#SYDWAC - How Getting Clear On Your Future Makes Things Easier

Sa, Sam. Sa. Hey. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to start your day. Great. Start your day with a coach. I am your coach. Certified high performance coach Sean. But I just said that a bunch of times. Coffee is still coming in, guys. I'm not adjusted to the new schedule quite yet, but it's live. We're here, so let's get to it. Today's show is always about creating meaning in your life so you can live the life that you really want. And I wanted to talk about how getting clear can actually help you advance, can actually help you move ahead. So if you're with me, let's go. Oh, before we do, please do the social media thing. If you haven't, please, like, follow, share, comment, thumbs up, thumbs down, whatever you want to do, but help me out by being engaged. So if you could do that, that would be amazing. And for the people that are usually here, like Christopher or Dave or Kate or Ashley, thank you guys for always champion what I do here on start your day with a coach. So with that said. All right, let's get into it. So I wanted to start with a story about how I kind of ended up as a coach early on, if you guys didn't know, I actually come from a background in technology. I have a master's in information systems through business school in, you know, Cali School of Business at Indiana. And, you know, before that, studied management in undergrad and really honed in on the tech side of stuff. And so what that did is it allowed me to, once my master's was done, to go into tech as a software engineer, which was one of my hobbies, which is kind of crazy. And, you know, when people say cultivate your hobbies, they it's really important that you have a bunch of things going in the fire. Because what turned out to be a interest in high school with one or two programming classes and, you know, just kind of keeping up with that interest on the side, not really being serious, just doing it for fun. Turned into a career that changed my life. So first point, you know, cultivate your hobbies if you're not doing that, because at some point, you're going to find a time in your life, most likely, and I think we all do, where you feel like you're just kind of floating, but you don't know what you want to do. You don't know what that next step is going to be for you. And so you're kind of in this holding pattern, and that's when people kind of get comfortable, and that's when people stop Pushing themselves to be their best. I know it has been true for me. So when I got that first job out of college, I was hungry. I wanted to, you know, leave the biggest impact. And I burned out in a year, right. It turns out that I started at Walmart Corporate, and there was just always stuff to do. It was never the stuff that you were assigned to do because there's all these fires. And trying to be the person trying to that was making everything happen broke me, I think, quite honestly, to keep that story really short. So, you know, that happened in, like, the first year. You take couple that stress with financial stress from student loans and trying to figure out, like, how am I going to cover all my bills is a recipe for overwhelming and disaster, right? And so I struggled for a couple of years on that. Right. The big goal up to that point was to get through school to have those opportunities. And I'm very fortunate for that opportunity. I'm very fortunate I was able to, you know, get the education that I got because it changed everything, but it also saddled me with a ton of debt. And so as I was working through that, I, you know, was wondering, like, what do I really want for my life, right? And I felt like I had just stumbled in what I was supposed to do. I was trying to pay all the bills. I was showing up, you know, working extra hard, trying to get everything done, trying to get my finances in order and wasn't making progress. And so I thought there must have been a different way, but I didn't know how, right? So I did what every nerd does, and I hope you're a nerd like me. And that is. I started reading, started reading, you know, financial, personal finance books. I started reading personal development books, philosophy, anything I could get my hand on to try to manage those feelings of discouragement, of overwhelm, of, like, feeling like I had somehow failed. You know, maybe you've had that experience in your life because things are supposed to be different, right? You're supposed to get the education and get the good job and live happily ever after. And we. And so many people have found that that's not necessarily the equation, especially if you have to take out loans. But so for me, it was okay. Starting to get this new perspective, and I think that's a key thing. As we're going in into, you know, the theme this month on the show has been get clear about your future and reset. And this clarity piece of getting different perspectives is part of that. So I wanted to highlight that point where if you're reading, like, how can you apply the things that you're reading, the things you're learning in the class, in seminars, out in the world as you're working to your life in order to shift you up a gear, Right. Get you to that next level? And so for me, I stumbled on this idea that you should work out. So I started training for marathons because I was that stressed out and couldn't run for five minutes straight at the time, I decided, oh, it's a good idea for nine months from now to sign up for the Chicago Marathon. And so I did that, and that was great, you know, so I was able to accomplish get or that year I didn't actually get across. I trained, did my long runs, got up from zero to 20 miles, did the Chicago Marathon, and that was the year that it was extra hot and they canceled it halfway through. Yeah, I was at like, mile 18, I think, when they. They put the kibosh on it, and thank God they did. It was really kind of grueling. But that's another story for another time. But that training helped me manage my emotional