A Life by Design

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Hey everybody before we get started with what this episode is going to be all about. Here is a quick message on how you can start your own podcast if you want to. Okay, what's going on everybody? Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Eric Chow of Powers podcast. I'm your host Eric Chow. And I'm here for a solo episode right now. I'm just going to talk a little bit. I don't expect this episode to be very long. But I wanted to kind of share a few ideas. This is just the culmination of some things that are going on, other conversations I've been having.

Obviously, I've got my email newsletter for those of you who are receiving that. So some ideas that I talk about in this episode were probably in the recent email newsletters that have come out.

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Also just combining some other ideas that have just been coming at me as I kind of go through my life and I have conversations and I'm reading books a lot and listening to other talks and podcasts and etc. Today I really want to talk about structuring your life. I think that is going to be the main idea for this episode because I think that sometimes we it is so easy to talk about Hey, think positive, hey, be optimistic, hey, everything's gonna work out just fine. Stop worrying. It's so easy to say a lot of these things. It's so easy to say, you just gotta be motivated.

You've got to hustle in order to achieve your goals. And I don't know, there are a lot of these ideas that we throw around and all of them have power and some truth to them.

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Okay, I'm not saying any of those things are wrong. You absolutely should think positive. You absolutely should be optimistic. You probably shouldn't worry so much about some little things. I 100% true at the same time. Sometimes we say that so much that we miss out on things. And what I mean by that is we aren't considering certain things that may be happening in your life. It is not easy to be positive, to be optimistic, to not worry when something is going wrong in your life, when you're facing a challenge in your life. And guys, I've shared so many different stories, personal stories and other guests who have gone through these ridiculously difficult challenges.

Some of them more complicated than others. Some of them more emotionally draining than others. Some of them just very different stories. This is what I've done on this show and I'm not gonna tell you that you have to smile through everything. Although I do think that's a great idea. I do think you should smile. Not the fake smile.

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It's not about faking it, but and I don't really want to go down this rabbit hole right now because it's not the topic of this episode But I do think you should try and smile but nevertheless What I want to talk about today is structuring it see it's not the point isn't really to think positive the point is not just to Not be bothered The point is the idea is if you structure your life so that naturally you think and act in a certain way, that is the idea. The way you end up living an empowered life is you decide beforehand how you want to think, how you want to act, the kind of person you want to be, and slowly but surely you start to structure your life and who you are and what you do.

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to map to that. See guys, I think that it is so important and I think avoiding this is such a terrible mistake. We have to decide what is important to us. We have to decide what is it that you value? What is important to you? Do you value family? Do you value friendship? Do you value meeting new people? Do you value growth? Do you value learning? I'm not talking about specifically school. I get it. Some people don't like school. I get it. It's cool. But do you like learning? Do you like learning? Do you like personal growth? Do you like the idea of becoming a better you? Do you value mentorship? Do you value health? Do you value being in a good financial spot? Being out of debt?

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Having residual and passive income. I don't know. You have to figure out what it is you value. Do you value honesty? Do you value truth? Do you value brutal honesty? When somebody tells you, well, you may not want to hear, but you need to hear. Do you value that? And obviously, I mean, I can't sit here and say that I figured out all of my values. I personally, I can't say that, but I have figured out some things. and slowly but surely. I want to try and structure my life and who I am and what I'm consuming and who I'm becoming to actually embody that.

Because once you look at and you examine and you decide what it is that is important to you, the next step is to examine your life right now. And is your life right now aligned with what is important to you? Is it aligned with what you care about? And If you're able to say yes, right now, my life reflects what I value, then that is awesome. And oh my God, should you be proud of yourself? Should you be celebrating yourself? And you should enjoy the hell out of your life right now. If it doesn't, are you okay with that? Are you okay with compromising on your values? I don't know if you are. Okay? Are you okay with, you know, if you value family?

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I'll give you an example. I have a friend of mine. When her second daughter was born, she realized her values had changed. She liked her job, but she wanted to spend, she liked her career, but she wanted to spend more time with her daughters. She has, it was her second daughter, so they have two daughters. And she said, her values change. She said, I value spending time with my two daughters. That is what I value. That is one of my more that is more important than the career I'm in. So she made some changes. She did. And obviously, yes, you have to be very practical on the financial side, things like that.

Yes, of course. She figured it out. She's good. That was 13 years ago. Okay. So she's fine. But that was her value. And she decided to change her life as a result. Yes, I understand there is a practical financial side to that. I get it. She figured it out.

