Life Doesn't Give a F!@# About Your Plans (& That's Beautiful)

Speaker 1: 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen and others, andy, here I went from suicidal, depressed, obese to living a life of abundance and joy. If I can do it, you sure as hell can too. I'm going to talk about a few different quotes from a few of my favorite authors Byron Katie and David Hawkins and I'll read these quotes out and we'll kind of respond to them and react to them. First one comes from Byron Katie Expect reality not to follow your plan. You realize that you have no idea what's going to happen next, and that way you're pleasantly surprised when things seem to be going your way and you're pleasantly surprised when they don't. And in that second case you may not have seen what the new possibilities are yet, but life quickly reveals them and the old plans don't stop you from moving ahead but from flowing efficiently into the life beyond your schemes and expectations. And yeah, I found in my own life, as I'm able to let go of some of the expectations that I have of how my plan should go or how life should go or how other people should respond to me and do what I want and go along with my plan, as I've been able to let go of most of that and just roll with the punches and be okay, no matter what happens. Life has become a lot more kind, you know, because at the end of the day, as I put in the title, life doesn't really give a fuck about your plans, and that can be a beautiful thing. You know, life is a very humbling, beautiful experience where your ego or your plan for life doesn't always come to fruition. I would say most of the time it doesn't. And that doesn't mean you can't achieve goals or you can't be happy or any of that. No, but the plan that we often start with at the start changes and molds itself around whatever life throws at us or gives to us. These hurdles that come up Because, again, other people usually don't do what we want them to do, life doesn't do what we want it to do, and the struggle of believing that you can control other people, that you can control their opinions or what they think about you, or that you can somehow get their approval and that then you have to keep that approval, or the struggle that you can get laid or you know, all of this kind of stuff, or the force that can come with those struggles, it can feel so counterintuitive to peace at times. And again, that's not to say you can't make money, it's not to say you can't have wonderful, amazing sex with lots of people, but thinking that you can just force it and that you can control other people, that you can control reality and bend reality to your whim, and all of that. Life has other plans.

Speaker 1: 2:41

And so what I've found is it's just easier to focus on the action that I'm taking and worry less about the outcome in the day to day. You know what I mean. Like I just focus on taking the actions that will move me towards my goal or the person that I want to be. You know, if that was, if my goal was to have more sex, then I would focus on my self improvement, I would focus on talking to more women, I would focus on putting myself out there and that's what I would focus on. And if some women say no to me, I don't want to sleep with you or I'm not interested, or no, thank you, hey, that's beautiful. I don't need them to go, according to my plan, and in the early days of my particularly when my first goal was getting laid, but in the early days of my self improvement, when all I cared about was putting my penis in as many vaginas as I could, which is obviously not a goal that I have at this point in time. But back then that was what I felt was important to me and when that was my goal, I had many moments of frustration where if somebody said no to me you know, for women said hey, thank you, but I'm not interested. I'd feel very frustrated because I'd be like God damn it, like she's not sticking to the script, like the plan is that I'm supposed to get laid, like this is supposed to bring me happiness, like I believed that that would be the thing that brought me happiness. And you know, what actually brought me happiness was working on goals and making progress and enjoying the current moment and all of that kind of stuff. So you still have goals and you still work towards them, but the happiness and the fulfillment comes from that process of self improvement rather than the achievement of a certain goal.

Speaker 1: 4:13

But I felt very frustrated when a woman wouldn't go along with my plan. Which why would she go along with my plan? She has her own plan. Also, I never told her my plan. It's not like I was honest. It's not like I would say to women listen, it would really mean a lot to me if you were asleep with me, because I have this plan that I'm supposed to get laid 100 times in the next, like you know, two years, and so it would really mean a lot to me if you would go along with it. Hey, at least that would be fucking honest, right? But I wasn't telling people my plan. I just had this expectation, like this unwritten yeah, expectation or desire, and then if they didn't match up with that, which, how the hell could they? It was like a covert contract, almost like a covert desire. If they didn't line up with that, I'd feel very frustrated. I'd feel like God damn it, like they're not doing what I want them to do or reality is not going the way that I want it to go.

