#86 – Feeling Grateful While Keeping Busy

SUMMARY:  Tips on how to be grateful for what you have, lessen complaints about everyday things and develop a morning routine that will maximize your day.

[00:00:14] Stephen:  Hey guys, Stephen Esketzis here from Marketing on the Move.  And right now, I’m coming to you live from beautiful Fort Lauderdale Beach in Florida, in the United States of America.  I arrived in late last night and ended up getting some sleep, woke up, feeling really good, went and sniffed out the healthy food in America, which is very rare.  So, did a quick Google, found that there was a smoothie bar/somewhat healthy vegan-vegetarian thingy.  I’m not even vegan or vegetarian, but they generally have the healthier food.  So, I found this smoothie bar over there.  I got over there, that was really good, super impressed with it.  I’ll probably go back there tomorrow.  And now, I thought I’d just go for a walk along the beach here.  So, my hotel — I’m here — actually, so let me explain.  I’m here for Marketing Funnel Automation Live, which is Todd Brown’s event, all about sales funnels, big idea, really kind of geeky on the sales funnels.  And it’s the last event for the year that I’m flying out through the States for.  So, super pumped about that and come here for the next four, five days.

[00:01:20] So, tomorrow is Ryan Levesque’s ASK Intensive, here for that, then two days of marketing funnel automation and then I think there’s some sort of bonus day or something I picked up.  So, we’ll see what all that’s about.  But today, I had a day off, so I thought I would just come chill out a little bit, kind of rejuvenate a bit, check out Fort Lauderdale as well.  I’ve never been here.  I’ve been to Miami, which is about 30 or 40 minutes south, but I’ve never been to Fort Lauderdale.  So, I’m just walking along the beach right now and it’s actually super, super quiet.  I guess it’s a weekday and people are doing things.  But I’m here on the beach, sitting down, like, in a chair.  There’s no one around, barely anyone, like empty basketball courts, empty seats, huge beach available, weather is beautiful, the sun is out.  I don’t know, if this was in Melbourne and you had the same sort of weather, you’d have so many more people around, I think.  So yes, super, super, super awesome vibe you get here.  I love Florida.  And I know that they were hit recently by a hurricane as well, so I managed to come in a week where they’ve got some good weather.

[00:02:20] But yes, what I want to talk to you guys about today was, just talking about feeling grateful.  So, I want to share with you a little story that I had on the way in yesterday.  I flew in from Melbourne obviously and came through L.A. and then L.A. to Fort Lauderdale.  And the flight that I took from Melbourne to L.A. is like 15 hours, so pretty long.  And then I took another flight from L.A. to Fort Lauderdale, which is almost really long as well.  It was five hours.  And it was a really, really busy overbooked flight.  And it’s just crazy, like the flight was — so it was a domestic flight obviously, but it was just super booked.  They only do, I think, one a day or maybe two and it’s ridiculously packed.  And I got there — I was trying a new airline as well and they overbooked it, so they put me right at the very back where there’s no leg room, no recline, right next to the two toilets, people crowding around every time.  And for five hours, it was just really, really painful.

[00:03:18] Anyway, I just took it.  After flying 16 hours plus three hours in the airport, you know, 20 hours is a long time, so I was pretty tired and I was like, the last thing I wanted was to sit in a plane for five hours without being able to move, breath and just smell toilet.  It was pretty disgusting, but I did it.  But what was interesting was, when I went go to get my ticket, this lady next to me, she was sitting behind me — because I had to go to the gate, I wasn’t assigned a seat.  I went up to the gate, asked them, “Look, can you give me a seat?  Is there anything available?  Can I pay for an upgrade?  Can I do anything?”  They said, “No, it’s overbooked, full.  The best we can give you is an aisle at the very back.”  I’m like, “All right, I’ll take it,” not much I can do, out of my hands.  Let’s just get out of this.  Once I land, it will all be over and I can relax.

[00:03:55] The lady behind me got really angry.  She was like, “Look, I’ve booked for this.  I booked this months ago.  I haven’t been given a seat.  It’s ridiculous,” blah, blah, blah.  She got really, really angry.  And I just thought to myself, wow!  I mean, everyone is in different circumstances, but you’ve got to kind of remind yourself every now and again how grateful you are to be in the position you’re in.  For me for example, I walked out of the hotel today being grateful about being able to travel, work online, go to beaches, go internationally, all this kind of stuff which a lot of people aren’t fortunate enough to do.  So, I’m very grateful for that.  And this lady who turned up, she was dressed quite nicely, so she obviously had a little bit of money — or it looked like she had a little bit of money.  And she was very pompous about herself.  I just kind of look at her, like, man, just relax a little bit.  You’re flying across the country.  Look how fortunate you are.  Just kind of think about it for a second.

