Episode 843: A Complete Crash Course on How to Change Your Life

You're listening to The Mind Your Business Podcast. Today's episode is a complete crash course in how to change your life. So stay tuned. [Music] Hi, I'm James Wedmore, and with 17 years online, I've built my business to over $12 million in sales per year. And this is the first non-business business podcast. It shows you how to apply the principles of spirituality, energy, and mindset to grow your business beyond your wildest dreams, all from the inside out. This is The Mind Your Business Podcast. [Music] What's up, everybody? I'm James Wedmore, and you are listening to The Mind Your Business Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I got a really special episode for you today. The promise is simple. It sounds really big, but I think it's rather relevant, important, and it's going to be helpful. How to change your life. Now, that in and out of itself is like, this is going to change your life. It sounds so hyper-bolic. However, change is the only constant in life, right? And so this is a conversation not about something that's like going to magically transform your life. But this is about how to gracefully move through different chapters and eras in your life, and how to make space and room for change. I think the common thing is if we look at this idea that we have chapters, milestones, phases, new beginnings through certain eras of our life, we can either approach those with intent, with strategy, with purpose, and with vision, or reactively, and the reality is that you are always changing. Your values change, your wisdom, your experience, your knowledge, your beliefs, your perspectives, your circumstances, it's always changing because you are always changing. And one of the things that we as humans struggle with the most is our unwillingness and inability. I mean, we have the ability, it's more of just a lack of a desire, the inability to let go. Let go of what was the strategy of all, the old you that created what you now have. And you wake up one day and you're like, "How did I get here? How did I wind up here?" And that's what this episode is about, is about how to intentionally and powerfully create change in your life, in accordance and coherence with the changes happening within you. That's pretty cool. That's what we're going to talk about and more, I know I took a little bit of a respite, a little bit of time off from the show. For a couple of reasons, which I'll get into, first of which is the summer. I wanted to take a little bit of time off this summer, which has just been fantabulous to work a little less and play a little bit more, but also because I am applying in my own life some of the things that I'm going to be talking to you about here today. So, as you go through this, I don't want you to think that this is necessarily like, "Oh, how to turn my life around." It's more about how to have the habitual nature of auditing and creating maintenance, tiny tweaks and adjustments in our life. And what really inspired this is I shared on a previous episode, you know, I don't really like to talk much about my own life. If it helps, if there's a lesson there, if it provides value than I do, but I'm not here to just talk about myself, but I didn't want to brag and celebrate something that was a huge milestone and so many of you reached out to me in various channels and ways to give me your version of a congratulations and congratulations were in order. That just a couple of months ago, I completed and finalized my entire divorce process. Last payment was made, that chapter is officially closed and behind me in my life. And that entire process I've shared over the years bit, not to talk about it and not to create drama or anything I know would get clicks and views from people, but that's not really what I'm interested in. But I've talked about in the past mostly because there's certain things that I apply during it, the lessons, themes that I believe hoped or a value to listeners. So some people over the years have been following me have heard some pieces of it, but it's five and a half, six years journey as a long time as a long chapter in my life. And so at the end of that, at the closure of that chapter and then having also just gotten married at the beginning of this year and Jenny and I having our conversations about how we want our life to look like moving forward, the vision we have for ourselves really puts us in a place of. That's a new beginning and a new chapter and I've noticed in my life, some of these other chapters, so there was a phase or a milestone in my life and career where I had a business that I took to about two million a year. I was just, this was like what I would call like the bachelor chapter, bachelor life, making over like 2.2 million a year, working a couple hours a day and surfing the rest. It's amazing. And then I entered this new phase and I want to say that was about 27 years 2017 and in this new phase, I called the like ramp up scale up chapter in my life. And this is where like the purpose, the desire for being of greater and deeper impact to more people was really cultivate and that was the year I took the business to over 10 million in revenue. We're doing more events, we're doing bigger launches and helping more people, we're bringing on coaches and all these amazing things to be able to help a lot of people, you know, some of you've been to some of our events like BBD live, 1000 people from all over the world that come and that's just like the manifestation of that deepening the vision in a different chapter in your life. And then I got hit with the worst papers, the end of 2020 right at the end of 2020. And I had some decisions to make like I'm not dumb to the fact that I know this is going to be a long and grueling process unfortunately, you know. And so at the beginning of that time, so let's say like as like January 1st, 2021, we've just gone through this whole year of what the F was that with COVID and 2020 and lockdowns on remember that. And I'm staring at this next year in my life and everything about my life is already in a completely different face and that a lot of people can say that looking back at that time. And so here I am now with divorce papers in my hand and it was like I'm looking staring at the starting line of a tunnel. If you squint enough, you can see the light at the end. That's how I like really perceive that phase in my life. And I said, I want to go into this phase intentionally with intent and in my power. So that I can manage myself properly through it. So I had to have these expectations set up saying this is going to be a process, you know, it's going to take time. It's going to be challenging. It's going to be hard. And there were two things that I decided from the get go that was really proud of these decisions. Again, I'm sharing all of this really to give context for why I'm bringing this content to you guys. But I said first, I don't want to put my life on hold. I don't think it's fair for myself to put your life on hold because you know how long something like this can take and turn off. It was three and a half years plus another three years of payment. So yeah, you want to keep living your life. Life is short and precious and so valuable. And I wanted to live it fully and not go on to the sidelines of life. And that's what I did. That's when Jenny and I reconnected very quickly after very serendipitous of some of those synchronic stories was beautiful. And I also said, you know, I know it's also going to be expensive pricey. And so I was very intentional with like how I wanted to run the business and how I could have a business that would continue to fuel the lifestyle that I was very intentional by creating and also make those payments. And then boom, that was that last phase and those payments are done. So the experience I have right now is a threshold of a new chapter in a new beginning. And something that my spiritual mentor, he's a shaman, you know, Don Javier, I've talked about him many times has said is that every day is a new beginning. So it's constant new beginning, you know, because we're new, everything is new. And it's a beautiful way to look at life. So it's like big chapters, little chapters, every day is a whole new chapter, a whole