Ep 522 Steve Gets Raw

0:00Most people are living a life they've never consciously chose. They are living from beliefs they've inherited, fears they've accepted, opinions they've absorbed, and limitations they've repeated so often that they now believe they're facts. They are living by default. Living a life by design is about waking up to the truth that you are not stuck with the person you have been and the life you've created so far. You get to choose who you become. You get to question what you believe. You get to decide what you focus on. You get to take responsibility for your energy, your time, your health, your money, and the direction of your life. You cannot change yesterday, but you can decide who you become next. Welcome to On Wealth. I am so excited about recording the podcast today this morning.

1:04It's a little bit later than I normally record. It's 9 o'clock. I start recording around 7.30, but then I had a very, very awesome Zoom schedule eight. I didn't have it. I'm recording done in time and so I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to divide it because I want to stay consistent. I'm pumped up. So I just hit the record button after my Zoom. And here I am. A little note, the Zoom was about my book, Life by Design. It is at the publisher. I could not be happier. Like I am so excited about the book, Life by Design. I soon as I get confirmation that you should be ordered on Amazon. And yeah, I'm excited about that. So really pumped up. But you know what? That's not what I meant to talk about today. Today, I'm going to get honest. I am going to get open. I am not a perfect person.

2:05I make mistakes. I usually enjoy my mistakes because I learn, which I learned from this mistake, but it's kind of the long game mistake. And let me get into it. Let me get into it. Follow me on this one. I woke up this yesterday. I woke up yesterday and I wasn't feeling great. I wasn't feeling good at all. You know, my body ached, my joints ached. I did not have a fever, but I just wasn't feeling myself. So you know, I'm like, maybe I'll skip yoga. I'm just, you know, like my body wasn't, hmm. I took a sauna. That helped. But then I went to my shop. I was there for all about, I don't know, three minutes when I'm like, I am just not feeling it today. I'm not feeling well. I'm home and I'm like, you know, kind of think of it. I've had this low grade physical thing going on where I just have not been myself physically.

3:06All right. Just not up to it. I haven't been running much and I got a marathon coming up in a little over a week. And in the last, to give you an idea, since coming home from Scandinavia, it's been two months actually, two months today. I ran exactly once, once in two months. I just, just come home, I just haven't been feeling it. You know, just something. I don't know, you know, like, I've been taking a little more IV profan than usual and I looked around and I know I'll take a one step further. If you go through this podcast, look at my consistency since August 1st. It's been pretty inconsistent. I haven't really been feeling awesome and it's been inconsistent and I looked around my place and I saw some things that were very uncharacteristic of my behavior. Like I am totally organized.

4:07I don't let anything go and I have a couple of pictures that I meant to hang and they've been sitting on my long leather ottoman for like a month. Two pieces of art to hang and they've been sitting there for about a month, probably even more. And I got a couple of shirts that I need to bring to the cleaners, you know, like every time I wear a button shirt, it's always right to the cleaners, clean and pressed, heavy starch. And they've been sitting there for a while and I'm like, yeah, this is very unusual for me. And then I, I'm like, okay, you know what, grab the journal and start journaling. And find out what's going on here. And I did laundry the other day and now I am particular about my laundry and I put it on my bed and I hang it up, everything gets hung up and put in the wardrobe and I'm going to tell you my laundry wasn't hung up in a couple days. And I'm like, yeah, I'm just not feeling it. And I'm like, what is wrong with me physically?

5:09You know, first thing I look at, do I have it? No, no temperature, no actual pain, no, you know, like, okay, it's just like, you know, it's, you join a, you know, a little achy. I go, this, my physical problem is not physical. It's not. So what's going on with my behavior? I'm not acting as I normally would like, I'm in a funk and I sat in journaled and journaled like going back what, what's going through my mind? And this is going to sound completely crazy. But I'm like, my emotional, my emotional health hasn't been there. That is what I came down to the realization that I have actually been, been playing small. I've been, no, no, strike that. I've been playing safe, not small, safe, right? I've been, I've been playing safe, meaning I've been caring about the opinion of other

