking is the part that's been difficult to deal with. It's not even factual stuff. It's perceptions, public perceptions about how you respond to certain situations.

Yeah. Let's dig into that because you've just triggered a couple of memories for me, Peter. And very much around that, if I look at that retirement, oh, you're going to retire, therefore you lose everything you stop everything. You'll stop when you— there's a lot of things tied into the personal identity of somebody finishing up. And there is that perception that, oh, I'm just waiting to retire, or I'm retiring soon, and then it all sort of finishes. And that's where people, if they haven't— and this is where the work with you as it relates to the transitioners, those that are transitioning to a significant change, it's important to— if they haven't rediscovered or started to get curious about rediscovering what it was that they enjoyed, they sort of end up, you know, not having anything to wake up for in the morning almost. Obviously, that's a lot more brutal than what the reality of it is. But,

you

know, they want— they're needing and wanting to find that thing that fulfills them. And people have got this perception that when you get to a certain age, whether that's retirement age or whatever the age is, you're sort of, you're done, it's finished. But it's actually not. It's where all of the opportunities and the discovery can come back in. So let's talk through some of that, Peter.

Yeah, look, you're right. That's really my bread and butter these days now, as you can tell. It's quite a— it's some years now since I passed that top of the bell curve. I talk about the bell curve life cycle, which said you reach your peak at life around 50 to 60. and then it's all a downhill slide for the rest of your life, which is the concept that's been drilled into us for generations in the past now. Where in fact, what it is that the second half of life is actually the richest half of life.

Yeah.

Because by the time you get to 50, 55, you've been spending the first half of your life getting your act together, paying the bills, getting the mortgage under control, putting the kids through school education, all those sorts of buying a house, getting, you know, all the establishment costs a lot. You haven't really had time to think about these things. And then by the time you get to the top of that so-called bell curve, you'll start to recognize life very differently, that you've learned a lot, you've got some depth, you understand yourself a lot better. Everything I'm talking about in this manifesto is about yourself, your self-awareness. And this getting people to understand that that bell curve never did exist, but we've just been told that's the way it goes. We actually grow exponentially after 50, 55. And it's hard for people to— people have been starting to get the idea of that. But then we get this word old. You're old at a certain age. Well, you know, footballers are old at 30.

Yeah.

Parents are called the olds because anyone 15 years or more older than you is old. But in fact, I talk about ageing. In my parks and recreation background, I came up with a message about a tree that never gets old. A tree ages, and it doesn't stop growing at any predetermined age. It keeps going. And you know what? A tree is never old or aged. It becomes significant.

Beautifully said. So let's just— can you catch that enough to repeat that, Pete?

When you— a tree never ages. A tree— sorry, a tree never gets old. I got it right. A tree never gets old. It ages, and it ages graciously, and it becomes more resplendent the more it ages. And nobody— and it doesn't stop growing at any predetermined age. It becomes significant.

Yeah,

a significant tree. And don't we really?

Yeah, absolutely. And if we look back, I think that's such a beautiful takeaway, that significance of what we become. And we do become more significant because we, we've discovered more about ourselves. We know what we've, we've determined what we're, you know, good at or where our skills are. We've got a better understanding of what makes us happy. We often, especially when you hit hit 50, according to all my friends and buddies that have hit 55 and 50, 50 and over, we don't tend to care quite so much about what people think. We just get on with it and just have fun. Yeah, we're a little bit more, uh, less inhibited. And I think that's really the key thing around the manifesto is for those people, um, and for people, um, that I suppose experienced almost this awakening or this question of, you know, what am I here for? That was people's little wake-up call as to what was it that you used to enjoy? What was it that you do enjoy? What can you discover more about yourself for yourself so you can actually recognize your own significance and your own significant place moving forward in this world and for those around you as well as those that you work with in the organization as well as As well as for the clients that your organization serves?

You become comfortable in your own skin. Yeah, when you become comfortable in your own skin, it's not a question you don't care what people think. It's a question of people say, when that person says something, I listen because, you know, they're not trying to pull the wool over my eyes. They're speaking from their own heartfelt experience, and that's worth listening to. And that's one of the reasons why this word wisdom I love. The older I get, the wiser I become, which is lovely. But it's this sense of being comfortable with what I say. You may not necessarily agree with it, but you'll listen because, you know, it's the substance that's come from a lot of experience.