clean slate of infinite possibility and just how you approach your day. That's so beautiful. But then it's like at a macro level. There's like phases and I really feel that there's also and this is a practice that he gave me and it's like also very relevant because my birthday is at the end of this month in September. And he said one of the greatest practices that we can do is every year is the 30 days leading up to your birthday, take time every day to recapitulate and take stock of your last year because that's a whole cycle. You know, and I think that's a beautiful thing. So there's all these cycles. There's Mike. Like row, macro, I see them as like concentric circles, almost like the cosmos, you know, like everything's spinning and going in these cycles, right? And so you have the cycle of the day and every day is a new beginning and you have like the cycle of your year, your birth year, the whole year of when you're 40 or 50 or whatever. And then you have the cycle of these different milestones or phases that you go through. And it's so bizarre to really be conscious and present up. And I think that's the trick. That's the greatest like takeaway I'll give before we get into the technical how-tos. This is a process. There's exercises I have for you. This is step by step. This is a game plan. But the most valuable thing I think you could take away from that is understanding that what I'm saying exists and be sensitive and aware enough to it in your life and be in that rhythm with it, being the dance with it, you know, be in sync with those different changes. And man, like just to be as real with you as possible, like I paid that last payment and I felt it. Like a lot of people as I've been telling them some of the stories, they're just like updating them in my life, they're like, they'll look at me in the eye with this like look of disbelief and they're like, I had no idea. This is like the greatest compliment to me that just feels like so much flattery because I was really intentional about like not letting it affect me or affect the quality of my life or my happiness or something that Don Hoverer always says. This is so emphatically true, nothing is more important than your well-being. And so that just became the prerogative in the number one priority. However, that being said, even being done with it, I felt a level of release and like levity that was subtle but still strong enough to be like, wow, it's still just, you know, all the mindset and like mental fortitude and mental mastery you can have with how you, you know, manage your attention and where you give your energy to. And it still affects you. It still plays a role. And that was like really eye opening for me. So I was very aware of like, hey, this is a completion. This is a chapter closing. So I wanted to be really intentional this summer. I really celebrated that. I'm sitting in a lot of gratitude, a lot of like being very proud of myself. Also a lot of awe, like how did I do some of the things that I did and get through that as like so many miracles, like just throwing it up to God every day and having a lot of trust and faith and then looking back and seeing how like rich your life is with friendships and love and experiences and just accomplishments and all of that and just being unbelievably grateful. And I really wanted to and have still just like squeeze every last drop of this time out for myself, save for it, you know, why is this important and why am I saying some of these things? For Norris, there's a common trait in entrepreneurs that they're so goal hungry that it gets the best of them as soon as you accomplish the one thing you're already off to the next thing. It's kind of like an immature thing, you know, with age in the game, you start to learn more like hold on. There's the time and a season for this is time for I made the accomplishment. Now let's celebrate it, let's bask in the trappings of your results and accomplishments if you will before onto the next one. And that's where I've been and I was like very intentional to do that this summer. That's a lot of what I've been doing. And as we sit at the precipice of a new beginning, another new beginning tomorrow is a new beginning for all of us and maybe you're in a time of new beginning, maybe one's approaching, but one will approach inevitably someday that I can guarantee. I think I have a lot of experience and I wanted to bring this to you even though this is like a business podcast, it's a life podcast. How to approach a new chapter in your life? How to approach a new beginning and how to do it strategically with one or maybe a couple intentions, but for you to continue to live a more enriched life, a life of more intent purpose, a life that has more of what matters to you in it. And so I'm going to take you through some processes and exercise. I want you to treat this like a complete course, if you will. I don't know how long it's going to be, but I took some time like writing notes and documenting what I've been doing and what I'm in the process of. And this is nothing new for me. This is what I've done in all these different phases. And I've had just like I said, all these amazing chapters and experiencing different flavors of life. Like I know a whole flavor of life where I was living in New York City and I was doing the go-go-go, working non-stop and then like going out and doing all the social life things non-stop. And then I had my laid back chill Laguna Bachelor life, you know, and then I've had this like crazy ramp up. I mean, this is a trip right before 2020. I had this moment as a memory that sticks out in my mind where we had an office space in Laguna, Laguna Beach right across the street from the beach. My office had a view of the ocean. I mean, just like perfect 16 people, including myself coming in and out of that office every day. There was a moment where I saw people coming into that office. I didn't recognize. I was like, oh, someone must have hired somebody, I had no idea. Like who is this person? And it was like a train station. It was like grand central station, people coming and going. And that was like, that was a face, you know, and then COVID hit and fun side story before we get into all this, which is really fascinating. I had five people gone in the company within, I think an hour or two, right before COVID hit. It was crazy. Three people quit and two fired and all on my good terms, like one person quit because they hadn't been paying their taxes and then the IRS reached out to us and said they're going to start garnishing wages. So they quit. Another person and decided to start their own business and they're ready to move on and do their own thing. One person's SLA and all like in a day, it was like crazy. And I was like, whoa, what just happened? Like five people just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then like two weeks later, we get news that they're going to shut down California. And everyone's going to work from home and we had events and everything planned. Like that was a trip because going into 2020, we had, I want to say it was like between 18 or 20 events scheduled for the year. I mean, at least it's only three weeks to flatten the curve, right? So that was obviously a big shift and being flexible to make the proper adjustments was key. So we're going to get into it. And my invitation is to like really do some of these exercises because I think they're just so good and so helpful. However, we're going to start with like, we're going to use a simple process. I learned this during the earthquake fire drill in California. So if you were like a California kid, we always had the fear of earthquakes growing up. There weren't that many ironically in my day as a kid. We had a couple, but there weren't too many bad ones. We always grew up with the fear, like the movies that came out during that time was like the big one is right around the corner. I don't think it really happened in California, at least not in Southern California. But there were little earthquakes and stuff and that was like things would always freak out, you know, and three in the morning you wake up to your house kind of shaken. And we were always told stop, drop and roll. So that's the process we're going to follow. I think it's a great protocol. Stop, which