How to Sustain Enthusiasm

TRANSCRIPT

00:00 Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are. This is Chris. And we are talking today about the human spirit. And well, it’s a complicated topic at the best of times, but I will try my very best to distill it. 00:19 Enthusiasm that’s another word for the human spirit. Enthusiasm and enthusiasm is not a part-time job. Enthusiasm is a full-time occupation, enthusiastic for your work, enthusiastic for your relationship, enthusiastic to go for a swim, enthusiastic that the weather is bad, enthusiastic, that you’re 00:42 going to a funeral, enthusiastic that you’ve got the opportunity to listen to a podcast en enthusiastic enthusiasm. And many people mistake, enthusiasm for excitement. 00:55 And it can be, many people think that enthusiasm lacks lax. You can’t be sad and enthusiastic at the same time. 01:07 So there’s a sense of enthusiasm that it gives us a sense of inclusion and, and doing something that’s worthwhile. And if we are missing out means we’re not enthusiastic. 01:21 I just want to talk a little bit about how I stay enthusiastic. Given that I’ve worked for myself for now 40 years, self-employed for most of those years I’ve worked alone. 01:36 I don’t have a pa or a team or a bunch of people working with me. I have agents around the world that promote my work and publishers, and I have consultants that I’ve trained and people that I’ve coached who go out and do the work of inner wealth that we created so long ago. 01:54 But I every day have to wake up in the morning and plan my day, and plan my week and plan my year knowing that if I don’t get up today, there is no work and there is no year, and there is no income, and there is no life. 02:11 And so remaining enthusiastic to me is probably the most important thing in my life. But there are times when it’s harder and there are times when it’s easier. 02:24 And I just want to talk about the things that I do to try and maintain enthusiasm. Come what may. And I’ll go through it from easy to hard. 02:35 So let’s just say things are going well, and I want to maintain enthusiasm because they’re going well. I don’t want to set myself up for failure by becoming complacent. 02:47 So when things are going well, I maintain enthusiasm by a sense of purpose. I think about how I’m helping the world and how beautiful it is, and what a blessing it is to have, have the work that I have, and to be giving it to as many people as possible. 03:03 And that entices me to write more, read more travel more and speak more about the work that I give the world. 03:14 So when things are going easy, that’s how I maintain my enthusiasm. I do more and I make sure that I theme all of the giving, not from an income perspective or from a grandeur or a self self flat, you know, self approval. 03:32 I do it because I believe in it. And the more you believe in what you do, the more enthusiastic you become to do it. 03:40 So it’s I call it my artificial intelligence machine. It, it it’s, it’s, I feed it in, I feed it with purpose. 03:51 I feed it with a sense of giving. And I feed it with a sense of blessing and luck that I’m here to do it. 04:01 And with that, I get more enthusiastic, which means I feed it more. And so that is the easy part of being self-employed for 40 years. 04:11 But from time to time, you get into a stash with someone who isn’t kind. And so one of the things we know about life, and I certainly have learnt this the hard way, is that we kind of like think everybody else is like ourselves. 04:30 And so it, it comes as great shock to me when I meet a mean hearted person. A person who’s cruel or unkind consciously to another person. 04:40 I find it extraordinary. But it’s because I’m not that person. And what I’ve had to learn to do in terms of dealing with people who are different to myself is to, to, and to remain enthusiastic about life after such a stash is firstly to recognize that I, I do have those qualities mean cruel, nasty, 05:04 even though I might distribute them inadvertently. I am the person I’m staring at. So if, if I’m accusing somebody of being cruel I’m also accusing myself of it, that everything in the universe is a blessing, has a purpose, and my job, therefore, if I’m critical of that quality, is to 05:28 go find the blessing in it. So there’s a little bit of work that I have to do to remain enthusiastic in, in a psychological sense, from a physical sense. 05:38 Sometimes I’m not enthusiastic. I lose enthusiasm because I’m tired. And when I’m tired, I typically, and of all my life even from a very small child, gravitated to sugar <laugh>. 05:53 And of course, that’s why I have a few kilos sitting on the body at the moment is I use sugar and I use it wisely. 06:03 And I use it profoundly actually to stimulate enthusiasm when it’s a physical feeling of rundown or exhaustion. Some people might say there are better things to use than sugar but I think they’re all, they’re all derivatives of sugar in some sense or another. 06:22 And so I might get a packet of jelly beans or a jelly baby or something sweet just to sweeten up and brighten up the moment. 06:30 I certainly use sugar on my bike when I go riding and I run out of enthusiasm for going up a hill. 06:37 I pop a gel which are specifically sport designed to, to inject you with a, a bundle of sugar. And I prefer the gels that you chew rather than ones that you swallow just juices, because the, it’s like having a little treat along the way on the bike ride. 06:57 So I maintain enthusiasm physically by using the means. Nature gave bananas. Don’t cut it for me. Sweets do, but other people are different. 07:09 And we all have our go-to. I think the biggest challenge with enthusiasm is when things don’t turn out the way you expected. 07:18 When a a book I’m writing turns out to, comes to a dead end, and I have probably a thousand books half written in my files all neatly stacked away, ready to distribute and to be finished. 07:36 But I get I, I always write 12 chapter headings. I always write 12 points in each chapter, and then I start writing. 07:45 I get halfway through and realize that I dunno enough about the topic to be able to complete a book on it, and I’ll usually drop it out as a blog or a podcast and leave the book half finished. 07:56 So it’s also when it come, when things don’t turn out as you expected in relationship, as you probably are aware I’ve been married a few times and not none of those relationships started with the idea they were going to finish. 