Speaker 1: 5:02

And a hell of a lot of suffering in the world, a hell of a lot of suffering in our own lives, comes from believing that other people should do what we want them to do, or they should go along with our plans, or, you know, god damn it, like, why are they ruining my plan? You know, byron Katie says all the time one of the biggest lies that's ever said in relationships is if you love me, you'll do what I want. And it's like, oh my goodness, like think about the stress that comes from believing that story. When I, you know, I used to believe that story in my own relationship, so did Imogen. We both used to believe that about each other, like if you really love someone, you'll make sacrifices, you'll make compromises, you'll do what they want, you'll be perfect for them, like all of that kind of stuff. And when we were able to gently let that go and it took us probably a year to let that go a lot of Byron Katie, a lot of David Hawkins, a lot of these people helped us let that go. But when we were able to let that go, we found a lot more peace. You know, when we stopped needing the other person to do what we want and when we just unconditionally loved them, it was a hell of a lot smoother and a hell of a lot easier.

Speaker 1: 6:05

So you know, love doesn't have any expectations of the other person. Love just expects them to do whatever they're going to do and if that changes from moment to moment, love is okay with that. Love thinks that's beautiful. And that doesn't mean you have to stay with someone that you don't want to be with, but you can still love them and then just move away and go and find somebody else or go and be by yourself. But love doesn't need anything. Love doesn't require you to Do what I want you to do. Love is quite happy for you to do whatever the fuck you want to do.

Speaker 1: 6:37

And I used to believe that my audience, like you guys and girls I used to believe that you guys and girls needed to do what I wanted as well. You know, I used to have an expectation and a desire or a plan. I guess you could say I used to have a plan that you would, or most of you would, change your lives and improve yourselves and go for goals and all of that, and that brought me a lot of stress and pain, because anytime someone was not ready to improve themselves or maybe they didn't even want to improve anything, maybe they were just happy to be there, maybe they were happy to be miserable which might sound like a juxtaposition, or it might sound like sorry and oxymoron, but lots of people are quite comfortable being unhappy. I've read an article about this on my website, called comfortably uncomfortable, and I said how, for a lot of us, or a lot of people, there's a comfort in being uncomfortable. There's a sort of comfort that can come from misery because you understand, it's been all you've ever known. It's like a pattern, it's like a habit, a habit of misery Anyway.

Speaker 1: 7:39

But sometimes I would meet people who had a habit of misery and for the longest time, in the early couple of years of me doing this, I tried really hard to like, force them To improve. You know, I tried every single trick under the sun. I tried emotional manipulation, I tried fear of missing out, I tried massive motivational speeches, I tried being really positive, I tried yelling at them, I tried, just like, being really persistent and not giving up on them and at the end of the day, none of that was particularly kind, it wasn't kind to me and it wasn't kind to them and I was doing my best. I wasn't trying to be unkind or anything and I don't think anyone would say, oh, it's unkind to train, help someone. But it certainly wasn't loving and it certainly wasn't unconditional love and it definitely wasn't peaceful. It's really not peaceful to train for someone to change who doesn't want to or isn't ready to change.

Speaker 1: 8:30

I wrote in or I did a video quite a few years ago now when I first had this realization. The video was called you can't save everybody and it was really a video for me. It was a video to myself saying, hey, I can't save everybody. But that took me quite a few years to realize that. And then the realization above that or maybe that comes after that is wait, wait, you don't need to save everybody. People aren't broken, people don't need saving. You know, fucking Jesus Christ or something. You don't need to save anybody.

Speaker 1: 9:02

Maybe your job is just to love people, to just be kind to them, to just listen to them, to ask them, hey, would you like anything from me? And if they say no, then you say, hey, that's beautiful. I hope you have a nice day, and if you don't have a nice day, that's okay too. Unconditional love is just acceptance of what is, and when you accept things, when you love things as where they are, you're in a much more free and a much more clear and a much more sober I guess you could say Rational and logical position to then help people if they ask you to help them and to help yourself if you want to help yourself, because you're not bogged down by these plans and this frustration of life not going according to your plans. So All of this is to say, yes, you can have plans, just as Byron Katie says expect that reality won't always follow your plans. You know, the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes go astray. I would say almost always go astray. And that doesn't mean that they go completely off the rails or something, but it's more like you can phrase it like this if you say my goal is to lose 50 kilograms or let's pick an easier one, my goal is to lose 10 kilograms, you know you start going to the gym. Things are going to according to plan. Expect what. Don't have any expectations. That's the point in general. But Don't be surprised if the gym closes down for five days due to renovation or some shit and you're like god damn it, what the fuck like? I was on this plan. You know part of my plan didn't involve the gym shutting down.