is pause, get present take stock, drop is to let go. It's no longer serving you. And then roll is going to have a two part process that'll get into, but that's the simple as what we're doing. Stop, drop and roll. I love that. Okay. So in this first phase of stop, this is too simple, but people don't do it. They don't pause long enough to take stock in their life. And they think and we're going to hit this from a lot of different ways that if I just keep going, keep adding and move faster, then it will solve all the problems. But there is a correlation with speed and fear. Fear drives a lot of speed, like when people are speedy, perfect example is when people talk fast, oftentimes people talk fast. And I would rather say there's certain people types that just talk fast as they are. I talk a little fast and I can slow it down. But there are people that talk rushed, okay? So that's what we mean is like, wow, that person rushed through that. Why did they rush through it because they were afraid of taking up space, right? So fear was driving the speediness, the hurryiness. And so same thing in our life. If you're moving too fast, there's probably fear driving that in the background. And when we do that, we don't pause long enough. And it's in the pause that we create stillness and the stillness, we create silence and the silence, the answers come. And so out of this entire thing, stop, drop and roll, stopping for a moment is the most important piece. And one of the things I tell people, which sounds like a contradiction, but it's not. As I'll say things like in business, I want you to have as much consistency as possible, consistency. I don't mean just consistency of like, "Oh, I do this every week." you should. I mean, consistency of what you're doing, like rinse and repeat, do the same thing. Hey, you have that product. You just keep selling that product. Stop getting stuck in first gear and stick with what you've got. But at the other hand, this is what people think it's a contradiction, is that you're still taking stock on like, has my vision changed? Have I changed? Have my preferences changed? Have my desires changed? And I think it's so imperative. And I really want to sit here for a moment with you that you really begin to like all of the manifestation teachers teaches us really pay attention to how you feel. But it goes deeper than that. Because oftentimes people will start to pay attention to how they feel, but not enough attention. And they do this thing where I call it oil. I didn't come up with this term. I hate this term, but until you can give me a better term, it just, it fits. They throw the baby out with the bath water. So they'll be doing a project, a business, or a product of some sort, and it feels heavy or off, or it doesn't feel the same that it did. And they'll notice the feeling, but they won't go any deeper with it. And then they'll link the feeling to the hole endeavor and throw everything out the window. And I see a lot of people getting themselves in a lot of trouble that way. Because they didn't really pinpoint what was off. They were too general and too broad. It was like a shotgun approach when we needed like laser fine precision here. For example, let's say you have a program. It's a group code you might feel is really heavy. And it's like, oh, I'm not inspired to like do this anymore. It just feels heavy and it's draining. And so you've linked an emotion to the entire program. Instead, if you are working with me, we might dig deeper and realize that it's your lack of boundaries and how much delivery you're doing that's causing the heaviness, not the product itself, not the entire program. And so the question becomes if I could just change this one little piece, would I bring that high-flying positive emotion back? See? So it's important in this stop phase that you're paying attention and taking stock of how you feel about certain things, but you must go deeper. You must be able to precisely attribute the emotion to a particular thought, belief, preference, boundary, circumstance, or situation. And not be too general with it. You've got to be really precise with it. What is it? It's this program. Oh, no, what is it specifically about this program? It's this team member. What is it about or having it? Like people do that about it. Oh, I can't have a team that and it's like, okay, it's maybe it's just a team member or maybe it's the way you manage them, or who you hired. So people are too broad and then they don't learn the lesson and when you don't learn the lesson, you're doomed to repeat the experience. I don't want that for you. Pay attention to how you feel, but trace that back to the thought because the thought, mind, set, you are where your attention is, so your attention sets the tone for your vibration. Your mind, your conscious awareness, right? Even if you're not consciously doing it, your awareness, your attention to whatever you place your attention on is going to generate a feeling. And so people feel the feeling and they want to change everything externally and it might be a change within ourselves that needs to change like, hey, I need to have a better boundary. I need to charge more. I need to not resent my clients or be a martyr to them or try to take on all the burden of all their stuff, right? So oftentimes the change is within ourselves. So keep that in mind when we're doing a whole episode for a new chapter in your life on how to change your life, which is how to change your life doesn't mean everything outside changes. It could mean a change within how you think about something, how you approach something, okay? So this is the stop phase. Now what you're going to do and you could turn this into an exercise, it's really cool, is I created six categories for your life. You can do more. I wouldn't recommend too much less, but here the six I came up with wealth, health, fun, and adventure as one. Any version of that, that's like whatever is like some like I love fun, you might like adventure more. You know, like you might pick something totally different. I want one that's just like peace and relaxation. Great. What's a feeling that's always important to you. So I like doing fun. You know, it's kind of broad, but I like it. Career, family and relationships, spirituality. Those are the six categories. One more time, wealth, health, fun, and adventure, career, family and spirituality. So this is kind of like the wheel of your life, right? And what you want to do is take time to assess as much time as possible and evaluate, like you're doing an audit of your life, each of these categories. So you take stock and you're going to look at them through three different lenses, okay? First, you want to give an overall rating on how satisfied you feel you're doing in this area. So for example, if you're in fights with everyone in your family and grudges and you're not talking to anybody and you don't have any friends anymore, you're probably not going to rate a 10 out of 10 on the family category, right? If you're in massive debt, you're not going to do 10 out of 10 on the wealth category. So for most of these, there's some physical manifestation and physical evidence, some byproduct or circumstance that's going to tell you where you're at with each of these. And the rating is really where reality is, matched up to where your expectations are, okay? Not that it should make you bum. They're unhappy, but you know, you've also heard me say over the years to the degree in which you accept what is, is the degree in which you have the personal power to do something about it. So to take stock is to be with, not to deny, not to reject, not to fight it, not to bury your head in the sand, or to hide it under the sweeping under the rug, but to be with it is the first step, okay? And if you rated each of these on a scale of one to 10, 10 is high, one is low. That'd be really wonderful, right? And that's kind of cool. If you notice, like, wow, it's interesting why are some of these high and some are low? So success leaves clues. You could even go so far as to say, what is it I'm doing in this category, then I'm like neglecting in that category, okay? So then there's two other things I want you to take stock of. The second one is the dominant feeling vibration or emotional state