E20 Achieving Everlasting Fulfillment: A Four-Alarm Strategy for Life's Wonders with Nico van de Venne

Embark on a transformative journey with Nico Van de Venne as we unlock the secrets to achieving everlasting fulfillment in every facet of life. With a simple yet profound strategy involving four daily alarms, I'll guide you through cultivating a mindset that not only anticipates wonderful happenings but also commands the 10% of life we have the power to control. This episode is a testament to the magic woven into our everyday existence, and how acknowledging the gift of life can lead to unexpected joys and guide our decisions towards positivity.

As we explore the essence of personal growth, we'll dissect the profound impact of honing in on "the One Thing" that can propel us forward, drawing inspiration from Gary Keller's teachings. Through personal affirmations, thought-provoking questions, and a commitment to incremental change, I illuminate the path to a life of intention. Embrace the concept of pronoia, the belief in a universe that conspires to support us, and distinguish between self-worth and self-confidence with the wisdom of Jamie Kern Lima. Join me in this enlightening conversation, and let's carry a renewed sense of gratitude and focused intention into the tapestry of our daily lives.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within, opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode. I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEO founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve Everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting podcast. With today's subject, or alarms to Everlasting fulfillment, we depend on the organic growth of this podcast, so I would love to ask you, as listener, to follow the podcast on either Spotify or iTunes or whatever system that you are listening right now, and give us a five-star review, but what I would absolutely love to ask you is to share this episode with somebody who you think might be helped or inspired by its content. In any case, thank you for listening. So, again, welcome to the Everlasting Podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:47

What I've got for you today is something that I've been using personally for quite a while right now, and it's a very simple system that I've set up and that I use every day, because I have learned about the compound effect and the results that that can bring. I will explain to you later in another podcast, more about the compound effect and the one thing, but I will explain to you here today how I work with this system. So basically what I do is I have a four system alarm running on my phone and I'm going to share the content of my computer screen and these four alarms that I have on this show. So this is, this is what what I um use on a daily basis. Let me give it a little bit more space. So every day and I've I've activated this on business days, so on the weekend it's not turned on because I love sleeping a little bit longer on the weekends, uh, if it's possible and usually it takes a little bit longer for me to go downstairs on the weekends because I meditate longer or do other things a little bit longer. So every day, every weekday, I have four alarms running on my cell phone. And why my cell phone? Because it is the device that I have with me almost all the time. It's either in the room with me or it's in my pocket or in my hands or et cetera.

Speaker 1: 3:46

So the first alarm that I set is something amazing happens today, and I started using this sentence because we tend to forget that every day that we wake up, we just wake up and open our eyes and and take our first, first, I would say noticeable breath, because when you sleep, you don't notice anything. You're sleeping, you're dreaming, etc. But you open your eyes or you're still in bed and you notice your first time that you, you take your breath and being awake. Every day that that happens, it's amazing. There are so many people who do not wake up the next day, and it can be for so many different reasons that you know, if I start on a list, it would take me days, um, and it's. It's. That's already amazing, as, as an example, that's already amazing.

Speaker 1: 4:56

So why I use this alarm is to remind me that on each day that we live or that we experience as a human being or a spirit or whomever is within this physical body, is an amazing day, is an amazing moment. It's a happening that is amazing. It's period. Now next to that's not the only amazing thing that happens. You might encounter somebody that you would not have expected, somebody who you've not seen for years, or somebody new, or you might take an action that day that has an effect on the rest of your life, or you get an insight that day that has an effect on on the rest of your life. So every day, something amazing happens in our lives. We just don't always stop and, as they say, smell the roses. So that's the first one that I I always using is one where it has an effect on the actions I take each day. So if we look at the whole discussion on time management, prioritization choices, et cetera, to my mind there's one thing that you can only do at one time and I know the old cliches of women being able to do more than one task and men not being able to do that, blah, blah, blah. It's been proven that it's more related to the difference between new things, new tasks and habits than anything else.

Speaker 1: 6:47

So if you have a daily routine that you do say, for instance, driving to your job, and it's always the same route, or maybe there's a traffic jam and you might reroute, but that same route you've already taken that so many times that you sometimes don't even notice that you, you know, rode you, you took your car and drove through one of the streets and didn't notice the yellow front door, I don't know. But then another time you might have noticed it. It's just something that so mundane, so easy to do. You just do it every day. So if, at the same time, you might be listening to a podcast, for instance, or you might be making a call to somebody, yeah, that's perfectly possible. You just drive and that's doing two things at the same time. By the way, you breathe without noting as well. You know your heart beats without noting, is it? This is your subconscious managing your body, and that's a whole different story. But 90 of our actions are managed by our subconscious and our body, so 10 is the part that we can manage. Just think about that. Um, so that's one of the things that I've focused on is what is the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

Speaker 1: 8:19

This comes out of one of many books that I've been able to enjoy these last couple of years, and it's called the One Thing by Gary Keller, which was written with Jay Bapasan. So this is the book. Let me remove this for a second. This is the book the One Thing. It's a big number one on the cover, and I think it's had already a lot of. Remove this for a second. This is a book. The one thing it's a big number one on the cover and I think it's had already a lot of reruns, or what do you call it Represses, because it's a very, very, very well-known book. So that's the second alarm.

