Hello Listeners! Welcome to Episode 9 of the Shy to Dynamic podcast! One more to go to get to the magic milestone of Episode Number 10! I finally figured out how to hook up my nephew’s microphone that he gave me at Christmas time, so I guess I’ll sound a little different this week.
I hope everyone is doing very well this week. And thank you, thank you so much for tuning in.
So I remember something I’ve heard some people say thru the years. I haven’t heard it lately, but usually when they said this, they were talking about relationships. And what they said to me was “Me?, I would never settle.” But do people really mean it when they say they would never settle? Because that same person would end up dating someone who looks like crap or has an obnoxious personality, or someone that didn’t really have much to offer, and then they would still say they didn’t settle. And I’m thinking “Yeah, you did.” But, in my opinion, it’s ok that they did. Because no potential partner is perfect. And no matter who you link up with, they’re gonna have some issues in one way or the other. So just admit that you settled in some way. It’s totally ok to admit that.
Truth be told, settling in various aspects of your life is a good thing. And it may be a healthy thing.
When you get a new great opportunity or find a new great person, does it feel better to a) immediately start looking for something better and deal with the stress and constant yearning for more… or b) sit back, relax, and focus on all the things that are enjoyable about the current situation and show gratitude for the great thing or things that you have, and enjoy the peace and serenity of not having to try to search for something else.
I’d say option B sounds better. Sit back and bask in the joy of it and just enjoy the blessings you currently have. I’m not saying to never strive for more. There is plenty of time to think about making life changes at some point in the future.
Just think… if I had never strived for more, I never would have applied for and gotten my new job! So when I say just settle, I just mean enjoy the peacefulness of your current blessings for a while. Don’t go to one good job, and then immediately start looking for a better opportunity. Don’t date someone cool, and immediately keep your eyes open for someone better. Give it some time to just sit and enjoy the serenity of it for a while. Give it time to settle and marinate, and you might find that it’s a good situation to stay with. But If you find after some time, that it really doesn’t work for you, then start looking.
I found out with my new job that I won’t get a bonus like I did in my old job. But my new job has three important things to me… it got me back into the field I wanted to be in, it is fully remote, and vacation is separate from sick time. Those things were essential to me. But like I said, I found out that I won’t be getting an annual bonus. So in a sense, I settled for a role that does not offer me something that I’ve become accustomed to. Now, obviously, like almost any sane person, I wouldn’t throw away this opportunity based on a lack of bonus, so I’ll modify this example to something more reasonable. Suppose there was no increase in salary in this new job. Honestly, I probably would still have taken this new job. I would choose to settle, and I would be grateful for the opportunity to settle. Because overall, the new job brings me so much fulfillment and opportunities for growth in the areas I want to grow in.
Sometimes society has certain rules. One of those rules is that when you change jobs, you must attain a higher salary. But sometimes there is value that you can get in other ways such as peace of mind, more freedom, better benefits, more work-life balance, and that can make it worth it. And even more than, that the peacefulness that comes from no longer having to search for something else because you’ve found something good.
With relationships, it’s a little trickier of course, because you have to think about the other person’s feelings, and broken hearts. Of course, I’m not saying staying with a bad person. I’m saying stay with a good person. I’m not saying stay with a good person with a ton of problems either. I’m saying stay with a good person that doesn’t have a lot of problems. Don’t just leave because you have wanderlust and you’re bored. Unless of course, for some reason, you’re absolutely miserable, but if that’s the case, then you have to ask yourself why you’re miserable with a good person that has few problems, and you have to wonder why you want to leave so bad. Because you know what people say… “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.” And you have to think about that. And maybe you’ll get lucky and the grass is greener… but that’s risky. And you’ll have to assess that risk, and measure the risk you might cause to others, and even to yourself. There may be something more exciting on the other side, but what are the benefits of what you have with your current situation. Think about those things and bask in the joy of those things.
When I think about this concept, I think about my situation living here in Charlotte. I enjoy this city so much. It has so much to offer and it is really a dynamic city. There’s always a new restaurant or club or store or business opening… always a new building being built. There’s always something to do. But the one flaw is that it has the worst road and highway system that I’ve ever seen in a big city, as I’ve mentioned before. It only has two interstates that are both on the western/northwestern side of the city. Granted it does have an outer loop highway that extends fairly far outside of Uptown, but of course an outer loop is just that — an outer loop, so it’s meant as a bypass more than a connecting highway. For instance, to even get to the city’s major mall from where I live near Uptown, it’s a very awkward, windy path, and it isn’t any better to try to take a highway because that would double the trip time. Lots of times, I deliberately choose not to attend certain events if they are on certain sides of town because I know it’s annoying to try to get there from where I live. Now these kinds of road and highway issues wouldn’t bother many people. Most people have such a poor sense of geography, so they’re not even aware of the problem.