attached with each one. So you'll notice that the higher the number is, most likely, the higher the positive emotion is associated with that same category. So if you're like, I have been doing such a great, consistent job of putting money away. I'm so proud of myself. Like, I could still do better and I could be researching more. I could be a little bit more aggressive and take some more risks, but I feel really good. I'm an eight out of 10. And then you say, well, the emotion I feel around there is like, I feel really proud of myself. I feel really good. I feel very secure in that as a positive emotion. You wouldn't say they'd be like, I feel like a failure, you know what I mean? So you'll notice the correlation, but I want you to label the emotion. So number one, you're going to take stock of each one of these. You're going to rate it. Number two, 10 is high, one is low. And you're going to identify the dominant feelings or emotions associated with each one of those sections or categories. And then lastly, you're going to see if you can identify the story, context or words associated with each one. Consider humor me for a moment. Consider for a moment that each one of these has a story attached to it. By a story, I mean a phrase, a series of words strung together, a context or cognitive lens through which this occurs to you as. So in the areas that someone would rank high, they probably have a very empowering story around it. For example, if you were to ask me like what my context or story around businesses, I say it's a playground or an environment for growth, expansion and being of service. It does a very empowering story from his very true. It's just how I see business. It's like a place for me to grow and it's a place for me to help people. It's cool. Okay. If my story was like, it's too tough and I'm not cut out for this, you're going to notice something that the story that's generated in each of these categories is what's generating the result. It's going to be like a loop. Okay. But only you can do this. Like you don't have me there. I'm not going to do this for you. No one else is going to do it. And if someone really took the time to go through this first piece, you would see something for yourself. You would discover something. You'd be like, oh my gosh, some of you would even go so far as I say, where did this story come from? This isn't even my story. This is my parent's story, right? This is the story of my entire family generationally, right? And I've just been living into it. You're living up to it is what you'll probably notice is you're living up to the story behind it. Okay. So sometimes changing our life can be as simple as changing the story. But we can't change what we don't see. It's hard to work with the invisible. So that's why this first step is about taking stock, stopping before we drop. Then we can roll. Continuing with this, I want to share something I've been sharing with some of our students is really cool. There's a phenomenon. Researchers call the subtract neglect bias. It's pretty cool. It proposes that, and I love this core premise, by the way, I'm such a fan of it. This is kind of what's inspiring this episode too in a big way, that the hypothesis, the core premise is that subtraction is the most effective way to improve the quality of your life. Oh, I love that. I love that for you and me so much. Okay, so here's the study. This was done back in 2021, genuine by the name of Leedy Klotz. I think they wrote a book on it too. University of Virginia. So here was the experiment. Participants had to take a Lego structure that had like a house, and it had like a roof. But the roof thing was like unsupported. And there was like a character, like a mini-fig through your Lego fan. And they had to make sure that the roof supported the mini-fig. So that's the objective. You basically were given the structure with the mini-fig, and then you had to make the roof supportive. And you could add pieces to the structure, but they cost 10 cents each. So adding cost you money, okay? But here's the rub. The easiest, most L, and that's the word. That's one of my favorite words, elegant. The most elegant solution was not adding any pieces to the structure at all. It was removing just one. It was right under people's noses. And adding pieces cost money. But here's the results. 59% of participants still added bricks. This is the idea of subtract neglect bias that oftentimes in our life, the removal, subtraction making space for is the most elegant solution to improving the quality of something in our life. But we tend to have a natural bias or tendency towards addition. And I think so much about life is subtraction, like the idea of letting go. Letting go, this is what my shaman always says, let go to let in. So much of your own personal growth is about letting go. That's subtraction. Let go of the bullshit you've been taught in your whole life. What do you mean, James? Well, when people talk about a limiting belief, I have this story of this limiting belief, that's something you learned. You weren't born with that. You weren't born with these beliefs. You decided this was, quote unquote, true at some point in your life. And so so much of our own growth and expansion is in the letting go process. So that's a within, you know, the inside job is letting go. All right, letting go of the distortion and getting closer back to truth. It's all emblematic. It's all one giant holographic metaphor. It shows up everywhere in your life. That's the same thing of letting go. So here's the first thing I did. This was my summer. And I'm like, I'm such a nerd, but I like love this so much. First thing I did is I went on a massive, I'm still doing it. Massive declutter sprint in my life. I made a huge duet list of, I'm going to declutter every room in the house. That's what I did. I was like, every room in the house, I'm going to go through it and declutter it. Just trash, donate, sell, trash, donate, sell. Keep obviously for the things we want to keep, right? And it's such a nerdy thing, but it's giving me life. It's fun to do. I enjoy it. I don't know. A lot of people don't, but I enjoy, you know, rummaging through, oh, I don't use this. Oh my gosh, oh, I could donate. Oh, I could get this away or I could throw it away. So that's what I've been doing. And Jenny admitted, she's like the energy in the house feels so much better. Just getting rid of the stuff that you accumulate and the energy and the stagnation that it holds, right? So doing that in your home, all the way down to your garage, your car, the basement, all of it, oh my goodness. I was telling Jenny, I'm like, I'm such a nerd, but we have like a hauling dude come on Monday. And I'm like so excited for this because I just created this huge trash pile. There's a lot of it's just like cardboard boxes and old stuff, but it's a lot. I'm also doing construction projects. So there's a lot of old construction. And this guy coming to haul all of that away is like, I can't wait. I'm like, I don't know why I just can't wait 'cause it'll be like the last bit, the last residue of this like decluttering process. And, oh my gosh. So the first place is, where can you declutter the physical stuff? And that's a great first place to start because I love this idea. It's the holographic nature that everything is kind of like reflective manifestations of something, right? The definition of manifestation that I love is it's the physical representation of a dominant vibration. So the dominant vibration is our own vibration, right? So when our mind is cluttered, then our house becomes cluttered. When our life is cluttered or even our car becomes cluttered. Like I'm a very creative person, so I embrace messiness, right? I think those are two different things, messiness. Like when I'm working on my movie theater, which has become just my art, it's like my expression for my art outlets, my hobby, and I go work on a project. I mean, I'm just tearing things up in there. I'm like, there's just, there's paint everywhere and sawdust and tools and parts and that's the messiness. But clutter, clutter is like representative of our unwillingness to let go what no longer serves us. Let me just hold on to this. You know, it's like borders on the end or edge of like the hoarding thing, right? It's