[00:04:51] And I obviously didn’t tell her that, but that’s what I was thinking.  And then what happened was, when I got on the flight, she actually got stuck sitting next to me.  So, she sat next to me and then halfway through the flight, she was really grumpy.  Towards the mid-flight, she started getting a little bit — just had to deal with it.  And I just started talking to her, like, “So, where are you from?  What do you do?”  I started having a chat with her.  And she turned out to be quite nice.  She’s just like, “Oh, this is the first time I’ve flown it.”  I kind of just gently reminded her all the things she’s got going.  I’m like, “Oh look, you’re so fortunate.  You live in Fort Lauderdale.  You got beautiful weather.”  She’s like, “Yeah, it’s fantastic.  I love it.  I’ve got my kids here,” and whatever.  And you just kind of share stories to someone and you just realize and you hear that they’ve got a lot going on.  They might be busy and stressed out, but at the same time, people just have to kind of remember to be a little bit grateful for what you’ve got.

[00:05:42] So that’s my little reminder for you today, sitting across from the beach here, an empty beach, beautiful but empty, watching people walk around.  Just kind of remind yourself, what are you doing right now in your business, whether it’s your personal life, relationships, whether it’s business, whatever it is, feel grateful for what you’ve got because it can all be taken away in a second.  Don’t take that for granted.  So, there’s people out there who would die to be in your position.  I think sometimes you just got to remind yourself of that and it’s a little reminder for myself as well, you know?  So, that’s it.  The other thing, there’s always a flipside to it, so there’s always — when you’re feeling grateful, it doesn’t mean you need to settle.  It always means you need to push harder because if you’re not working harder, you’re not pushing to get to that next level, then you’re going to settle with what you’ve got and eventually lose what you’ve got.

And the other thing was, as I was getting in the Uber, I was going to the smoothie bar this morning, the Uber driver was telling me that there’s a massive boat show with the marina here in Fort Lauderdale.  And there’s a marina — what did he say?  I think it’s going to be like $1.5 billion worth of yachts on the water for this boat show.  It’s going to be huge, something ridiculous like that, $1.5 billion worth of yachts.  And I was just on the drive in — because you go over this bridge to get to my hotel and you see all these super yachts and there’s homes by the side of the water, it’s crazy, like, some really, really, really rich people around here.  You’ve got to be there to see the actual wealth that some of these people have.

[00:07:11] And again, it just reminds you, don’t live in the bubble that you’re in.  There’s always another level.  There’s always people that are going to have that amount of money there.  And these guys aren’t all movie stars and things.  Some of these guys might be marketers, some of these guys might be CEOs, some of these guys might be bankers, hedge fund owners, whatever.  They could be anything.  But you just need to remind yourself that you got to keep pursuing to play at that high level because there always is another level.  So, be grateful, but at the same time stay hungry.  If you’re not hungry and you’re not grateful, I think those two things have to go hand-in-hand.

[00:07:41] One of my friends actually, Ryan, is doing 100 days or 90 days, I think.  Every single day he’s doing some sort of challenge to overcome his fears, so you know, completely random things just to build up his tolerance for fear, things like what he did the other day?  What did he do?  150 burpees in one session, like in one sitting.  The day before that, he recorded himself singing a song in the middle of a public train station.  That was pretty funny.  He’s done a whole bunch of things and he’s still going to do another 80 days work or something like that.  That’s something that really puts you out of your comfort zone.  I’m not saying you’ve got to go do that, but it just kind of reminds you where you’ve got to be and how to just keep pushing, like little things you can do.  That’s kind of a fun challenge, but I’m just talking about everyday, keep pushing and just remind yourself.  Get in the moment, stay present, think about, am I pushing myself?  Am I grateful?  And then kick off your day.  I think it’s a really fun way to start your day.

[00:08:35] So, one more thing I want to link this to — so obviously I’ve gone on a little bit about being grateful and being hungry, but the other thing I want to link this to is building your morning routine.  And your morning routine is critical to how you start your day.  It is something that I’ve started working on a lot more.  And I can talk to you a little bit about how I’ve done that, but before I do, your morning routine is something that’s personal to you.  You don’t take mine, you don’t take anyone else’s.  You can take ideas from that obviously, things that you like, things that you don’t like, but build your own morning routine.  Find what’s unique to you.  Everyone has their own interests, their own — things that they like doing, things that they are spending time together with.  Figure out what your morning routine is.

[00:09:14] So, here’s mine and I’m still building on it.  It’s not perfect yet by any means, but it’s something which I think is going to definitely improve.  So, I generally — and I’ll probably try to get up earlier, but the thing is I usually stay up until about 1:00 or 2 o’clock in the morning most nights.  I’m trying to stay below 12 o’clock.  If I can get to sleep before 12 o’clock, it usually means I can wake up by about 7:00 or 8:00.  These days, I try to wake up at about 8 o’clock, get up at 8:00 and from there, wake up and either go to the gym, have a PT session or have a tennis lesson and then come back, eat breakfast and then start the day.  So at the moment, it’s really short.