Yeah, you can feel that, almost feel their experience. You can feel it. And actually talking about that one, the feeling of that, there was one of our— sorry, one of the concepts that you talk about is that natural felt fueled energy that happens that increases when you actually enjoy yourself. And that's what helps us find our own purpose and find the enjoyment. Do you want to expand on that at all? Peter?

I will, I will. Thank you for that, Sally. I think you're right. Enjoyment is the energizer. It's funny, I once asked a lady what she did to keep fit, and she said, I go to the gym 3 times a week. I said, what do you do to energize? Her immediate answer was, I love tap dancing. She didn't have to be asked, what do you mean by the difference? Energizing— any energizing interest does more than make you feel good. It's like any other form of energy. It drives you further so that when you feel energized, you actually grow as a person in either a small bit or a large bit. The very first workshop that I ever ran in my Encore career was with a group of people who were literally burning out. Really? It was quite horrendous what they were being asked to do. And their boss said, look, I've read your book, Enjoy Being You, which I'd written at the turn of around 2000, and said, could you run a workshop based on your book? And I thought, yes. And then I went away and thought, I know nothing about burnout. I don't know what this is going to be like. But they did say run it based on what I'd learned. Good. And it woke them up to what real energy meant, that they were burning up energy because they weren't doing any energizing experiences to balance and reenergize the energy that they are burning up horrendously through the week. And it's the resilience bit that brings it into it.

So let's talk a little bit more about resilience. So we've talked about some of the old paradigms as it relates to the paid work was the only center of our life for a long time. Obviously going back a long way, COVID sort of has tipped that up on its on its head, on its— tip the apple cart up or tip it over?

The apple cart, yeah.

Yeah, tip the apple cart up. We got into the habit of recognizing economic development and success as a measurement or stress as a measurement of our success and wearing that stress as a badge of honor when we were sort of so focused on work. We've now come out of that sort of almost blossomed or morphed like the butterfly does, or the caterpillar does to a butterfly.

That's right.

And we're now starting to see that there is more opportunities for us to discover and enjoy things at work. And I think that that level of curiosity and discovery or adventure or learning is one of the critical elements that helps people potentially be more resilient. Is that something Is that something that you have found, Peter? How does the work and this enjoyment factor help people be more resilient?

Well, if you just enjoy something for half an hour once a week, it's probably not going to do— I mean, it'll be nice, but it's not going to do a lot of good. If you can build something into your life in some sort of regularity, then these good things tend to happen. There's really 5 things that happen when you enjoy yourself, which I think are important. 4 of them are about what it does for you. The 5th one I'm going to mention is very significant. The 4th one, the 4 of them is, first of all, your mind is working with purpose. You're thinking with interest, with challenge, questioning, all those things. So when you're enjoying yourself. The 2nd one is the energy factor. That you're actually generating new energy or energizing yourself during the experience. The third one is you're doing something to your self-esteem and your self-confidence. And the fourth one is you've probably learned something, even if it's only a little bit, that's new. All those are what's happening while you're doing. The fifth one, I think, is the one where it becomes really powerful, because every time you enjoy yourself, you actually generate the best virus possible. you actually infect everyone else. So you'll actually— this is where I think is very much a core of what this paradigm shift is all about and what the manifesto is all about. If we start to recognize the nature of enjoyment in our lives, we not only find ourselves getting on, but we actually start to get other people thinking more positively as well. We start to generate ripple effects, which, like the butterfly, you know, that flaps its wings on one side of the earth You know, starts a tornado on the other side sort of thinking is in that. Now, that's okay. As I say, that happens if you do enjoy yourself once. If in fact you find yourself enjoying it regularly, you start to see life differently. You start to recognize that there are, there's, there are positive ways of looking at things while you're enjoying yourself. You cannot think negatively. No matter how negative your life is, why do you— So the more often you enjoy yourself, the more you think positively, and the more you start to infect people around you, and you start to get a flow moving about the way your life goes. I talk about, um, a bit— it's a bit like the Big Bang theory of the universe, uh, the idea of exponential explosions. Every time we enjoy ourselves, we have a little explosion of energy, and then that generates more explosions and more energy, and so it grows and grows. I think that's where I think this whole idea of enjoyment starts to generate energy, which starts to develop resilience. And to quote our mutual friend Derek McManus, then you start to become more durable. It's a durability about coping with life.