like maybe the phase before it. And so when you're a very creative person embrace your messiness, the clutter is something different. And that was just amazing. It was a great process, just a wonderful experience. Highly recommend it because it gets you in the mode of saying what else, what else can we clean up and create space for? And then you can look to your business. And this is an interesting phenomenon. I think this is why this is all like so, so important. I've been talking to our students a lot recently about the idea of the counter current, okay? So when I'm or was surfing out in California, there's always a current, okay? It's not a pool. I don't know if there's like currents and links, I've never really done much laking in my life. But in the ocean, there's always a current. Sometimes it's stronger than others. What you learn from day one of surfing is before you get in the water, you look to where the break is, like where you want to be out in the water. Like that's where it breaks. And then you link it to a landmarker. And when you swim out there, you use the landmarker, you look back at the land, you're like, okay, it's that house right there. You line up with that, okay? And then you're always facing the horizon 'cause you don't wanna have your back to a big center or anything. But you're checking your landmarker. And after a wave or after maybe a lull of just sitting there, you'll look and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm like quarter of a mile down in the beach. You didn't feel yourself moving. You didn't notice it and you're drifting. You're drifting because there's this force in the water that is the water is current, all right? And so either you have to paddle back or you gotta go into shore, walk back up the beach and get back in and be lined up with your landmarker again, all right? That's the current. So I'd like you to consider with this metaphor that there are currents that exist in your business. And the longer you're doing business, the more you will see it. If you're only surfing for three minutes, you're not gonna notice. You're not gonna be all the way down a mile down the beach. But if you were in the water all day and you never looked at your landmarker or you didn't for five hours, you'd be like, holy cow, I'm in a different town. I'm in a different city now, right? I'm in Mexico. How'd I get down to Mexico? And that's what happens. So we don't look often enough because it creeps up on us subtly. And I talked about four of them. I don't wanna talk about all of them because it gets into a really big episode, but it's really helpful for people once they've been in business for a while. But the reason I am talking about the decluttering first year physical space, like start with your office, start with your desk, like the drawers. Start with the things that you use them all. It's like your car, right? But then we wanna use that same practice with our business because consider that there are natural currents that exist in your business that create clutter and the two biggest ones are busyness and complication. So when we grow and we're in business over time, most people will create more work for themselves. They'll get busier, they'll add on, they'll be doing more. It's a very interesting phenomenon, prove me wrong. I'm not saying everyone all the time. No exceptions, I'm saying on average, more people in business over time just get busier. And the reason is because part of the reason could be different for a lot of people, but a big reason is like, you do something, it works and you're like, now what else can I do? How can we make it bigger, better, more awesome? And we just keep saying yes to more, which is fine, it's totally fine. But sometimes we don't pause, stop, drop and roll, and say, why am I still doing this? It doesn't even work, it's not even worth my time, I don't even enjoy doing it, right? But now I found myself in a different beach, I found myself way down the, not even in the same spot anymore, because I was just saying yes. Other driver is because when we start seeing success, we've gotten so addicted to the busyness that we have a hard time stopping. We feel guilty, we feel uncomfortable not working, because we worked so hard in the beginning for so little, now that you're making money and seeing success, you're like afraid the other shoe is going to drop, you're like, I had to just keep working, just keep going. So this is why we need to look at this, we need to pause here, we need to see that, we need to say, what in the business can I begin to declutter, subtract, delete? And it's hard, it's so hard for most entrepreneurs, you're like, no, because I want to do more. So the way we look at it, and this has been a philosophy for years for us in this big growth phase. I mean, it was just like what led the company was do less, but do it better. And you really could change it, it's not, but it's doing less allows you to do it better. It's causing effect, my friend. Doing less allows you to do those things that you do decide to do better. Think about it. If you try to be everywhere at all places at all times, I'm going to be on every social media platform. I'm going to have podcasts and a YouTube channel and an Instagram and a TikTok and a telegram and a sub stack and a, I don't know, list five more. How are you going to be amazing at all of those? Good luck. Oh, well, just hire a bunch of people. Yeah? Maybe? I'm not saying that's not an option, right? But you're going to be busier. Tell you that, right? And said, well, wait a second, what if I just went all in on this one? What if I just said no to these and went on and then you do repurpose those, have like a VA just repurposed that, sure, great, but you're like, I'm all in on this one. I'm doing more, with less, declutter your offers, your launches, your ideas. The social media channels, you know, you get the idea. So the first drift, this counter current drift, if you will, is busyness. The other one, which kind of goes hand in hand with it, is complication. So by saying yes to more things, we tend to drift towards complication. Okay, well, now I have this and it goes to that and upsells of this and downsells of this. But if you do this, you go here, but if you add this, it goes, and that can be cool. That can be wrong. I see a lot of people doing that with AI right now. It's like this unnecessary level of complication. And with complication, a couple of things happen. Complication means more delicate and slower, but it breaks easier, it's slower to change your move. And it can take more to maintain it, take more energy, more money, meet more resources. So if we can declutter our home, we can declutter our business, and we can declutter our life, and we can declutter our mind. And that's the ultimate goal. And I think decluttering our mind is taking stock to of the stories, the thoughts, the habitual beliefs that we just say on repeat over and over and over again, that are no longer serving us. And I think that's the final phase is if we can start to identify some of the nasty thinking that creeps in, that's a drift as well. If you have this experience where you're like super positive, especially in the beginning and I can do this, we're going to do, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then you grow or you hit a new plateau and all of a sudden you start telling yourself different stories. For example, yes, I can do this. I can get this business off again, I believe in myself, I got this, I can do this. This is what I want to do. And then you do it. And you're like, I don't know if this is a fluke, is this going to last? I don't know if I can maintain this. This is what I thought it was. We're just telling new stories, so it's the time to declutter the mind as well to identify the cluttered thoughts, the thoughts, the stories that no longer serve you. But the aim here, my friend, is actually very clear. It's to move towards a more simple life. I think a younger version of all of us as entrepreneurs don't think that way, but we eventually inevitably one day come to more of that for most of us that the aim should be a simple life. Word I've been using for years is elegant. Elegant is like the most perfect equation that has no unnecessary parts to get to the solution. Elegant