Speaker 1: 10:29

It's like, yeah, just roll with the punches. Every problem has a solution. I talk about this in my video course. In my video course, play to win, I have an entire chapter about, you know, rolling with the punches. And there is a solution. Every problem has a solution. You roll with the punches and you figure out what to do next, but Don't get frustrated when life doesn't go according to your plans. Just adapt, change something, tweak something, figure out what to do next, come up with a new paradigm, come up with a new I guess mini plan, but then expect that plan to change as well.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Like at the start of 2020, did any of you predict any of you who were trying to work on your dating life or your sex life, or your losing weight or your happiness Did you expect the entire world to shut down for two years and for everyone to be pulled down into fear and, you know, pull down into that Childlike, innocent, naive, scared place? Did you expect that? No, you couldn't have predicted that, and I had plans in 2020. I was building my. I had just started building a dating coaching business. Think about what might happen. Well, think about what it might be like to have just started building a coaching business that coaches other men on how to have sex and relationships, although at that point, I was mostly focused on sex. Think about what it would be like to start building a business based around getting other men laid and then the world shuts down and people don't go outside and people stop having sex and stop communicating with each other really and nobody meets each other. Do you think that that might have thrown a spanner in the works of my plan?

Speaker 1: 12:06

Do you think my plan of building this coaching business involved the world shutting down for two years and all of my clients, apart from two of them, no longer seeing me shout outs to Roger, roger and Ed, by the way, the two clients that didn't fucking quit and stuck with me during lockdowns and all of that the only two clients that stuck with me. So big fucking shit. There's a reason I love Ed to pieces. Ed was like Ed and Roger Roger were basically solely responsible for playing, paying my bills during that time because I lost my job as well, and so the vast majority of people stop seeing me. They like, bro, I'm sorry, I can't pay you for dating and sex coaching when I literally can't have sex. And they could have had sex. Ed did, roger Roger did, but fair enough.

Speaker 1: 12:52

Most people believed that they couldn't fair enough, you know, but the point is that was very much not in my expectations. That was very not much part of my plan and it certainly gave me a lot of challenges to overcome, didn't it? Certainly wasn't particularly easy to build a dating and sex coaching business during fucking lockdowns, and yet I built it. You know, you can kind of look back and say people did the same thing during the Great Depression. People became millionaires during the Great Depression while everybody else was saying it can't be done, it's impossible, the world is shut down, everyone's in poverty. They became millionaires. I did the same shit during lockdowns I built a fucking dating and sex business.

Speaker 1: 13:33

So I hope that teaches you nothing else other than you know every problem has a solution if you're willing to roll with the punches and I hope it also is a nice little underlining or a message of expect reality not to follow your plans, because it often doesn't Byron Katie goes on to say when your old plan is gone, your mind immediately fills with new possibilities. In other words, you're open to coming up with solutions because you're not stuck on the fact that you didn't get what you wanted. You know, imagine if I'd sat there and been very upset and I was frustrated. I was definitely believing a lot of my stories and feeling all sorts of emotions, believe me. But imagine if I'd gotten stuck in that instead. It's not fair, it's all hopeless. You know, I can't build a dating business. It's literally impossible. The world has shut down. I can't even go outside. How the fuck is any of my clients gonna have sex or build anything? You know tinder had shut down at that point as well. Tinder and bumble and hinge and all of that. They had all of these messages all over the app of like Don't go meet people, it's wrong and bad to meet people. Make sure you only have like zoom dates and all of this kind of shit like these apps that people were using to meet people will, literally advising them not to do this thing. And so you know that was very much not according to my plans, but my mind was able to fill because I was open minded and I just rolled with the punches. I was able to fill with possibilities. I was able to look for those solutions again. I talk way more about these concepts in my video course, which is called play to win. Like I said, there's an entire chapter on every problem has a solution. I talk about how I've being able to find solutions even when it all seems hopeless. So there's a link in the description below to that video course. If you're interested, you can just pay whatever you want for that, even if that's literally just $1.