[00:09:53] What I want to include in there — well, actually, what also is in there is on the way to the PT session to the tennis lesson, I usually throw in a podcast.  So, I’ve got a whole list of podcast episodes and people that I follow.  I usually try and get one of those out in the morning as well, or an audio book.  Or if I’m feeling a lack of energy, I’ll usually try pump myself up with some of the music in the playlist I’ve put together and then smash out, get actually moving.  I find that moving in the morning yourself is actually super beneficial.  So that way, I go home after that, have a shower and then start my day, head to the office.  So then, I will get to the office between 9:00 and 10 o’clock — usually towards 10 o’clock because I work from home for about an hour just to avoid traffic.  So, come home, shower, work, breakfast — breakfast, work and then get off to the office and start, smash out a day of work.

[00:10:41] And I tend to work really well.  So, what I kind of want to do is push it all forward a little bit earlier.  I really want to start getting up by 7 o’clock.  Anything earlier than that, I don’t know if I’d be able to do.  I’d have to get into the swing of things.  Some people get up at like, 4:30, 5 o’clock.  I don’t know if you guys follow a lot of personal development guys.  They tend to wake up really early and they say, “You get pretty much everything done by 9 o’clock what takes most people half a day or a whole day to do.”  So, that’s probably worth testing out.  For me, I’m not at that stage yet, but just really doing things I love.

[00:11:13] I was at the gym previously on my own, didn’t have a PT or anything.  I absolutely hated going there on my own, not hated, but I just didn’t get anything out of it.  I’d go there and I’d be bored, I wouldn’t do anything.  I’d kind of get there and it just wouldn’t be as effective.  I’d spend an hour there and I feel like I’ve gotten maybe a little bit of a workout maybe.  I didn’t have any one spot.  We didn’t have any encouragement.  It was just sort of sitting there, looking around for a while then doing another set, wouldn’t know exactly what to do, how to do it.

[00:11:39] So, I hired a personal trainer, got there, now we do half-hour sessions, absolutely smash those half-hour sessions back-to-back, like I’m talking back-to-back sets.  Do three or four sets of different exercises, one-minute break, smash them again, smash them again.  Then we get on to the next exercise.  And if you watched my Snapchat, if you search stephenesketzis on Snapchat, you’ll see Big Dave, my PT.  He’s awesome.  He’s been crushing it for me, helped through the nutrition and things as well.  So, that’s fantastic.  And the same with the tennis lesson, one-hour lesson, smash that and then kind of get back into the swing of things.  There are two things now I absolutely look forward to in the morning.  They’re tiring, at the end of it I’m exhausted.  I put 110 percent in.  And then I have a shower and then I’m getting to work mode, like, that’s it.  And the rest of the day is in work mode.

[00:12:24] So, that’s how I sort of started my mornings at the moment.  I’m trying to get in some better foods.  I’m trying to weave in a smoothie in there somewhere as well, trying to get into a bit of a habit of eating healthy as well for breakfast.  It’s something which I find lacks a little bit.  So, that’s kind of what I’ve got to share with you guys, but I’d love to hear what’s your morning routine like.  How do you guys optimize your mornings to get the most out of the rest of your day?  Because that’s kind of what you’re looking for.  You’re looking to optimize your mornings to get an ROI on your day.  So, that’s exactly what you’re looking for in terms of why you’re actually doing all this, why you want to build a morning that’s actually going to be important, a morning that’s actually going to be beneficial for you.

[00:13:03] So guys, hopefully that little bit of being grateful, being hungry, building a morning routine, hopefully that summarizes it a little bit up for you.  Just have a think about it when you’re driving to work at the moment or whatever you’re doing, really just take it onboard.  You don’t have to implement it straight away, but something just to think about and think about it during the course of this week while you’re working, while you’re doing everything.  It’s super important.  It’s kind of not the business podcast that I want to share with you, but it’s something which I think I needed to mention.  Hopefully tomorrow after the first day of the ASK Intensive, I’ll have some awesome stuff to share with you.  Actually, I’ll do a podcast 100 percent now, I’m committing to it.  So if you don’t hear it, just send me a really grumpy email.  But tomorrow I’ll do a podcast from the ASK Intensive, where we’re going to talk about some of the things I’ve learned from there.  So, I already know a lot about the ASK formula actually with Ryan Levesque, but I’m kind of going over here to network with a few people and figure out, see what they’re all up to.  It’s something that I’ve implemented in a couple of my businesses as well.  So, that’s super fun.

[00:14:03] Also, one more thing, the membership is being coded up as we speak.  So, that is almost done.  The members area is looking really good.  I think you guys are going to love it.  If you’re looking to build a sales funnel and you want a members area for that — yeah, the members area for this funnel membership site is going to be amazing.  You’ve never seen a cleaner sales page than anything I’ve ever seen.  And the content is going to be incredible.  You’re going to absolutely love it.

[00:14:33] So, hopefully guys, you’d be able to check that out soon on my website.  I’ll let you know when that’s all good to go.  It won’t be too far away.  But until then, take care, and I’ll speak to you tomorrow.