Yeah.

And I think you are then opening up the person that will never change. Go back to your sports person. The COVID might have inhibited the way they could do things, but it didn't change their plans. They were— they knew where they were going. And I suggest people like you, Sally, and we had to rethink how we were going to do it, but we didn't rethink what we were going to do. It was just a question how we direct our energies. Yeah. And I think the more we can get into this constantly enjoying things, enjoying life, so all these All this resilience and durability grows.

Yeah, I think that's such a great, a great example and something I've really discovered having worked with what I would call real sporting professionals and elite athletes with the work that I do. There's definitely a different— I want to say a different perception on daily ritualistic habits. So a sports person just gets on and does it, whereas an everyday or average person will do it some of the time, you know, being a little bit more of a rebel. But a high-end sports person has got into the habit of ritualistic daily habits from a performance perspective. And if you look at the success that that creates, what we're really talking about is marrying over some of that discipline for one of a suppose, a structured word, but in creating enjoyment, discipline through enjoyment and having some of those enjoyable activities on a regular basis to continually fill and fuel our tanks so we can continue to experience more of that enjoyment for ourselves. But as you've also said, so that enjoyment virus gets shared and spread across the people that are around us and the people within the organization or the people in our communities, et cetera, as well.

And just to sort of, um, because, you know, you mentioned the sports person, in case people sort of think, well, I don't have the talent of a sports person or whatever, um, I sing in a choir. I know you like walking your dog out in the bush. These are all enjoyable experiences which still have these effects. Um, if people ask me what I'm good at, uh, my best answer is the ability to listen. I mean, These— so I just— it's what I'm talking about is enjoyment is something we all experience in our own way, in what we personally choose to do. And that gives us all those sorts of goals and purpose setting that you're mentioning with the sports person. It's just a different way of thinking.

And I think that's the key thing there. And I'm being reflective of, you know, myself and a couple of different girlfriends. We're all incredibly Very, very, very different. One does not like to-do lists and doesn't like turning things upside down or, you know, being over-tidy, whereas I'm the— you know, I love tidiness, but I love nothing better than making a complete mess, re-getting rid of stuff and just recalibrating, throwing stuff out and all those sorts of stuff. I really enjoy doing that, whereas my girlfriend couldn't think of anything worse. And she's often said, can you come down and do that for me? And I've said, well, I can, but you know, I'm also merciless. So if you want to retain stuff, it's not going to be good because I'm going to get stuff moved and gone. Whereas she likes to ponder and think about it and whether she wants to keep it and whether she doesn't. And so regardless, my point of sharing that is we all enjoy things in dramatically different things, and we all enjoy things dramatically differently. So finding out what, uh, what we all enjoy, and it's all those little incremental things. As you said, you like singing in a choir. I like walking my dog. You know, I've found through walking the dog that I can discover and go on adventures and, you know, relive some of my youth because I found some new trails that I used to ride through my horses on. You know, that's, you know, you wouldn't— that's, that's more than walking a dog because I've discovered more and I've found more enjoyment from doing the same thing that I do. And that's my point. There's, you know, there's, there's almost onion skins of all those things that we enjoy. There's all the different layers as well.

That's a very good point, Sally. But can I just add to that? Because you're right, The more, the more you enjoy yourself, the more you just start to discover things that you never thought of before. And it is a journey. It's not just simply an event. It's a journey.