Speaker 1: 15:21

I'll read out some quotes from David Hawkins, another one of my favorite authors, and this comes from his book the map of consciousness. Explained, he says noticing and counting the beautiful reasons that unexpected things happen for us and the mystery and on that note I'll interject. This is something that comes from Byron Katie as well. She says that things don't happen to us, they happen for us. In other words, things can be a beautiful gift, and I love that. He says the exact same thing. You know, things happen for us rather than to us.

Speaker 1: 15:53

I have an entire chapter about this as well in the video course that I mentioned, and the chapter is called everything that happens to me is good, and I talk about how you can always find the silver lining of things and you can look for, as David Hawkins says here, the beautiful reasons the unexpected things are happening for us, like how can I turn this thing into a victory? There's a whole chapter about that, too, in the video course of like Play to win rather than playing not to lose. So, rather than saying, oh shit, this bad thing happened to me, no, how can I make this into a victory? How can I make this a good thing? How can I use this and turn this like what action do I want to take to move me towards victory, or towards happiness, or towards peace or whatever it is that you're going for? How can I use this unexpected thing and make it part of my story and make it the best thing that ever could happen for me? On that note, I have another chapter in the video course that's called everything is a story and you're in control of the stories that you tell, and part of that chapter is talking about how, when an event happens, especially an unexpected event in your life which is going to happen for the rest of your life, right?

Speaker 1: 16:54

Nobody predicts cancer, nobody predicts losing their job, nobody predicts a breakup. Most of the time, unexpected things happen. You don't expect the death of a loved one. Unexpected things happen. But when you're able to, instead of saying that's a bad thing or it's fucking awful that my mother died, I'm so sad that I lost my job, it's terrible that this person broke up with me, it's fucking awful that my boss disrespects me, instead of just by default, having that knee-jerk reaction where you say that thing is bad or terrible or horrible or awful, if you're able to switch it up and say, okay, is there some way that that I can either see this as a good thing or a potential good thing, or I can make it a good thing. Like what do I need to do to turn this from a loss or a bad thing into a victory or a good thing? Like, what do I have to do?

Speaker 1: 17:42

If you're able to switch that up, man, life becomes this beautiful playground it really does. It becomes this place where nothing bad happens to you, even the stuff that you're tempted to say is bad. You know, like a breakup. Or someone that you've been with for 10 years says, hey, I don't want to do this anymore. You can even switch that up. With a little bit of reframing and a little bit of positivity, you can go okay, there must be a silver lining in this. Like, this is happening. There must be some way that I can turn this into a good thing. What do I need to do to make this a good thing? Like how can this break up? How can I use this as a springboard or a catalyst for the next chapter of my life?

Speaker 1: 18:22

You know, maybe I've been sitting around letting my you know what they're breaking up with me, because I've been sitting around and I let myself get overweight and I stopped doing the things that I care about and no wonder they broke up with me. You know what? This is a beautiful turning point in my life. I'm gonna lose weight. I'm gonna go and do this. I've just signed up for my gym Amazing. I've gone on Meetup and I've just joined three different Meetup groups. I'm gonna go and socialize. Let's fucking do this thing so you can make it a good thing. It doesn't have to be a bad.

Speaker 1: 18:49

And again, that chapter in my video course is called Everything. Everything is a story and you're in control of the stories that you tell. So it's entirely up to you what the future looks like, bearing in mind that life, you know, often doesn't match up with your perfect plan. But I think you guys I think you understand the subtle difference there right Still set plans, still go towards your goals. Just don't expect that it's gonna go exactly the way that your plan says it's gonna go. So I'll keep reading the David Hawkins quote and again, this is from the book the Map of Consciousness Explained Noticing and counting the beautiful reasons. Unexpected things happen. For us ends the mystery If you miss the real reasons and the benevolent reasons that coincide with kind nature, then you can expect depression to let you know that you missed them.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Byron Katie says something very similar. When you argue with reality, you lose. You get depressed Like if you say it shouldn't have gone that way. This bad thing is happening to me. It's awful that my family member died. I hate that my boss fired me. You get depressed, it feels bad.