state and let me on those long runs when you're just thinking like, oh, this hurts. I started thinking like, okay, how can I distract myself? Oh, I'll think about how can I shift my finances, how can I pay a little bit more to kind of get my debt under control? So that part of my life was solved, and let's set up the next stage. So I'm doing this, I'm running, I'm getting all these new ideas in my head, and I stumble on a seminar called High Performance Academy run by Brendan Burchard, which is amazing, right? And it is the seed that leads me to becoming a coach. So because it's a lot of the work he taught there informed the coaching program. He's the guy who runs the organization that certifies the high performance coaching group every year. So a lot of the research that came out of that and all the studies he did inform what I do as a certified high performance coach, which is really cool. But at that seminar, I was asked a question. Are you living your truth? And I want you to think about that for yourself, too. Like, in this moment, in this time, are you living your truth? Because as you look around, there are so many people that are burnt out, right? There are teachers that are burnt out. There are medical professionals that are burnt out. There are essential workers, the people that stock the grocery shelves that are completely burnt out. And as we've seen this trend in the market Right now they're calling it the Great Resignation, but it's people trading in for better jobs that have better hours, that pay better, that are a little bit less. You take less of a beating from consumers because sometimes, especially around Christmas, consumers are the worst. I'm not sure if you've ever been in the store and seen a lady screaming because they don't have the color socks that she wanted, like, oh my God. But I digress. You know, dealing with the public in that way can be really demanding and demeaning, you know, and which is why I'm always saying we need to treat people with kindness and with a little bit of compassion when we're out in the world. Just that's how I operate. And I think, you know, so many people are doing the best with what they got, and you just have to meet them where they're at so you don't have to be a jerk. So don't be a jerk, okay? That's my, that's my philosophy, folks. Here on a Wednesday. So anyways, so we're seeing these people shift, but I was asked that question, are you living your truth? And I was burnt out, just like a lot of people right now probably are, you know, and maybe even you. And so I didn't like the question of that answer because I definitely knew this was not the life I'd envisioned for myself. This was not the type of work at that point in my life that I really wanted to do, which is, you know, focusing on building software for a giant corporation. It just didn't feel fulfilling. You don't see the direct result of the good you're putting out there. And so I knew that I wanted to do something that was a little bit more service oriented, that was helping people. And I had that thread, right? And so it took me a year, I think, after that to finally make the decision to leave that job. Right? And what happened was I started from that seminar, I started to journal and I started to talk with people and I started to really think, like, what kind of like legacy do I want to leave? What kind of contributions do I want? What kind of things do I do on a day to day basis that are really fulfilling? What are the things that I'm interested in? What are the things that get me fired up when I start talking about it? And so, and at that point too, with all the personal development and personal finance books, I had figured out a path out of my student debt, right? So at the beginning, at $70,000 in student debt, it took me seven and a half years to get rid of all of it with a laser focus with, like, eating beans and rice and hot sauce and corn if I could afford it, extra can of, like, you know, preserved corn. You know, you do what you got to do. And so, you know, I went from there to this amazing job later at Apple where, you know, I was able to pay all my student debt and be done with it and really then start the next phase, which is, you know, what do I really want to be when I grow up? You know, I had a point. And. Okay, so before I get to the next part of the story, the takeaway here is, you know, that phase of journaling, of talking, of trying to figure out what I was passionate about, what fired me up, what I wanted. To leave this world gave me a sense of agency over my life. And what does that mean? It meant that I had an idea that I could go after and I had the choice, right? Had the choice either to pursue that and have a great story for my grandkids someday or for me in this particular situation, I could chicken out and just keep doing what I was doing and be miserable. Right? And when you get clear about that new future, that's the motivation for change. A lot of times it's a lot what I do as a coach and help people figure out those points where it's like, okay, like, I could continue doing the same thing, continue getting the same results. I could continue to be miserable, to continue to suffer, continue to not make the meaningful progress that I want in my life. Or I could take a different action. I could take a different action today to help me along, to get me to that other life. So that's what happened after that seminar, right? Sometime I'm journaling and, you know, getting clear and then having that agency and realizing that I had more control over my life. I was at that time single. I didn't have, you know, any family in Arkansas where I was working because I was working at Walmart. Didn't really have, you know, any relationships that were completely tying me down there. It was time for me to strike new. And it's really funny when you get clear and you start taking bold action towards that vision that you have for yourself. I truly believe the universe conspires to help you along. Right? Especially if you're being pulled