08:13 So it’s always a surprise whether I instigate or someone else instigates the closure. It’s always a surprise that they didn’t last as long as I thought they would. 08:23 So there’s relationships, there’s books to write. There is sometimes I have a goal, like I, I book myself into the Snowy Mountains bike ride. 08:35 It’s in a month. It’s 110 kilometers with 1400 meters of altitude gain in it. Last weekend, I did a 50 kilometer bike ride with a thousand meters of gain in it altitude gain. 08:49 And I just knew that going down to the snowy mountains was not going to work <laugh>. And that’s because they didn’t train hard enough. 08:56 And that’s because I’ve ca I’m carrying it, as I said, a few kilos. And so I withdrew from the race. 09:01 And so all of these things are stories about things that don’t turn out as expected. Now I know for a fact and, and I’ve seen it proven time and time again that expectations block love, and I’d rather have love in my life, which, for which I’m very enthusiastic love of my work, love of myself, 09:23 love of nature, love of Bondi, love of people, love of my clients, love of the work I give around. I’d rather have that than a fulfilled expectation. 09:34 And so what, what I call it is murder. I have to murder a hope or murder an expectation. I have to kill it. 09:45 And so I become a mass murderer to myself, to my thoughts and letting go. Ideas that you held onto letting go, expectations, letting go of an idea. 09:59 And especially as you age in life it’s very easy to hold onto things that were viable at one point but aren’t viable anymore. 10:08 Not because of age, but because of wisdom. So the murdering or the slau ghtering, or the killing off of the past or of things you expected that don’t happen becomes critical, really critical to your ability to stay enthusiastic. 10:26 Enthusiasm for the future and f* enthusiasm for what’s happening can’t exist if we are commiserating what didn’t happen. And so I use the process of revisioning and reimagining and really put it in a simple language. 10:48 I would say that means I would rather have love in my heart than a fulfilled expectation. So when it comes to the crisis point of lost enthusiasm, because something isn’t going the way that, that I want, I try to convert that thing into a loving experience rather than a commiserated lost opportunity 11:11 . And so the way I do that is, I know that there are three, there’s a pyramid as a triangle, and the two bottom corners of the triangle are are balanced. 11:25 So you see the positive in something, you see the negative in something. So that’s the positive in letting go, the negative in letting go. 11:33 And then I try to be grateful, which is the top point of the pyramid, and say, thank you for letting go. 11:40 Thank you for the balance. Thank you for that thing. So the idea of going, for example, the idea of going to the snowy mountains on the bike ride it, it gave me enthusiasm for a short while. 11:52 It was nice to have, have a goal. I used that goal to train, but I didn’t fulfill the expectation. But I’m thankful for what it did for me while I held onto it. 12:02 The relationships that I’ve had I can’t say I’m glad they all ended, but I can say I’m grateful for everything I learned and everything I experienced during the process of those relationships. 12:16 And so I end up seeing that they were good and bad. I don’t wanna hold onto an infatuation that will keep me stuck in the past. 12:23 I see good and bad in all my past relationships, but I’m most importantly grateful for them. I feel blessed to have had them. 12:33 And with this head space, I maintain enthusiasm. Stuff is going to come and people call it challenge, or people call it disappointment or depressions or whatever it is. 12:46 But I just think there is, there are think there are times where you really have to murder the past. You have to kill it. 12:54 And the only way to kill the past is to see the balance in it. The only way to kill an expectation unfulfilled is to see that there is a good side and a bad side to that expectation. 13:06 And then be thankful that it didn’t happen, thankful that it happened up until the moment you release it. That allows fresh air to come in the door. 13:16 And I think enthusiasm comes from an open heart. I think enthusiasm comes from the feeling you have in your body. 13:28 One of the arts that we underestimate so often is the art of storytelling. And ultimate, we’ve, we are responsible to tell ourselves a continual flow of story. 13:42 Those stories are motivating, they’re instructive, and they’re rewarding. Motivate yourself. Drive yourself like a coach would instruct, instruct yourself like a parent or teacher would emotionless and reward yourself as you would be rewarded as if you were a child, but do it for yourself. 14:02 And I think keeping enthusiasm high, which is live with spirit, keeping enthusiasm high, I think it’s a really great metric. 14:11 I don’t think happiness is easy to measure. I don’t think love is, is such an easy target to hold onto because, you know, when we are working, you can say, I’m not necessarily loving the job, but I’m enthusiastic to do it. 14:28 I, I, I think they’re the same word to be truthful. And, but again, storytelling uses words that that elicit the, the, the most powerful emotion necessary to get the story communicate the story. 14:43 And in this instance, when we’re talking about living with spirit or living inspired or living enthusiastically, I think in this instance we’re talking to ourselves, there’s probably no more important conversation on earth to be enthusiastic about something you’re not looking forward to. 15:00 So you might have a meeting with the boss coming up, or you might have a meeting with somebody who you know is got a grump about something. 15:10 Or is you, you, you actually meeting someone that you don’t necessarily have much interest in meeting. How do you get enthusiastic? 15:17 Because if you arrive there without enthusiasm, your heart is half open and there is no such thing as a half-hearted success story. 15:25 So rather than set yourself up for failure in a meeting or in a presentation you’re giving, or in a releasing of a relationship, or in the releasing of a hope over a bike ride or whatever it is that you have to release make sure you do it with enthusiasm. 15:43 And to do so, you have to have a wide open heart. There’s no such thing as a half-hearted success story. 15:48 So turn up enthusiastically. This is Chris. You have a great day. Bye for now.