equation is like you couldn't arrive at that answer in any more of an efficient manner. Well, I love it. The goal should be a simple life, but not in simple in the way that other people think. Simple for you might be as big as you want it with as little steps as you want it. Simple doesn't mean I live in a studio apartment. No, you say this is the life I want. This is how much money I want to be making and again, those six categories, right? This is my experiences I want to feel and what is the most elegant approach to it? But people use things like complication as like a compensation strategy. If I make things more complicated, I'll get what I want and I was like, maybe you can still get what you want, but you're going to really get what you want when you keep it simple. It's actually harder to make things simple. So this is a call towards simplicity, keeping things simple. And I think that helps drastically change your life. So just to recap here, the first phase here is to stop just to take stock to observe and audit. These two is a drop. Drop is like the declutter letting go of the physical, the mental, the business, anything that's no longer serving you. Be okay to do that. And that's why I encourage to start with the house first because it's such a perfect little jumping off point. It's like, okay, it's okay to let to throw this away or to donate it and you're like, okay, that was actually great. What else can I let go of? What else can I let go of in the business? It's very interesting. Clients do this over the year where they like close down one offer and then like their other offer like doubles and sales and stuff. So, you know, I can't make any of those decisions for you. I can just encourage that less is more and that you will find amplification through subtraction where most people don't look there, they just keep adding. And the third phase is to roll. So what do I mean by this? Well, first of all, if you wanted to make a change in life after you're taking stock on all this, here's what I would do next. First, I would create a new vision for your life. Something of like, this is how I want my life to look differently. And I think if you do this after you've assessed everything and started to let go, you've already created space where it's easier to dream a little bigger. Here's what I want now, right? And start with a vision. I think everything in life and business is a vision and it's, I try to talk about it and convince people of the importance of it. It falls on deaf ears for most people, but most people don't have results like I do. That's sad that they don't want to listen, but I've talked about vision so many times when I watch people. It's just like the glaze look because they just want to just tell me what to do, right? But vision is everything because vision is manifestation. Just telling God in the universe, here's where I'd like you to help me get to. You do your part, I'll do mine. And I love this because I'm on this kick right now, too. I'm just like, people are so obsessed with action. Just tell me what to do, tell me what to do, as if like all you do is effort and that's what gets you what you want. There's a lot of people doing a lot of effort and you have nothing to show for it, right? And there's probably a lot of people you can think of that are working way less than you that have a lot more to show for it. So this is about intent, this is about vision, this is about holding yourself and managing yourself at the frequency and receptivity of that new outcome first, and then you walk backwards from there. So when I say the third step is role, role means two things. First of all, enroll yourself in any other relevant parties like spouses, family, business, partners team, enroll in the new vision, be enrolled in the vision, clarify, decide with intent. This is the new vision. Awesome. Lock it in. And then role also means to leg. implement, roll it out, right? But here's the practice I would do in this last step. Once you have a vision, take two categories from the six, from phase one, you know, wealth, health, fun adventure career family or spirituality. My advice doesn't have to be that you do it your way. Take two, you could do it for all. I did it for all, by the way, we did this, okay? But at the very least, take two. My suggestion would be take the two that you scored the lowest on, and then you're gonna create three things. You pick your categories, two categories, you're gonna do this for both of the categories. Something to manifest in there. So it's not a to-do list, it's a to-manifest. What are we creating in this category? Something that you'll know it when you see it. So for example, if you chose family, it might be like, we're taking two trips next year, two family vacations, actually, perfect example, okay? Then any habit that would, if you implemented this habit, now the way I'm gonna look at a habit is anything if you just do it consistently over time, it will give you more of what you want, right? What habit would you implement in this category that would allow that number to go up in your rating? And then the third thing is the new story you're gonna say about this category, okay? So two categories, ideally the ones that you scored the lowest, identify at least one thing to create in manifest. Don't put a deadline on it. You don't need a deadline, not yet. You can if it really inspires you, but you don't. You can just say next year, we're gonna go I'm too big to bring that over here. Cool. Two manifest, what are we creating? A habit, what's the thing I'm gonna do on a consistent basis? And then what's the new story I'm gonna tell, okay? So for example, I'll give you my example, but I'll give you like, made up examples. So like let's say in the health category, you're like, I'd like to lose 10 pounds or something. Okay, and that's what's too manifest. Okay, the habit is you're gonna say, I have this for me today, right now. This is my real habit. I said, no matter what, come hell or high water. If I'm at home, if I'm working, like, or not working, but like traveling for an event, I'm gonna give myself the exception. But if I am at home, it's 20 minutes of movement, a day minimum, 20 minutes of day of movement, a day, could be anything, 20 minutes minimum, that's like the bare minimum. That's my habit, right? And the story I'm telling myself is I always have the energy, I feel great, and it's always worth it to move the body. Rocket science, okay? Now I put a little habit tracker in place so that I can actually track every day that I'm doing this. It's a very cool, like, it's a visual, I don't know what it's called, I'm sorry. Someone's gonna ask me, I'm like, I don't know. It's an Instagram purchase. But it's like this physical board, I hang on my wall. It's a 360 day calendar, and each day, you press the button and it lights up like a Christmas tree, and you get to see which days you did it, which days you didn't. So there you go. The other one that I did, we did this for all of them, but the other one I'll give as an example was in the wealth category. So here's what we did. I identified my total freedom number. This is like the craziest, high-level freedom number, okay? There's a whole calculation. I talked about this in my newsletter, by the way, if you're not on a newsletter, I don't have the URL in front. I think it's Jamesonward.com/newsletter, but I write a weekly newsletter on just whatever's on my mind, if I'm not doing the podcast, I'm doing the newsletter. Okay, so we came up with the total freedom number. Now what the total freedom number means, basically, is this is the moment that you could retire off this number, draw about 4% a year, and live your best life. That's the freedom number. So that's gonna be a big number. I think the lowest that is for someone is like two million. It's like two to 30 million, right? Depending on how much you wanna live off of, but that is purely like, if no income is coming in, right? Again, I'm not your wealth guy. That's Mel, Mel helped me with all of this. So our two manifest was that number. And that's not happening. I just can tell you that's like 15 years out that number, okay? So if it's 10 years, that's great. If it happens less, that's unbelievable. But I'm like, the way I look at some goals is I'm