But, as for me, I have always been majorly fascinated by highways, especially big city highways, and the convenience of a city’s highway system and I’ve been conscientious about where I choose to live in relation to the highways, so Charlotte’s situation bothers me tremendously. I miss the elaborate extensive, convenient highway system of Phoenix so badly. So I’m definitely settling a lot by continuing to deal with this infrastructure mess.
But there is so much that I gain by living in this wonderful exciting city with so many great friends to socialize with and so many events to attend. In fact, I’ve never had a bigger social life than here. So yes I’m settling by dealing with this poor road system. I have thought about ok, where should I live next? But I keep coming back to the same conclusion: Would I be happier anywhere else? Would I want to start all over in getting to know the cool spots in another city and trying to develop relationships in another city? Would I even want to deal with the turmoil of uprooting my life? And then there’s the close proximity to my family. Would I give up all that just to have better and prettier and more convenient highways?
Nope, there is no way I’m leaving here anytime soon. I choose to settle on living here. I’m not settling for something bad. I’m settling for something great! This is still a great city to live in.
It really is ok to settle.
You’re always going to have to settle in some ways. Additionally by staying here, I get the peace of mind of not having to think about or plan a move to a new place.
Now is that a permanent decision? Will I change my mind at some point? Who knows? But at this point I choose to settle for something that is imperfect… but is still amazing. And you know that I spoke in the Los Angeles episode that it’s ok not to be perfect. And it’s ok for other people in your life not to be perfect. It’s ok for the city in your life not to be perfect. It’s ok for the partner in your life not to be perfect. As long as those things are not bad or unbearable. At some point, you may want to leave behind things that aren’t bad, but you just think they can better. But just know that the thing you’re going to may have problems too. I’m not saying that to make you fearful about aiming for more. But just thoroughly assess the risks! And sometimes risks are totally worth it.
But in the meantime, enjoy and be grateful for the benefits and positive aspects of what you have. Don’t try to rush to the new thing.
Like when I decided to leave my old job, I could have dwelled on the things I hated about the old job. I could have said “I can’t wait till the new job starts.” But no, I didn’t want to think like that. I actually enjoyed the easiness of the old job. There was no pressure on me because I knew I was leaving soon! I actually enjoyed kind of slacking off, not a lot, but a little bit. They actually accidentally took away a lot of my system access too early. So I literally couldn’t work for a couple of days. But it was actually something nice to enjoy and treasure that unexpected time off, because I didn’t take any vacation time in between jobs. There was no need to get upset about the confusion at the end. It was actually pretty great! And when I finally did start my new job, I was happy about that too.
Sometimes in life we complain about some things, although if we really thought about it, it’s not so bad.
My nephew told me the other day when we hung out, that he couldn’t wait to be fully grown. He wanted a full time job and wanted to pay bills like a fully grown up person. I looked at him like he was crazy of course. I told him that there was plenty of time for all of that. I told him that he needs to treasure his last remaining college days. Because there are many good things about that phase of life too. He said that that was exactly what his older half-sister had told him. I said “See I told you. I’m not the only one who thinks that you shouldn’t rush ahead to the end of your college days.” Because it’s not like his college life is miserable. He just believes that fully grown-up life is more interesting or more fulfilling or something.
So don’t try to fast-forward to the next phase or the next opportunity or the next person. Dwell on the positive things you’re experiencing now. Of course if you’re running out of time to prepare for the next phase, then you may not have the opportunity to relax and enjoy your current situation. But if you have plenty of time, then just enjoy the current moment and chill and be grateful for your blessings.
In life, we aim for higher all the time… instead of reflecting on how far we’ve come.
I found a great quote about this from the book “Ask and It is Given” by Esther and Jerry Hicks. It says:
Once you have the knowledge that you are moving in the direction of your desires, you may begin to relax a little bit and enjoy the fantastic journey. — from the book: Ask and It is Given
End quote. You don’t have to rush it along. Let the excitement build. Enjoy the transition.