6:11people. But, you know, like, huh, why didn't I do this when I said I was going to because I thought this person would say this, oh, my goodness, now I'm concerned about the good opinion of another person. Huh, that's playing safe. When you don't do something because you're concerned of somebody else's thought or feeling towards it, you're playing safe. And I'd realized and recognized I've been doing this. And I go, where in my life have I been doing this? Now listen, everyone in my life is wonderful. I am not going, wow, well, this person would have been, no, nothing like that. These are the things that I've been making up for whatever reason. And then I got down to that and I'm not going to get too, too in depth personal because I really, this is like, I would have to get on the sofa of a psychiatrist for that one. But, after that, I journaled, I journal probably for two hours yesterday.

7:19Just two hours getting my thoughts down, getting my feelings down, getting my emotions down, collecting the evidence, getting it all down, putting aside the time for me to do this, right? That's important to me because I'm trying to discover, I'm trying to get to the bottom of why I have not been feeling myself and my behaviors have absolutely shown that I've not been feeling myself. And I got to the bottom of it. I got to the, I'm like, oh my gosh, after a couple hours of journaling, I didn't stop and meditate. I absolutely did. But after a couple hours of journaling and collecting the evidence and what was the story I was telling, like this is the deep work. I got to tell you, my body felt amazing.

8:23I like holy cow, everything that, and there's been more things that, besides the two picture frames and the two shirts and you know, the crap like that, like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, I made out a list of where I've been falling off and nailed everything and it felt wonderful. Like holy cow, I felt like a weight had been taking off my shoulders and for the life of me, what had happened. And I am in the big picture leading up to go to Scandinavia. I was, you know, had a little bit of anxiety about it because there's a lot of things I want to get done and I didn't want to leave Chicago in the summertime. I had my boat and all this and that and I went there and disconnected and came back and just never fully engaged back in life again. You know what, I mean, I came back and kind of riding off that feeling of being there

9:27and spending time with family, spending time with friends and never really getting back to being me. Which sounds a little crazy, doesn't it? I mean, it happens. I'm not a perfect person. You know what? I'm still trying to figure this out too. You know, life keeps, life keeps changing, you got to change with it. I wasn't acting as I normally would. You know, and this has been going on. This wasn't a day. This is like I said, I got home two months ago today. So this is just something I never got back into the groove of things and this has been a very, very transitional year for me. Like the year in general. And you know, I just, I guess I let my, I'm going to keep saying emotional health build up.

10:27You know, the not so awesome part of emotional health, I let it snowball until it, you know, took its toll on me physically. I didn't feel myself. I can tell you right now, like I said, everyone exactly once in two months and I can tell you right now that marathon is coming. I will start and I will finish 26 miles, 275 yards, not a problem, right? That's, I mean, I would love to be able to finish and then go to the 27th mile party and celebrate with everybody. I don't know if I'm going to feel that well afterwards, but you know what? That was hanging over my head. A lot of things hanging over my head. And it's interesting because I had people reach out to me and said, hey, Steve, you still own your boat and people at the dock. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I go, man, nobody sees you here. And I'd realize I'd been to my boat maybe three times in a couple of months and you know,

11:30I could walk over there and I love my boat. But you know, like it's just, I don't, I don't, I don't know how it started, but yesterday, enough was enough. And I sat and I journaled and I did the deep work and I collected the evidence and I reflected in all of it. And I'm telling you, it changed. I feel today, wow, I'm back at it. You know, like I feel like me. I can do a backflip right now. You know, physically do a backflip. That's how good I feel. And so I'm pretty excited about today. I'm pretty excited about the book. I'm pretty excited. And I wanted to share because you know what other people are like this too. Other, you know what, have you ever, like you can't put your finger on it. Something's not right.