like, I'm gonna get there, it's just a matter of when. Does it take five years, or does it take 15? I'm still gonna get there, it doesn't matter, okay? Then the habit, which is so badass, this is what I wrote about my newsletter. I'm so stoked about this, as the habit is just the contribution amount. And I did an annual contribution amount, or identified the annual contribution amount, which allows you to come up with your monthly. I don't need to do weekly or daily. And I don't need to be structured with it where it's every month at this exact thing, that's unnecessary for me. But I just know every year I have this, and then I wrote on my whiteboard in my office, like tracking it, so I can say, this is how much of that annual amount I've contributed to my investment portfolio this year. So cool. And then the story, I have so many around money, abundance, but there's so many money and wealth stories, but I love ones like when I put my money to work, it can make more money for me than I did for it. I love stories like that. Another one I have is, my future me will thank me for the sacrifices I made today, for the wealth and abundance I'll have in the future. So see that, what are we creating intentionally? What's the new habit we're gonna put in place but what's the new story? And you can just like practice those throughout your day. I love it. It's so simple. It's so simple. I think it's a beautiful process. I think we should do it like once every year minimum. And I think it's apropos for me. The reason I really wanna do this episode is because it's timely for me, like I said, I'm gonna hold me in chapter in my life, but I'm also coming up on my birthday. So it's a really cool fun time for me. I'm doing that thing that Dawn Hover shared with me that practice for many years ago of taking stock of just my year. And that's like things I learned, things I went through, things I'm proud of, things I changed, lessons, you know, wins, accomplishments, struggle, all of it. It's just like kind of making a table of contents of your year and actually having note in my note app. So like throughout the year I can put things on there and then like really helps me jog my memory 'cause sometimes I'm like, oh yeah, that was, I was 10 months ago, I forgot. So one of them was, I spent the whole last year building this Star Wars movie theater in my basement. And I know some of you guys make fun of me 'cause it sounds so silly, but it has been a dream of mine for a decade to have a home theater. I've always wanted one. And in this house that we got, I was like really bombed. I was like, there's really no space for one. This is three bedrooms and I use one of the bedrooms as an office and we have guest bedroom. Like there's really no space for one. And finally, through a lot of counsel of a lot of like smart friends and like having people come over and like, what would you do and how would you do? And like your house is on, my house is like on a hill. So it's like, it's kind of like a, still fun one house. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but this is a whole like unfinished under the house area. Like you just build this out, put a little theater in there. And then I had this crazy idea to make it Star Wars themed. I was sitting on that idea guys for like three years. And what I did is on, I think it was September 7th. It was either September 7th or 17th of last year. It doesn't matter. I said, okay, I'm gonna start this. And I said, I'm just gonna do the door. I'm just gonna make the door themed like a Star Wars themed door. And if it looks good and I enjoy it, I'll keep going. And I made a few videos posted on this account. It blew up. Got a ton of, I mean millions of views. I had a blast making it. And I'm really happy with how it turned out. And I'm just enjoying it so much. So in my like fun and adventure, call them for me. It's an 11 out of 10 right now because I'm doing all these creative endeavors in my life that I kind of put on hold a bit. Like when I went through this ramp up phase to take the business to 10 and then kind of this divorce phase of like maintaining and getting through that, I didn't really put an emphasis on that. I went into a little bit more like, hey, you gotta take care of business mode. I wouldn't say survival mode, but like grind mode, you know? And I definitely like felt the deficit of it. Yeah, the deficit of it. And so it's been a really interesting thing where a lot of my clients and students that work with me on a closer basis, I just share these little life tidbits with them and stuff like that. And they always report back the feedback on the advice they're taking. And one of the most common things that my clients are saying that has been like, unbelievably helpful is like, I got a hobby. James said, get a hobby, I got a hobby. And I have clients now that are like, because of you talking about guitar, I've picked up an instrument for the first time and, you know, 20 years. Or I decided to learn an instrument for the first time or I picked up painting or I'm doing this with my kids now. I got people doing like Lego every weekend with their kids, model making, and they're like reporting back to me. And it's like, if that's you, by the way, please let me know, because it's such a joy in my heart. Because I love business. I have so much fun that's why I can have 800 episodes talking about business. But. But I realize I don't really love business. I love life. And business is one way I saw as a creative expression. It's a creative outlet to me. And this is something that I have a hard time with when I see people struggle. They don't see business that way. Business is this means to the end. It's this begrudging, reluctant, pain in the ass thing to get to what I want. And if I'm telling you, if you're doing it that way, I would bet against you. Not because I'm a jerk, not because I don't like you, not because I'm mean, but because that's setting you up for failure. To say, I'm going to dedicate a portion of my day, a big ass portion of my day to something that's draining the life out of me, sucking my soul, making me miserable so that I can make money for what purpose so I can be happy, doesn't make any sense. It's a broken strategy. So all of this, how to change your life is to set your life up for more success. You shouldn't think about a successful business, you should think about a successful life. And the definition of success, the only definition I will ever entertain because people will have so much loaded, charged meaning with that word. They scoff at it, they reject it. That success is as simple as getting what you want. And if I want to go expand the definition, the definition of success is getting what you want on your terms. Yes, that's success, baby. Getting what you want in on your terms. So your prerogative, your focus should be to have a successful life. What am I saying? I'm saying to get what you want out of life, from life through life on your terms and that your business, the business, supports that 80% of what you do. No more, definitely no less 80% of what you do in business should be enjoyable, should be giving you energy, should be fun. I'm a big stickler on that. If you're not having fun in business, you're doing it wrong. Or you just should be, I mean, it's really two things. It's like fun is a choice. So people don't understand it. It's like you can just choose to enjoy something. You can choose to be a pain in the butt about it and complain all day long. You should definitely drop your complaints. I remember reading that in like one of Tony Robbins books about like a complaint free diet, change my life, like try going like a week or something without complaining, change my life. Now the only thing I complain about is complaining. I hate complaining. So having fun is a choice by and large. You can choose to do something and make it fun. And if you can't, then you kind of suck. Like if you're like, I can't make this fun, it's like, nah, that's kind of a reflection of you because it's just a choice, like make a game out of it. I used to be lighthearted, choose to not take it so seriously, choose to have fun. What can I do that? I was like, well, all right, you're, you know, like put a smile on your face, you know? Make a joke out of it. But so many people are