Speaker 1: 19:56

But if you're able to dig deep and go, okay, there must be some fucking silver lining here and you don't have to force that at the start, right? If you're grieving over the death of a family member, I'm not telling you that you immediately have to be like all right, I'm glad my mother fucking died, although you can eventually get to that point. You can get to the point where it's an automatic reaction that you're like all right, how can this be a good thing? How can I find the silver lining here? How can I move? How can I make this a great thing? That happened for me rather than to me. That is a point that you can get to. But be gentle with this stuff. You don't have to force this stuff. You don't have to do this stuff at all if you don't want to. But when you're able to get to that point where you can see that life is a gift and everything that happens happens for you instead of to you, then life really does become kind. It feels like life is benevolent and peaceful and it feels like life is supporting rather than life is trying to beat you down or existence is suffering or some shit like that.

Speaker 1: 20:54

He goes on to say anger, frustration and aggressive reasons, as in aggressive reasons, like bad things. I'll start that again Anger, frustration and aggressive reasons, as in aggressive reasons why things are happening to you. They can always be imagined and for what? People who aren't interested in seeing why everything is good then get to be right. And yeah, how often do we see that where someone isn't even interested? Maybe you have some points like that in your own life and I certainly used to in the past where you're not even interested in seeing how this could be a good thing. You just want to immediately say that it's bad. You don't even want to go there and you're not ready to go there. And fair enough, don't go somewhere that you're not ready to go to.

Speaker 1: 21:38

But we see this a lot. How many of you have a friend? Or maybe you know someone at work, or you just you know someone in your life that seems to have a pattern of getting frustrated by something. Maybe they just they feel hopeless with the opposite sex and they're constantly going through the same patterns over and over again. And you're like dude, the problem is it's not a problem, but like. The problem is you. You're the common denominator. You keep ending up with women who mistreat you because you keep seeking them out and you can see it so perfectly, but your friend doesn't get it and no matter what you do, your friend just seems to want to be right. They want to say, like no, women of the problem, women suck, women evil. How many women say the same thing?

Speaker 1: 22:21

You know, the whole movement of, almost of the movement of feminism at this point in time and this current age Is that it's a bunch of women saying men are the problem and they're not really interested in seeing how it could be a good thing that a man broke up with them. Or it could be a good thing that all the kind, interesting, good men run away from them. Like that could be a good thing because it might teach them some humility, might teach them some self reflection, might teach them to be a little more kind instead of like the angry sort of feminist Meme. But they're not interested in seeing what could be a good thing. They're only interested in being right.

Speaker 1: 22:55

And people get stuck on their own narratives, don't they? I mean, I've been stuck on my own narratives a billion times in the past. There's probably a few narratives right now that I'm still stuck on. I'm letting most of them go, and Byron, katie and David Hawkins have been instrumental in that process. But so has just reflecting and doing the work like actually questioning my thoughts and my beliefs A thousand times a day for the last 15 years. That's really what's gotten me to this point of letting go and not believing the story so much.

Speaker 1: 23:24

But yeah, a lot of people would rather be right than happy. That's one of my favorite sayings, and you can always, as David Hawkins says in this quote, you can always imagine a bad reason. You can always like reinforce your own anger or your frustration or your own aggression or your own sadness or grief, because you can always come up with bad reasons for things. You can be like my boss is mean to me because I'm a piece of shit and I'm never deserving to be happy. You know this woman rejected me because I'm a loser, and she knows it and everybody knows it. You can always come up with those reasons, just like you can always come up with positive reasons why something is happening, and that's that chapter in my video course.