Yeah. And that point of the onion, the onion skin and those layers, even as it relates to when we're working through something, as it relates to a personal growth aspect or, you know, a challenge that we're having, or for me, it's unpacking inner genius or helping people unpack their, their thinking. You know, sometimes it is uncomfortable. But it's by bringing, you know, excavating those onion skins and those layers that you discover more. And if you keep that curious discovery, that's where you see more enjoyment, which is where you get to appreciate the resilient side of things. So I think, as you've sort of said, Peter, the enjoyment is there for all of us all the time. And the exciting thing is it isn't just one level, it's multidimensional.

True. Yeah, very true. Yeah,

I knew we'd get to the end of the show very, very quickly with our conversation. We're not quite there yet, Peter, but I just, um, is there anything else that you're wanting to share? I think we've covered most of it off, um, today, that as far as what we were seeing. You did want to talk a little bit as to why now. Have we covered off why it's important now enough, do you think, or have you got any final words?

I think so. I think there is a more important part, which I think to ensure people go away with in their minds. What do you do? How do you actually move on? What does all this mean about now that you've faced a change of life and you're wondering what to do? The words that I would suggest to you— a lot of my work is based on memory, connecting memories and enjoyment. And what we need to do now is to actually— if you're worried about what you're going to do with the rest of your life, life, the way to go, the way is to actually look back at what you enjoyed. Not so much the negative things. I mean, they do have their importance in our growth. But if you're looking to move forward, you want to try and unpack all the types of experiences you enjoyed and have a good look at them. Why did you enjoy them? What were the skills that they brought out in what you enjoyed? What does it mean? How do you use those skills? skills now? They're the sorts of things that it's worth you thinking about. And then when you're wondering what to do, the other thing I'd like to suggest to people is to tweak what you're good at. You know what you're good at. If you're in that sort of 30, 40, 50, 60 age group, you know what you're good at. You've got a pretty good idea. And you might say, well, look, I don't particularly want to use these skills where I'm at, but I would really love to tweak those skills and apply them to a different area of some sort, something I would really enjoy doing. It's really important to get back because all those skills will never leave you. The world's changed a great deal, as you say, but the— but it's the— it's the fact that you never change. You will continue. Your skills are always there. So I'm just recommending get back to the basics of who you are to plan what you're going to do in the future.

Yeah, so that, that's— I've got so many thoughts popping in there. I'll catch all of them in 2 secs. So what people can do is certainly grab a copy or a shortened copy of your manifesto. We're going to pop that up on the— across the ticker today so people can grab a copy of your manifesto and have a bit of a read. I think one of the key things you've actually said there as it relates to reconnecting and finding out or rediscovering what we enjoy is actually— and I love the phrase, look back to look forward. And it's something that I distinctly remember from Steve Jobs' Stanford address, talking about looking back to be able to join the dots to look forward. So certainly looking back at what you did and what you enjoyed and grabbing good old Post-it notes and dropping some different ideas down on paper and not trying to push it too much and then maybe sleeping on it and walking away and coming back. Coming back to it can be very advantageous. I was having a conversation with another dear friend of ours, Gary Edwards, the other day, sharing with him that I was doing an exercise, an unpacking exercise, and I was feeling incredibly tortured by it. I was unpacking from a timeline perspective, why it is that I do this specific type of work that I do as it relates to emotive imagery. And I knew that there was a reason that I did it, and I was trying to track back through my life what that looked like. And I got my Post-it notes out and, you know, was digging into that, as you suggested, Peter. But I was coming up with all of the very practical, you know, started work here, did this sort of of work, got divorced here, had this trauma, had this blah, blah, blah. And I was very unsatisfied by the time I finished it. But as it happens when we stop thinking and we allow, you know, the magic to happen within our brains, I had a 2 AM epiphany. And it all just came through. It was like, oh, it was that. And it was that. It was that. And then I was able to connect the dots looking forward. So my point in sharing that with the audience if you've forgotten or can't remember the things that you enjoy, go through the process of peeling some of those onion skins off, which is your Post-it notes or your thoughts or your ideas, knowing that they may not be the answer or the full answer, but knowing that your brain already knows what the answers is and you've just got to allow it to bring it to the front for you to actually hear. So sometimes you have to walk away. You may walk away for 5 minutes, you may walk away for 5 days, or it may be, you know, a 2 AM or a 5 AM epiphany in the morning when it all comes through. But going through that process of discovery, curiosity helps you find the enjoyment factor, which helps you get more out of life and be more resilient as well.