12:30You know, and I, and the thing is I, I thought this yesterday before I started journaling. I am always available for people. I try to make myself available as much as possible. And you know what, I was not available for myself. And I thought, and I did not, I had not reached out to the people who are available to me. Shame on me. Right? I did, I didn't do it. And had I done that, you know, imagine if I had reached out to one of my mentors or somebody who's there for me, this could have been discovered a lot earlier. But I'm feeling good today. And I wanted to share that. I'm not a perfect person. You know, like I, I'm still figuring it out too. I'm doing really well in life. Right? I really am. I live in a, live an amazing life. And I, every single day I look at it, so much gratitude in my life. I've been blessed with so much.

13:30And that never escapes me. Or, you know, like I just, but it was interesting that my behaviors, I could still have gratitude. But I just behaved as I was concerned. Now here's an example. I'm going to give you an example of my behaviors and what I mean. Because let's get real. So earlier this year, earlier the summer, rain real hard here. And in my office, I noticed I got a little sea pitch on the north of Wall where the foundation, the brick and all that, but a water. I'm like, huh, that's never happened before. I wonder what's going on. So I walk outside to look between my building and the building next to me. There's about maybe a foot, maybe 15 inches in between the two. And of course, I can't see because there's this big metal thing that the previous owner of this building had put up. And I'm like, huh, this big metal thing is here. And I bet the water can't run out.

14:31And now it's pooling back there. But I'm willing to say once I pull off this metal thing, that I'm going to be pretty back there, right? I mean, it's been up there for, I don't know how many years, who knows. I don't know what to expect. I'm just going to be truthful. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of rats that live in that mud. And it's just a little patch of mud, like I said, about a foot, maybe 15 inches, the half the length of my building, which is approximately 40 feet. Right? So you got this strip and it's mud, concrete on both ends, but mud in between because you can't pour concrete like a foot wide. You just can't get in there. You can't clean out. You know, a lot of things you can't do. Anyway, but I didn't want to take down the metal thing because, you know, I like my neighbors and I know they're not going to like when I take it down, even though it's on my property. You know, like I'm going to get a little pushback from them. I'm sure of it. And so I'm like, I better not take it down. I'll deal with it.

15:31Maybe the water won't come back and it came back and I'm like, okay, I'll let it go a little longer. Maybe it won't come back. That's what I mean about playing it safe. I was concerned what my neighbors would think. And so you know what I did yesterday? I went and took down the metal thing. You know what? They could think what they want. I will tell them exactly why I'm doing it. And I'll bet water seeping into their building too. Of course, my neighbors are on the second and third floor so they don't notice it because their first floor is a storefront, an ice cream store that closed a couple years ago. Nobody's been in there for a couple years. I'm pretty sure there's water in that place. So anyway, that's what I'm talking about. Playing it safe. Oh, I'll just wait. I'll just wait. Screw that. I took the metal thing down. It's mine. I don't care what anybody thinks. And you know what? It's ugly back there. There is at least a foot above the sidewalk, maybe even 20 inches of mud and brick stuff that fell off the brick mortar.

16:31And there's an old gutter lane in there. There's pieces of wood buried in the mud. There had to be at least a dozen rat holes. I'm like, there's a lot of rats in there. And you know, it's a city. That's what happens. And I'm like, okay. Now I got to figure out the next step and I can see why the water is getting in. And you know what? I'll take care of that. Not a problem. That to me, it might as well just be done already. Right? I'm just that confident in it. And that's what I mean. It's been stuff like that. That's very unusual for my behavior. I usually dive into things right away and why did I hesitate? Anyway, I know I've been talking about me this whole time. And here's the thing. It's not about me. Have you ever felt, not yourself, like your behaviors are a little off? To me, it manifested in my physical health. And that's why I noticed it. Not in my emotional or spiritual or mental or anything.

17:33I noticed it in my physical. And to me, your physical health is a result of something else. You know, it's amazing. You know, I'm just stressed people can actually physically sweat. Not that it's hot out. They're stressed. So pretty incredible. Anyway, I discovered it. I hope this helps you and grab your journal. Start writing. Start collecting the evidence. If you've enjoyed this episode or you found it helpful in any way, please feel free to share it with somebody who you feel it might help as well. So don't forget to leave us a five star rating. And please leave a review telling everybody what you think of this podcast. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I believe in each and every one of you. And I want nothing but success and wealth for you.