towards something you think is a calling. Because the day that I made the decision, like, okay, I'm, you know, two months from now, I'm going to put in my, you know, two weeks notice at Walmart and start the next phase of my life, I got a call out of the blue from one of my really good friends, Dave, who is graciously, usually on the show, and he's like, hey, man, I have this room for free out here in California, you know, so live in this extra room for free for as long as you need to get on your feet and we'll go. And so that got me, you know, that just encouraged me, right? But it was very. It felt very serendipitous, right? It's like, okay, I made this decision and like, literally within the next hour, I get a call from my buddy saying, come live with me for free for as long as you need to. Just get on the west coast, man. He'd been trying for years, but that's another whole different story. So that's what I did. I made the choice to change the universe, conspired to help me. I made the track over to California. While I was there, I started a business to help people with student debt. And that business flopped pretty hard, right? I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know the right things to do. And I was trying to figure out, how do you help people that are in financial distress in a moral way? And it was really stressful. And so the good. Here's. Here's the thing, right? The universe conspires to help you, right? All the work that I did there of, like, setting up websites, running videos, you know, it took me about a year before the little bit I had saved up as a cushion to try to get that business launched. When that failed, I had like two weeks left of cash. And a buddy was like, same buddy, actually, that I was saying was like, hey, I have a friend that works at Apple. They're looking for engineer that works in Python. Do you know Python? Like, I don't know Python, but he's like, hey, you should. You should go check it out, right? And so I took, you know, I applied. I took one week to learn this new language that I hadn't really learned from a hobby that I had, you know, so that kind of fell in place. During the interview, I showed them the stuff I was doing for that student loan business I was doing. And what ended up happening is I feel like the interview was kind of going okay. And then right before I leave, the hiring manager is like, is there anything else we should know about you before you leave? And I'm like, well, I've been doing this thing on the side. It hasn't really been working. He's like, hey, can, can we just take a look at it real quick? And he threw up the website. You see these terrible videos of me looking like I'm like talking about student debt, but I'm really not skilled at talking to cameras yet, so it's like a deer in the headlights. And I'm like, here, you know, here's my idea here to help you advance or whatever. But that impressed that hiring manager. He's like, oh, you figured this out all by yourself. You figured out the lighting, how to edit videos. The group that I was working for or got hired for from that interview was on the Final Cut team at Apple doing some automation stuff. So, like, it all kind of just fell in place. And that was kind of a dream job. You know, if as I'm looking, you know, back, you know, if I had decided to stay in tech for my whole career, that's the company I would have stayed at. Right? It just so happens that while I was there, I found out this new thing that I'm really passionate about called high performance coaching. And so eventually, you know, I had to do my own thing to get here, to be able to do videos and to be able to serve more customers in my coaching business. So that's kind of my story on how getting clear really helps you advance, really helps you, you know, get out of that. That kind of like floating or wandering through life or wondering like, how did I get here? Because, you know, it's all the same, right? You have some new perspective come into your life. You start to do things a bit differently. You realize you have more agency or more control to make decisions in your life. And when you commit fully with your heart to that, I believe, again, the universe conspires to help you succeed, to help you along the path that you're always supposed to be. So I hope that you feel like the universe is conspiring to help you. And if not, it just takes some new perspective. It takes some new decisions for you to make. You can follow this the same process yourself. And I'm here to cheer you on, you know, as your coach. So if there's something that you're really hoping that you. You're trying to shift to, trying to transform your life to that new business, to that new job, to a new relationship, to a new level of health, let me know in the comments below and I'll cheer you on. I always love hearing from you guys, so. All right, guys, that said, thanks for being on. We'll be out on Friday, same time, same place, always, always exciting to share these stories with you guys and this content. And if there's anything you'd love to learn a little bit more about in personal development or high performance. You know, high performance being how to get clarity, energy, courage, productivity and influence more consistently in your life, please post that below as a question and we'll work that into this weekly content rhythm for you guys. So that said, thank you for being here. Oh, if you enjoyed this video, you'll see a link in my bio or below this video where you can sign up for my newsletter. If you're not already signed up for that, that's free. And then every Sunday I send a even more deeper detailed email or piece of content, video, blog style and newsletter to your inbox for you to take a look whenever you're ready. So if you want to be part of that, just follow that link, hit the button to subscribe to the newsletter and you'll be set up. Okay? All right, guys. Other than that, I'll see you guys on Friday. Live with more joy, more personal growth, and more impact in your community.