Can I just throw one quick one in?

Of course.

Parents, parents, parents, when you've got a teenager who's saying, oh, to do all these wonderful things. Once upon a time, the parents would say, oh, don't waste your time doing that, you'll never make money out of that. Parents have got to be prepared to listen to what the creative teenager is saying. What is it you want? Now, I'm not necessarily saying it's the answer, but encourage the thinking because we're now moving into an age where creativity and innovation are the way to success. And the creative teenager, the creative adolescent, By the way, that's a good age to look back at too. When you were looking back, let's look forward, is what you enjoyed then, because that's probably some ways our richest thinking was around that adolescent years. There could be something in there parents should take note.

Yeah, it was for me, it was around that, my, uh, 16 and 20. So yeah, and I think that's part of the thing, having a teenage son myself, and, um, you know, we, we, I feel I can't direct him or pigeonhole him. There's Yes, there's certainly things that I would love and think he would be great at, but they're almost the old thinking of the types of roles that I know, the types of jobs and employment that I know.

Mm-hmm.

But when he talks to me about the type of work that he can be doing, and I listen to people that are in that sort of tech space, they're talking about roles or jobs or things that aren't even being done yet. But will be in the very near future. And that's how, you know, how much technology and innovation is moving forward. So yeah, I think it is the best resource for us all is that curiosity and the ability to continue to explore and discover. And through that, we find more enjoyment and we find out more about ourselves and the possibilities for ourselves.

We are starting to value That the best person we know is ourselves. And that's really important.

Yeah, very, very well said. Anything else that you want to say on that? We've got about 2 minutes left, Peter, as it relates to enjoying oneself. And, you know, that is exactly what's happened. We, we value and start to love ourselves for ourselves and see more of the gold within us.

I'd like to emphasize the control bit. You, you're empowered every time you enjoy yourself. You're empowering yourself. We have always been put under the thumb about what we should do and who's telling us the right thing to do. And when we really— when we enjoy ourselves, we are taking control of our lives. And the only person who can take the rest of your life journey is you. Yeah. And I think it's very important to say Don't see that as something frightening. You are now— the world is now giving you the opportunity to express yourself in your creative way because we need people's uniqueness. We need to know what people are really thinking, not just simply following the rows upon rows of desks that I used to have to work in when I grew up.

Yeah, very much so. And I think if I just as part of the recap, part of your global dream is for actually people to actually be experiencing that enjoyment factor and creating those ripple effects out that people start to understand that they are self-responsible. But through that self-responsibility, we can all come together and actually marry those enjoyment factors together to make the world and the planet and our lives a better place to be.

Absolutely. I think it's the— in the workplace, the worker is actually starting to gain a lot of control. They're now starting to say, you know, this is— we've got the great resignation concept where people are voting with their feet about what they want to do. So it is affecting the business world very much so right now. This is not a future dream. It's happening right now. Yeah. And that's why I think— that's really why I wrote the manifesto right now. Because now is the time to think this way. We all need to start thinking that way. And it's something I've been fighting for 50 years. And I'm really pleased to see perhaps it's starting to happen, not because of people like me, but because of the way— it's the way the world's got to go from now on.

And the way in which the world is thinking to create a better place for themselves and others. Peter, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you, unpacking the enjoyment factor further you and helping people to understand how the enjoyment factor frees us to actually live our best lives. So thank you very much, Peter, for sharing with us today. It's been an absolute treat, and I look forward to connecting with you all another time on another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. So please, let's thank Peter. Thank you.

Thank you, Sally. I've enjoyed it immensely. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you very much, everyone. Look forward to seeing you another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Till then, see you soon.

That's it for this week's episode. Thank you so much for joining us, and I trust that you got some inspirational tips to move you forward. You can find this episode along with many more on your favorite streaming platform such as iHeartRadio, Spotify, iTunes, and more. See you next Thursday at 7 PM Eastern time for more Success Secrets Exposed with Sally A. Curtis.