Speaker 1: 9:03

That's at 7.55, for instance, and makes me reflect on what. What one action do I need to take today that moves the needle forward? And it comes back down to the compound effect. The compound effect is a book written by, uh, darren hardy. Um, he's. He's a well-knownknown guy who has an amazing daily podcast that comes out. I'm subscribed to that podcast and he gives you a couple of ideas on managing. So this is the compound effect, darren Hardy. I advise you to read this one together with Slide Edge by Jeff Olson. They kind of complement each other and these books give you a lot of good ideas.

Speaker 1: 9:49

But what the essence is is that you look at one thing. You find yourself one thing to do that day that is absolutely going to move the needle, and it can be something in a category of your family life. It can be something within your task as a leader. It can be something as mundane as taking out the garbage I don't know, it can be something really, really simple. Or you know, having a pedestrian pass over the street while you stop as a driver, for instance, it can have an effect on somebody. You stop as a driver, for instance, it can have an effect on somebody. And so, yeah, I would advise you to think about that as well.

Speaker 1: 10:31

And then I have my third alarm is actually a bit kind of complimenting myself. No-transcript. This is really literally what I write is hi, future Nico here, thank you for persevering. We are where we want to be together. I love you and that is the alarm that I see. So these alarms just kind of pop up on my cell phone and this comes from believing in myself. You know, the faith in myself, the self-worth, the complimenting, the gratefulness and accepting that all the experiences and all the things that have happened in my life, they are okay, even if I've had some really dark periods in my life. I've had a very heavy depression, I've had more than one burnout, um, because I've been a striver, you know, very, very ambitious, a very big part of my life, and and this kind of complements that guy that he used to be, you know, within those dark times, complimenting him and saying thank you for persevering, thank you for taking that next step, for moving on, for moving forward. So that's the third one that I actually have on my cell phone at 8 am.

Speaker 1: 12:12

And then the final one, um is called um, the opposite of paranoia. So, um, if you don't know what paranoia is, paranoia is kind of a, an irrational and and a persistent feeling that that people are out to get you. That could be many different things. You could either think it's the government, or it's your local community, or it's your aunt, or any any thing in that direction. And somebody who was paranoid is very difficult at trusting and they can be very hostile. They don't believe that the world is good, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 13:13

So I've changed that into the opposite, which is called pronoia. Para against pro four. So if you go from being scared of the world to saying, wow, the world is here to help me, it's a completely different perspective. And from from that point I ask myself who can I be of service today that will create a brighter tomorrow, and that can be very wide. You know, I've got the one, the part where it said what's the one thing that I can do today to make everything easier or necessary? And then paranoia is who can I help today to make the world better and who can I help today can be very wide. It can be one person, it can be a group of people, it can be a country. I don't know what's happening these days. These days, you can supply some money for a lot of different countries that need it or people that need it, or you can send aid or be helpful or whatever. So that last one pronoya helped me um change my perspective on a certain situation.

Speaker 1: 14:25

In the past as well, I was working for somebody who, um was very demanding and, um, I was always kind of feeling like that person was out to get me. It was, it felt, very personal when I did something that was not to their liking. Um it. It kind of felt like I was always failing, I was always doing wrong. Um, I made something and then they changed it completely, um, and I was like at some point you're like why am I even making it if you're going to change it anyway? Um, etc. And I wanted to change that perspective because it was not a nice environment to work in.

Speaker 1: 15:08

And since I believe that all that happens outside comes from within, there must be some root cause within me, some kind of trauma, some kind of uncertainty that's there that causes this to happen. You know, if I don't feel self-worthy or if I don't have enough self-confidence absolutely, those are totally different two things. Self-worth is a lot deeper than self-confidence. Self-confidence is fed by self-worthiness. I mentioned in a previous episode the book from what's her name I keep forgetting her name, jamie Kern, lima Worthy where it's clear that self-worth feeds self-confidence.

Speaker 1: 15:57

So in that those days I was like not feeling good. I was, I was really thinking about, you know, stopping the project and not continuing. But I had a very positive effect on the people that that worked for me. I was not feeling confident or feeling good with the person I was working for, but the people I worked with or who were working for me were very happy. They were happy I was there. I was changing chaos into structure, I was solving conflicts, I was putting people in the right spot, putting them in their talent zone and everything.