It seems that when you become more grateful, you start to get more things to be grateful for. You may think you want something even greater, but you get exactly what you need.
Sometimes you don’t get the very best, and that’s good for you. Sometimes you don’t get amazing success, but the point is you’ve already gotten some success, and that’s better than no success.
Like if you apply for several jobs and many reject you, but one hires you. And you gripe because that one you got doesn’t pay you enough. Guess what, the one that doesn’t pay you enough is better than the higher paying job that didn’t hire you at all. Settle for that new job, do your best work, and enjoy the journey.
You may not get to date that guy with the perfect body, but the one with the average body that you “quote-unquote” “settle for” may be an even more awesome and wealthy person and will spend his life making you happy and making you laugh.
I even applied this principle with this podcast. I was very happy with the number of downloads that the first episode got, but then it started to decline with every episode except one. I used to keep anxiously checking the number of downloads every few hours, to the point that I even annoyed myself, and I would get disappointed when I didn’t see a big increase. I then thought to myself: “Suppose I had started with a low number of downloads, but then I had risen to the point I am now.” — I would probably be thrilled.”
I decided I needed to stop thinking that when I saw the number of downloads remain the same, that “Wow, This sucks!” I needed to INSTEAD think when I didn’t see the number of downloads increase, that I should be grateful. I could say: “Wow, look at the number of downloads I have right now. It’s up from two days ago at least. And it’s definitely up from last week!” When my newer episode didn’t achieve a higher number of downloads from the prior week, I needed to think “Well, at least it’s not zero! At least I’ve got five so far!” Sometimes in life it’s good to not be too successful. Because maybe the Universe doesn’t want you to be successful in one area, so you can be successful somewhere else.
Not getting hundreds of podcast downloads has been an “ego check”.
Remember when I said in the Los Angeles episode that Katy Perry is a musical genius. She even has another uplifting song that relates to this topic as well! That’s three weeks in a row! In her song “Smile”, she sang:
I’m so thankful… Scratch that…, I’m grateful.
Had a piece of humble pie… That ego check saved my life.
— from the song, “Smile” by Katy Perry
I interpret that line, “that ego check saved my life”, to mean that her ego was leading her to aim for more and more, but something brought her back down to realize that what she’s got is something good, something that she should not give up, something that she should settle for in a sense…. And be thankful and grateful for it.
And so it is with my podcast. It is important for me to settle for and be grateful for the podcast success I have. If my podcast had grown astronomically every time and then suddenly stopped, I’d be obsessed with figuring out why. So in a sense, it’s so much more peaceful and comfortable to just have decent or average success… and to be simply grateful for that. I can now bask in the joy that I actually created a podcast and I got some listeners! I can be grateful that my sister eagerly anticipates my podcast every week, and will even ask me about it when I’m late! That didn’t have to happen. That’s a blessing to be thankful for that we bond thru this podcast. And I also still get excited when I see that someone from another country or another continent, even, listened to my podcast. And I can just be grateful for that as well.
I could now try to figure out what I need to do to increase my reach. I could be all of social media trying to promote it every day. And that’s what society tells you to do. Always aim higher and get more! But I choose to just enjoy what I have now. The joy of what I have now is better than the distress of trying to constantly figure out what I need to say or do to increase it. I choose gratitude over mental distress. I choose to be grateful for the listeners, like you, that I do have.
I originally wanted this podcast to lead to some source of extra income. But God or the Universe chose to pivot my success another way. I was blessed with a new higher-paying job. So the “extra income” came from a different path. And what’s more, I enjoy the new job. So why should I stress myself out about trying to find more and more listeners? I can just sit back and enjoy the success I have reached with this podcast, and settle for an average number of listeners.
You might say there is no direct correlation between the podcast and the new job I got. But to the Universe, it is a direct line. Because it’s all about energy. You think if you put your energy in one place, you’ll see it reflected back from the same place, but instead it may flow over somewhere else. You can continue to look for it to come back from the place you put it, but then you’ll miss it when it comes from somewhere else. I don’t mind settling for a podcast that has fewer downloads. Because I’m settling for something I still enjoy very much!
And if more success comes in the future, all the better! In fact, success is probably more likely to come when you’re grateful for what you have.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that on your job, you should never strive for higher levels of success. It’s often a part of your job, in a sense, to get more and more competent over time. So your career is totally a different story. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re broke, of course you should aim for higher. But if you’re in a decent situation already, take some time to be grateful for that. Take a break and enjoy it, bask in it for a while at least. Then if you know in your heart that you have to have more, then get back into the grind and find your next best thing.