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She's a friend of mine. I know exactly how she did it. I'm not going to go into that on this episode. That's something you want to talk about. DM me, whatever. But the idea was she wanted to change that. I have another friend of mine working in engineering. She didn't really care about that. She didn't value that. She actually, her value was helping kids. She got into special education. That was her value. That's what she cared about. That's what she wanted to do. Again, yes, there's a financial Downside to that, she figured that part out. She got some extra income on the side. Again, not going to go into that.

That's what she did. What is it that you value? And does your life right now follow that? I'll give you my example or maybe a few of my examples. I really value meeting people and there have been times in my life.

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and having meaningful conversations. And there have been so many moments in my life in the past couple of years where I have really messed that up because I haven't been putting myself in situations to meet new people. I haven't been putting myself in situations to have those meaningful conversations. That is literally one of the reasons I started this podcast. And as you guys know, if you've been following the show for a time, there have been high-attices that I've taken. And sometimes those were well needed and other times I kind of wish I stayed. I'm being very honest right now. That is absolutely true. What we need to do is we need to decide what was important and if your life right now is aligned with that.

Are you embodying the values and you know it's one thing it's like this right it's one thing to say I value honesty but then you turn around and go ahead and lie.

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And you're like, oh, but it's not a big lie. It's fine. I'm not really like, I didn't really lie. I mean, I just kind of like hid some of the truth. Is that honesty to you? Maybe it is. And that's fine. I'm not judging you. But is it is the question? You got to start asking some of these hard questions. Empowerment. That's what the show is built on. And if you're going to empower yourself, you got to be honest with yourself. You got to be honest with yourself. So anyway, you've identified what you value, you've identified where your life is and now of course you've also identified what is it that you need to change and it's a process you're not going to be you may not be able to change it tomorrow, all right?

But how can we learn to structure our life like that? How can we learn to restructure our life so that maybe living our values is more natural? Maybe we can structure our life so that we automatically start thinking positive. How can we structure our life so that we aren't bothered by things? And I'll share kind of one thought, one example for how I've done this. This was a conversation I had the other day. In fact, from the time of recording, which isn't going to be when I released it, kind of not releasing, it's currently like 9.30 to 1PM and I'm probably not going to release this tonight. But I said this quote, I said this line.

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In a conversation I was having just yesterday and I said this, I'm going to read it, quote, when there is something exciting happening that you can look forward to, nothing can shake your tree. I will tell you right at this very moment, okay? I am attending this incredible event that I've been looking forward to for months this weekend. Nobody can say anything to me this week. I mean, basically what ended up happening is I won this week before it even started because I know this week is amazing already because I get to attend this event over this weekend. And I'm so excited about this event.

And I've been looking forward to this for months. And I know it's going to be amazing. And I know it's going to be a great couple of days. And so this week is great automatically. I mean, I don't have to do anything this week. And this week is great.

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What if you lived your life like that? Now, it doesn't have to be the big things either. When there's, I'll repeat this quote. When there is something exciting happening that you can look forward to, nothing can shake your tree. So all we have to do is have something exciting that we can look forward to that is close enough for us to be excited about it. It may not be as big as this event that I have coming up. that I've been literally looking forward to for like two months. I maybe it's something much smaller than that. And that's okay. It just has to be the right size and close enough for you to be excited about it so that you don't really care if one little thing goes wrong.

I'll give you some examples. You know what? Here's a good example. There have been many times where I booked a podcast recording and I said, okay, perfect. I booked this podcast recording. I'm going to edit it.

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And then it's going to go out on this certain day at this certain time. And I'm fired up. I'm so excited because every guest I book, I'm excited about it. And I know it's going to be a great conversation, right? And then boom, I wake up that day and I get an email or I get a text or I get a message somewhere somehow. Hey, I'm so sorry I got a cancel. Something came up, whatever it is, right? And it happens. I get it. This is life. But man, I mean, that's just like. I'm looking forward to this thing and it doesn't go through. And sometimes that really sucks.

I was like, I really want to do this. I'm so excited. I told this other person, maybe I talked to like three people and I was like, yo, I'm doing this amazing recording. And it's going to be so much fun. And it's going to be such a great interview. And this is a little bit of their story. And man, it's going to be so great. It's going to come out on this day. You just look out for it. And boom, didn't happen. Obviously we rescheduled, but didn't happen.

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Actually some of them we didn't even end up rescheduling is gone. No hate or anything, but these are these are this is reality, right? I'm very honest and and these things happen, but I'll tell you what it really helps when I can have those things happen when those that situation happens and I know I have a podcast recording the next day and it's fine because I can still release an episode on time. It may not be the episode I planned, but I still release an episode. Heck, this episode right now that you're listening to is not the episode I planned for. It's not. And that's totally fine.