Speaker 1: 24:04

You're in control of the stories that you tell. You know everything is a story. All we're ever doing is telling a story. That's the only way we can communicate. It's the only way we can think about and relate to the world. We have to tell a story. You know even basic things where you think it's not a story, like if I say, if I point out the window, there's a big tree outside my window. If I say there's a tree outside the window, that sounds like it's not a story. Right, it just sounds like I'm talking about objective reality. But I just told you a story. I just told you a story. You know there's a tree outside my window. I could tell that in a different way. I could say I could walk over to my balcony and now there's no window between us. Now I could say there's just a tree there, there's no window between us. That's a different story. I could walk around to a different point of the tree and say there's a different side of the tree. I could lay underneath the tree and look up at it and say there's a tree up there. That's a different story. There's a tree up there versus there's a window between me and the tree versus there's a tree behind me. Like I can just tell a different stories literally depending on where I'm standing in relation to that tree. I could even tell a different story about that tree. I can tell a story of like there's a green object out there with lots of leaves on it. That's a slightly different story to there's a tree.

Speaker 1: 25:21

If I was speaking a different language, I wouldn't even call it a tree. I would use the Spanish or the French word for trees. I'd call it something different. If I was in an ancient indigenous tribe or some shit, I might just call that nature. If I was highly enlightened, I might not even differentiate between the tree and myself. I might just say we're all consciousness, in a form of consciousness. I might just say it is what it is like. I don't. Why do I even need to say that that's a tree? Why do I have to distinguish, distinguish between that tree and that building and that bush and that, car it all just is what it is. It's all just reality, and so there's a million different ways that I can tell even the most basic story of, like that's a fucking tree. There's a hundred different ways I can explain what stories I can tell about that fucking tree, and so we're definitely always telling stories about our own lives and the events that happen in our lives, and so you get to tell whatever story you want, and you might have just built a habit of telling negative stories or stories that don't really serve you, and that's okay. I built that habit too, and it's just about practicing a little bit, if you want to telling more positive stories, telling kind of stories, telling more compassionate stories, telling the stories that get you closer to your goals and happiness and peace and the person you want to be.

Speaker 1: 26:36

And understand that when people tell stories yourself included, myself included when people tell stories, they will often act as if that story is correct and as if that story is the only correct story, and that's where most unhappiness comes from, or a lot of unhappiness comes from. It's from believing that your story is the only correct one and any other story or any other interpretation of reality is inherently wrong. It's positionality. It's what's known as dualism. It's making things binary. That's what makes you unhappy or it's part of what can make us unhappy is going I'm right and they're wrong. That's a stupid way of looking at it. And I'm correct, I'm smart and you're dumb. I'm on the left and I'm correct, and you're on the right and you're wrong. That political opponent is stupid and bad. My boss is against me. It's that me versus you, it's that us versus them.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Mentality is that dualism which can lead to a lot of unhappiness. That's why I have articles like. One of the earliest articles I ever wrote was like it's not you versus me, it's you and me on the same team. That was my first I guess you know clumsy understanding of something that's known as non-dualism, which is kind of like a Buddhist philosophy. But a lot of people talk about this. David Hawkins talks about this. It's basically not needing it to be me versus you. You know. Non-dualism basically says we're all the fucking same, we're all just like cut from the same cloth. We're all God's children, if you want to use a religious saying. But it's ways of saying. Hey, maybe it's not me versus women, or it's not women versus men, or it's not left versus right, maybe it's just a bunch of people trying to do their best, maybe it's just consciousness exploring itself, however you want to phrase that. But maybe there is no right and wrong, maybe there's just different tellings of different stories and different versions of the same story. So all of this is to lead back to the original David Hawkins quote of.

Speaker 1: 28:33

You know you can always imagine reasons to be angry and frustrated and you know upset and you can always imagine reading like. You can always come up with reasons. Something is good, and so you get to pick, pick whichever one you want. It's all just a story by Rene Katie says tell the stories. She says I like to tell the stories that are beautiful dreams and I'm not really interested in believing the nightmares. And so if I hear a story or there's a story in my head that sounds like a nightmare, like it's bringing me pain and suffering, I just question it. I see if I want to believe that story or not. And then if I hear a story that's a beautiful dream and it seems to be like taking me towards my goals and it's helping me and it's serving me and it's it seems to be really bringing me life and happiness and peace. Then I keep that story. It sounds like a nice little dream and I know I'm just telling myself a story. I know that it's just a dream, but I keep it because it sounds pretty and it sounds nice and I'm here to have some nice dreams and some nice stories. So we're always telling stories, but we're in control of the stories. Again, if you want to grab my video course on this, you can even just pay a dollar for it. There's a link in the description below. The video course is called Play to Win, but I'll keep reading.