running a business because they want something on the other end of something they hate that don't make no sense to me. And it shouldn't make any sense to you. You should do it first because you love the process. So I think that is, I did a video about this on Instagram a while back. And I think it's like the secret to manifesting more in your business is love the process more than the end result. Love the rainbow more than the pot of gold. Love what you do in the business more than what the business will give you. And you will get more of what you want. So your business is here to give you life. So for some of you, you might need to look at, okay, and you got to look at seriously and objectively and like with real energy and presence, because you met a people that throw the business out with the baby with the bath water and you go, hold on. It was doing it this way that was the problem, not the whole business. Here's a perfect example. I can give you an example. It's my problem, guys, I care too much and I shouldn't. And I work on that. But I see good people make stupid decisions all the time and it is the hardest thing for me. It's so hard. People making stupid decisions. And what I mean by stupid decisions is decisions that go against their best nature and what is best for them. So perfect example, I'm seeing this many times. People start business. It's hard in the beginning. And the first thing they say is it's hard in the beginning, it's going to always be hard. And then they give up. That's a stupid decision. So of course it's hard in the beginning, it's hard until it's not hard anymore, right? Next one is an example like, oh, I don't like Instagram, I hate all these reels and TikTok dances and pointing and stuff like that, I'm out. And they close down their business, what are you doing? Maybe just don't do Instagram. Like you think an online business means Instagram? What? Or people I care to a bit have come and told me that. So instead you want to look at what do I love doing in the business? And let's do more of that. So for example, I'm just going to show you my examples. I am a teacher by heart, okay? That's who I am. I'm a creative person, I'm a teacher. So I love doing creative things, I love teaching, I love coaching. So I love this business because I'm in the business of teaching and you teach through your content, I teach on podcasts, I teach on a live, I teach a video, I teach in my newsletter, I teach in my programs. If you didn't love teaching, if you're like, I don't really like helping people, I don't really like teaching information to other people, you probably shouldn't be in this business or you should just be like, you know what, I am going to love doing this and I'm just going to shut up and love it, you know? And when I love, oh, this is a new framework I came up with, oh, this is a new idea for me. Like I was excited to come to this studio today and say, I can't wait to share this episode because this is going to help somebody and I look geeky out on this stuff and I enjoy the process. These are simple things but people aren't taking enough like stock to it because if you pick it up when I'm putting down what you're really hearing is a message from someone who's been doing this for 19 years. All these different phases, all these different changes, all this growth, but 19 years, 110 million at this point, something like that. And I wouldn't be sharing these things if they weren't incredibly relevant and important but they're relevant and important from someone who's had that longevity and sustainability and another thing that I've said over the years is like, the name of the game guys is sustainability. Someone wants fast and big and you're just, you're just caught up in all the bullsh*t. There's so much bullsh*t out there because that's everyone else trying to get theirs. And if you were really smart, it's not fast and big. It's all about sustainability, okay? Fast and big. I want it. Oh, I need somebody who, oh, I heard a story of this person got rich in three months. I want someone who can do it in two months. I literally, this broke my heart on our training this year for the business breakthrough experience. I was sharing students that have like gotten to a million dollars a year and it was like four, they're like, how long have you been doing this? Like four to six years. I'm like, that takes so long. That breaks my heart. People want it so fast and I go, how long have you been trying to get to a million dollars and they say their whole life? Like, come on guys, think, be smart. I don't make no sense. You want it fast, but you've wasted your whole life looking for the fast way. It ain't working. Pull it in the work. But the name of the game shouldn't be big and fast. It should just be sustainable. And I can prove that and back that up with so much data points. Sustainability means over time, it becomes easier and more manageable. Something that is unsustainable is harder to do over time. If I said here, carry 100 pound weight over your head and you're like, okay, maybe I could do that for a couple of seconds. I go, all day, I can't do that. That's not sustainable, okay? It's too heavy. It's too much load. But imagine something, and this is cool. We've done numbers like this. We've taught this in our programs and stuff that if you had a half a million dollar a year business at a 50% or maybe even a little more, because you can have a healthier profit margin than that in this business at a 50% profit margin and you're putting away enough every year. Depends on what you put away, but you can put away a little bit every year. And you grow business by 10 to 20% year over year, which is not an unreasonable growth rate in this industry. And you have an average rate of return of 8%, which, you know, there are more aggressive and riskier ways that you can see a return on your money, 10 years, and you're set. You're good. So once you're at half a million, if you can do it for 10 years and be smart with your money, you're set. That should be people's game. What I just said is like, that's like mature. wise advice, but what everyone's spewing is how I made a million overnight, you know? And what they're telling you, which is fine, they're telling you that this person got lucky story. And I don't know if you can repeat it because they're in the right place at the right time and the right set of circumstances. Oh, just great. You should be ready for all of that. But you should also be thinking strategically and not going, oh, I just need to do the get rich quick thing, which is just like so acidity people are like still falling for that. But a real business that produces half a million in revenue, then it grows 10 to 20% year after year with a healthy like 50% profit margin. You just put a little bit away like 10% of that profit a year. You can set yourself up really well like for financial freedom. Cause you know, the business brings cash flow. We've talked about this many times. It brings cash flow. And it's wealth that brings financial freedom. So it's not about you need to go make more. It's what you're doing with the money that you're making that matters. That's why wealth is one of the six categories in your how to change your life. Little course that I just took you through. So I wanted to end with those little final thoughts. And hopefully that helps. And hopefully you'll take stock in this. Hopefully you'll like do something with this. And if you do, please let me know. Please let me know anything that you're implementing with because I love staying up to date with any of our students on any level, whether you're a student of mine or you're just a new listener or long time listener and never been a student. It always means the world to me to know when someone's applying what you're putting out there, right? Just like you would probably feel the same way. So this is now the mind your life podcast. But I did I want to do an episode like on your life and just keep in mind that the business that you're building should be there to give life not take it away from you. I hope this helped. I hope you found value in this. I hope you'll do it. And I hope you'll keep me in the loop. Thank you so much for listening. And I'll see you next time here on the mind your business podcast. Take care.