Speaker 1: 16:37

So what I started to do is using paranoia as a different way of looking at the world, and what it caused was I was looking at this person from a paranoia perspective. I was thinking like she's out to get me. She's's not going to help me, she's just saying this just to annoy me. But I didn't like that feeling and if I feel like there's something that is out there that is showing me it's not okay, I know that I need to tackle it. I know that it's a trauma that I need to take on and do something with. I do the same thing with my customers. So, as a confidant, I listen to their stories and I ask them questions and I specifically go deep. I really ask very painful questions sometimes, but the outcome of that question is so much more important than the pain that it has, because the pain is very instant, it's very short, it's very liberating when you get it and you understand why it's there. It's usually some kind of trauma that's there that needs to be transformed. You know, classic question who would you be if you did not have that feeling? Katie Bryan, good work, it's an amazing thing. So where was I? I was, I'm losing my foot. Oh, yeah, prono, yeah. So paranoia. And we went over to prono yeah, and I been using that for a while in that project and at some point, um, I saw her as the person showing me the way, showing me how I could get better because she was telling me things that I wasn't doing and she was telling me things that I wasn't doing and she was correcting, and she had the habit of correcting them because it had to be done quickly and from her point of view, she kind of switched it over really quickly because it had to be done so fast that she couldn't come back to me. And that's what that one came out of this story. That's where where we started to understand why it was this was happening. So I kind of changed my perspective. Once I did the pro noia story and I looked at how can I help somebody today to make the world better? It also changed within that project. So I kind of looked at the whole situation a completely different perspective and it also brought me a completely different world. So, pronoya, it's amazing when you start using it and it. It might sound a little naive, but the awards that come out of changing the perspective are amazing. They really, really, really are.

Speaker 1: 19:41

You might encounter somebody who's pushing you while you're driving your car. They're pushing you in the back. You know one of those classic stories where it kind of turns into a road rage. Sometimes it's not necessary. This person is giving you an indication that they are stressed, they want to move you, they want you to move aside, or this or that. And either you go into the paranoia story and you're like they're out to get me. He wants me at first sight, blah, blah, blah. Or you say, okay, this person has something to say, something's happening, I am not acting the way I should be, or something like that. Are you giving in to the rage of another? No, you are actually taking, taking ownership and power back to yourself, because the only person that you can influence is you yourself.

Speaker 1: 20:38

They need here, this person, right here, that I'm the only one that can influence me, me, me is the influencer of me. There can be thousands of people who tell me what to do, but I'm the one who accepts the fact that they are telling me, and I believe it. That's the way it needs to be done. It's one of the reasons I do not compare myself to any competition. I am unique. I am the only one that does what I do, period. There is nobody else like me. I am unique. I am the only one that does what I do, period. There's nobody else like me, and it's the same for you. There is nobody else like you. You do your thing your way, and is it the right way? I have no idea. I'm not the one who needs to judge you.

Speaker 1: 21:25

If you find something that is conflicting or showing you that something is not okay, open your mind to it and look at it and say, hmm, is this a lesson I need to learn? What can I learn from this? It's also a beautiful question that you ask yourself what can I learn from this situation if something is happening that you don't like? What can I learn from this situation if something is happening that you don't like? So, yeah, um, these alarms, they, um, they run on my cell phone every day and it's it's. It's beautiful, because after a while, you kind of see these as gifts. Um, some people might think it's annoying. I love it. You might find another way of doing it. You don't need to do it on your cell phone. You might even send an email to yourself and say make it arrive at at some point in the day, or something, or, or write down something that that's applicable to you.

Speaker 1: 22:20

Make these sentences your own, or find yourself some other alarms. It's good to remind yourself some other alarms. It's good to remind yourself of these simple things every, every single day, because they can boost your self-leadership, your self-worth, your power to be there every single day and do things that you can impact in a positive way every single day. So, yes, this is what I wanted to bring to you today these four alarms and these two books may be interesting for you. So the One Thing and the Compound Effect are two things that you might need to read up on to understand a little bit more what the concept is of these.

Speaker 1: 23:15

Well, one of the two alarms or the other alarms. So, yeah, I would love to challenge you right now and tell you find your own alarms, create them. You right now, and tell you find your own alarms, create them, pick up something that you've learned recently and make it into an alarm and just put it on your cell phone in the morning just for a little while. See what it does. I always, you know, when I see the, the alarm coming up. This is future nico. Uh, we got where we wanted to be. I love you. I'm like, wow, it really comes right into my heart because it's me telling me. Nobody else is involved. This is me telling me, and the something amazing happens today is also a form of gratitude that I give myself for being here, for doing these things and moving on and etc. So, yeah, it has a lot of impact for me personally and I think for you, it might as well help you step forward and grow within your own world your own, your own world, your own universe that you live in. So this gives me to our our episode today. This is the. This is what I wanted to bring for you and I want to. I want to thank you for for taking the time to listen today and check out my e-book on nicovondaventurecom. It's on the same website as you'll probably see this podcast episode and subscribe to the podcast.

Speaker 1: 25:04

Give us a five-star review. Share it with one person. It has merit. It can a five-star review. Share it with one person. It has merit. It can impact a lot of people and most importantly right now is just to remember, jump from head to heart and feel the beat within. Have a great one Bye-bye.