Speaker 1: 29:43

So when David Hawkins talks about, you know you can always come up with a negative reason for something. You can always imagine some evidence for it as well. And it seems quite logical. And he says if you're not interested in seeing why things are good, you get to be right. And that's often the function of the ego. Right, it's like it wants to be correct, it wants to be. It would rather be right than happy. I mean, people literally die just to protect their ego. That's what most wars are. Most wars are two sides going I'm right and you're wrong. It's me versus you. People will literally die so that they get to feel right. And so he says that apparent rightness comes with disgruntlement and often depression and separation. Yeah, separation is what I'm talking about here when I say like, when you think of things as like me versus you, or dualistic, you know it's one versus the other, it's binary, so that separation, being separated from your fellow man, your fellow woman, can bring on depression, and depression can feel extremely serious.

Speaker 1: 30:39

So if you're able to instead count or look for the genuine ways that this unexpected event happened for me rather than to me, it isn't just a game, it's an exercise in observing the nature of life. It's a way of putting yourself back into reality and into the kindness of the nature of things. And I like that last little bit because I found in my own life, as I question the stories and I look for, as he says, genuine reasons. Don't make up the reasons, but look for genuine reasons why this event or this thing or life not going according to your plans could be a good thing, or there could be some silver lining, or I might be able to make it a good thing. As I look for those genuine reasons, those positive reasons, I do feel like I'm back in right. I'm in step with the nature of things, as he calls it, and I very much do feel like the universe is a kind place, or at least this planet, this existence, my life, whatever you want to call it it feels kind, it feels happy, it feels peaceful and, as I've let go of all of the stressful stories, that's what I'm left with.

Speaker 1: 31:44

And if you want your own example of this in your own life, think about a time where you didn't have a care in the world, like maybe you were on vacation, or maybe you just finished some big project, or maybe you achieved some big goal, maybe you were with your friends and you were playing some video games or doing whatever you were doing. You were drunk, maybe, again, you just you didn't give a shit about anything and everything was okay. What did you feel? You felt like life was okay. You felt like life was kind. You probably felt like everything's going to be okay. You felt like I'm just grateful and happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 32:18

So when we take away all the stress and all of the stressful thoughts and stories in our head, we're not left with anything except peace and happiness and serenity and like everything's going to be okay and, dare I say it, love. When you strip away all of the stressful thoughts and beliefs and stories that you have in your head. The only thing that's left is love, and so you know, it's just such a peaceful, beautiful way to be and I'm so unbelievably grateful. I get to wake up every day and just this is my life now. I get to just be peaceful and happy and loving.

Speaker 1: 32:53

So I say this quite often I'm really grateful to all of you for helping me get to this place, for supporting me, for loving me, for being there for me, for working on yourselves and if you don't work on yourself, that's beautiful too. I don't have any expectations of that anymore. I'm grateful for all the people who have ever sent me money. If you would like to send me money, you're welcome to do that. If you would not like to send me money, obviously that's just as beautiful. But I'm really grateful that I get to be in this place where I understand I don't have to believe all of these stories and, like I said, if this content resonates with you, if these philosophies resonate with you, or even if they're only just starting to resonate with you, if you're like, yeah, I can kind of see that, but also this seems like some wacky out there. Shit, man, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I kind of get it, but also like holy shit.

Speaker 1: 33:39

You know, if you would like to go a little deeper into this stuff, byron Katie and David Hawkins are great authors. To start with, you can grab my video course. Like I said, you can even just pay $1. If that's all you want to pay for it, then that's beautiful. There's a link in the description below to that. I have like five or six chapters that literally talk about these concepts and like how to do these concepts, so I hope all of that is helpful. If you would like coaching on top of that, I have links to both of my coaching options. You can sit down with me for a once off, one on one coaching call, or you can join the coaching program. Both of the links are down below to those. As always, ladies and gentlemen, go out there, crush those goals and expect life to not necessarily go according to your plans. As Byron Katie says, if things go according to your plans, isn't that pleasantly surprising, isn't that beautiful? And if they don't go according to your plans, isn't that pleasantly surprising, and isn't that also beautiful?