But sometimes it’s better to end on a high note. I don’t watch sports much, so I’m not sure what Tom Brady is doing now. But I do know that he kept coming out of retirement. Some people would say he needs to stay retired and go out on a high note! I have no opinion on his career really. But I do know that sometimes great is good enough. Which seems like a no-brainer. But some people need to learn that. You don’t need to always aim for more and greater! Instead you may want to “settle” for and bask in the greatness that you already have.
This was a while ago, but after I had been in Charlotte for about 8 or 9 months, I was lamenting the fact that I still hadn’t found a consistent, long-standing close friendship. I was really feeling down… wondering what it is about me that caused no one here in Charlotte to be interested in making me the kind of friend that they want to hang out with like everyday.
I thought to myself, why am I focusing on what I don’t have instead of how much I do have that I didn’t have just the year before?! Why was the fact of having some friends not good enough? Now that I was here, why was I trying desperately to rush to the next level of friendship?! Instead of acknowledging and basking in the social success I had already achieved?
I thought about how far I’d come.
When I lived in Phoenix, I used to come home everyday with no prospects of having any activities to do with friends. I spent the weekends just running errands, going to restaurants, or hiking on my own. I was often begging the Universe to just send me a random friend to Phoenix for the weekend so I could have something social to do.
Then I made the choice to move to Charlotte. I immediately joined a few meetups here, and it has immediately made a world of difference. The attendees of the meetups here were so friendly and engaging. Add that to the fact that Charlotte has so much fun stuff to do and my life had totally changed!
Yes, I decided to “settle” for just having group events to go to and not having one or two super close friends. Because having things to do and events to go to was pretty great in and of itself! I actually got to do real things with REAL PEOPLE! — Real live human beings!… talking to me, and I was talking to them! A year prior, that had seem unimaginable.
So how dare I complain that I hadn’t completed my journey yet?
I found another great quote from Daniel Chidiac. It says:
A wise man never dwells on what he doesn’t have. He remains in constant appreciation of what he has already, while being in pursuit of what he wants. — Daniel Chidiac from the book: “Who Says You Can’t? You Do”
I changed my thoughts immediately and I just thanked the Universe that I did have a social life now.
And once I began to show that gratitude, things quickly began to get better and better. My friendships began to get richer and richer. I am getting closer and closer to my friendship goals. I am enjoying the journey. I am enjoying the present moment while anticipating a brighter and brighter future.
This was because I changed my mindset from a griping complaining one to a grateful one and appreciative one.
And that makes great things begin to happen.
So that’s what I have today on this topic of settling, relaxing, appreciating, valuing, and being grateful for things that are already pretty great! Enjoy the success you’ve already achieved. It’s like going to the Grand Canyon and instead of relaxing, being quiet, and enjoying the view, you focus entirely on perfecting your smile for your selfie that you’ll show your friends later. No, you should just chill, relax, and enjoy the scenery for a while. Be grateful for it. And after enjoying it for a while, you can begin to start thinking about what’s next. And the next better thing might exist right where you’ve settled!
So this week’s episode is dedicated to the city of Houston. So what does Houston have to do with settling and enjoying how far you’ve come? Absolutely nothing that I know of. But just like Dallas, I enjoyed Houston the last time I was there, which was probably 30 years ago. I actually went there I to visit a friend named Leslie that I used to know a long time ago. We did not remain in touch, so I wonder how she’s doing now. I didn’t know at the time that we would lose track of each other, but I feel that I enjoyed and valued her friendship in the moment, and I was grateful that we were friends. I don’t remember the city of Houston too well, but my nephew just went there recently, and he loved it so much he said that’s one of the places he’d considered living… So kudos to Houston!
And on that note, this concludes the Houston episode. I had to take off last week to focus on some new job priorities. And I will skip next week as well and reappear on Leap Day, February 29th! So I’ll talk to you then.
If you have enjoyed this episode, and got something useful out of this episode, then please give me five stars and write a review. Also please pass this podcast along to your friends or family or anyone you know that could benefit from it as well!
And please contact me if you like!
As always, remember to show up and DELIVER for yourself today and create a NEW dynamic version of yourself.
Thanks so much for listening.
Episode 9, the Houston episode, is now done!