Totally fine. I'll give another example. You know, I'm a business man. Client, I'm excited about working with, doing something with, and they say no. It sucks.

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It sucks, especially when I'm following up and I'm really like, you know excited about this person To do some work with them and then it doesn't happen Socks, but I'll tell you what helps It helps to know that I've got the next client appointment books an hour after that for after that meeting or the next day It helps I'm telling you it really does It's it's you know, if you didn't do so hot on a test But you turned in like two extra credit little things there So you ain't so worried about it when you have something next thing lined up You don't have to worry about everything anymore Because you have the next thing lined up if somebody says something bad something rude to me Something I didn't like maybe put me down.

I'm feeling so great which doesn't happen very often to be very honest with you. But every once in a while it does. But it damn helps that I know I'm going to talk to a good friend of mine later who's going to encourage and love on me. You can't bother me anymore because I know things like that are going to happen. Maybe I failed to achieve a goal. But you know what? I'm so damn excited about the next goal.

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And I'm so damn determined to achieve the next goal that it's okay. And I'm just gonna move right on to the next thing. I'm not even really gonna think about it except maybe to make some changes, but I'm not really gonna let myself be bothered by it because I'm so excited about the next thing. I'm looking forward to the next thing. I've structured my life like that so that I can't be bothered. What if you can structure your life so that you automatically think positive? It is so much easier guys to be positive when you don't have to try to be positive. It is. It's almost because you structured your life in a way that it's natural to think a certain way, to be a certain way, to act a certain way.

You just structured it like that. It's almost as if you didn't even have a choice because you set it up that way. My life is so full of positive that I mean, okay, I'm not perfect. I definitely think negative. I definitely have my doubts and my fears and my complaints and all of that stuff. Okay, perfect. But it's a lot easier for me to smile, be excited about life and say life is awesome because it really is. And it's because I created that over time.

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When I'm reading books that are just stories of overcoming, when I'm having conversations and podcasts that are stories of overcoming, I have to overcome. I mean, I mean, how, okay, come on, how, how, how ridiculous would it be if I have all these stories of overcoming some ridiculous challenge? And then I'm over here going through something in my own life that is probably not nearly as bad as some of the stories that I've shared with some of my guests on this podcast. and I couldn't overcome something. How ridiculous would that be? No, I can't do that. I've got to overcome. I mean, I don't even, I barely know.

I don't really, really have a choice. I have to. Like, I have to. And boom, that's it. That's what I've done. I've got, I've got, you know, it's so easy for me. I hop in my car at the end of the day, go home and I have some audio playing.

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somebody sharing their story or some audio playing of somebody just spouting wisdom, positivity, positivity and faith and whatever. Or I sit down in this reading chair that I have and I pick up a great book or I hop in the car and maybe I turn on an audio or I'm working out. And I put him out your buds and I play an audiobook right now the audiobook on this thing to his Barack Obama's I Listen man. This dude was president Whatever problems and challenges he's going through his way more complicated than whatever the hell I'm going through I I my dude's literally got the weight of the world on his shoulders in that book Thank you.

What I'm gonna be fine. Gee It's so easy It's so easy to be positive, to have faith, to be optimistic, to enjoy the hell out of life, to be excited about the future, to be excited about life. These are the things that I value. And slowly but surely, you can structure your life to be like that. And I'm still working on it. There are plenty of those meetings, those clients, those podcasts, those tests, those conversations.

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that don't go how I want it to go. And there are times that I don't actually have the next thing lined up, but there have been times that I've had it. And my God, does it help? You just can't shake my tree when I have the next thing lined up. You can't. And I'm not saying that something goes wrong and it always bothers me. That's not true either. But you know... I have those situations and because I have the next thing, it's natural, it's easy. I don't need to try. It just happens. And it happens because I've structured my life that way. And also because I have just surrounded myself and immersed myself in the kind of thinking, the kind of person, the character that I want to be. And so it's just...

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It's almost like a byproduct. It just happens. So I hope this helps. This is just another strategy principle, whatever you want to call it, that when it comes to empowering yourself. And this is a concept that you have to figure out how to apply for yourself. I've tried to share some examples from ideas, but this is something that you really have to sit down or go on a walk, whatever, and think about how can I, what do I value? Is my life reflecting those values right now? What changes do I need to make? And how can I structure my life so that I can be the kind of person that I want to be?

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Eric Chown Powers podcast. I've enjoyed talking to you. I hope you got value out of this.

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and I will see you or well I guess I don't see any of you and you don't really see me either so I'll talk to you soon I guess we'll just end up there thanks guys