This is a transcript from a recent podcast looking at how to live a stress free life.
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How To Start Living A Stress Free Life
Introduction
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be.
But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling.
Join UP Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams.
This is your blueprint for greatness.
So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph.
The Podcast Episode Start
Good morning everybody.
Good morning, and welcome to Join UP Dots.
It’s an absolute delight to be here.
Speaking into the microphone and blasting my words through to you all.
Hopefully inspiring you to live a better life.
Join UP Dots is really changing it’s focus. It really is.
Little by little, I’m turning the ship around, because at the very beginning of it, I would say the first couple of years I didn’t really know what to sort of hang on it.
It was something I was doing, just to get better at podcasting.
Creating a personal brand.
And then I started to focus in on building businesses and teaching people how to podcast and all that kind of stuff.
But now, it’s absolutely nailed down on how to make people happy, more profitable, stress free, and just let those those five pillars become the Join UP Dots dots.
Where we’ve got health, we’ve got money, we’ve got business, we’ve got time, and we’ve got fun and enjoyment.
And I think if you get those five things into your life, then you really are cooking on gas and you’re having a lovely old time.
It takes time to get there (unless you have somebody that can show you the errors of their ways), which is what I tried to do to join up dots literally.
Well, not literally in every single podcast episode I release.
Some hit home big time. Others don’t quite hit home sometimes, but I always go with the absolute “Am I providing the best of value I possibly can, through the show?”
I never just think that’s another show out there that that fills my quota.
Every single one I try to deliver to the best of my ability.
So I spend quite a bit of time thinking to myself, especially in the solo shows, what to talk about.
What should I actually deliver today?
Why Are We Focusing In On Having A Stress Free Life?
Today’s is going to be talking about living a stress free life.
Because I think most people want a stress free life, but don’t know how to get it.
They’re juggling and spinning plates left, right and centre.
So I’ve just written down six little things, I think is is what I do on a daily basis, which I’m going to share with you because that’s what I do.
All right.
So you listen, some people connect with us, and we have a lovely time.
We actually had a lovely time together last night actually.
I did one of my business master classes where I spend quite a long time, actually its getting towards an hour and a half with people, teaching them how to build an online business the right way.
Because believe me, I have now come to the absolute focus point of, you can’t sell to somebody who doesn’t want it.
And you can’t sell to somebody who doesn’t know you.
These two simple criteria seems to be what people are struggling with left, right and center.
So I have created a new system where I realized the online business structure to make it as easy as possible.
So you’re just getting great people that come to you now, you’re not going to sell to them all the time.
Because their personal situation might be not right for you at that time, but they’re still your ideal customers.
And that’s what I was doing last night.
I was teaching the guys we had on the webinar.
Who did we have?
We had Jason from Montana, the sexy American.
We had Ross from Jersey in the Channel Islands.
We had Pete, who was sitting in a black cab, a London taxi underneath Charing Cross Station.
(Which blows my mind that people can just sort of park somewhere and you know, get a little phones out or their devices and you can meet and then train them.)
And we had Alex, who is a magician from Brighton who was in Poland at the time.
We had the four guys. And it was great. And I loved it.
And I love spending time teaching people how to get that right thing, getting that idea and then find the people that want it and then start delivering that content or that product or whatever to those people.
As once you get their businesses stress free, it really is you don’t have to worry about anything.
You don’t have to worry about convincing people to buy.
Because if they don’t want to buy, then they are not your people anyway, so you just sort of move on and say thank you very much.
Nice to spend time with you and the next crowd comes in.
So that’s what I did last night and a very happy time I had doing it. So thanks, guys for turning up every single one of you and hopefully I will speak to you again.
So yes today’s living a stress free life.
Okay, now I have really got well one of the reasons why this show is a bit late today is because I was laying in bed.
I was laying in bed and my wife made me a cup of tea and my wife is a stress head.
She’s always rushing around far from a stress free life.
She’s always getting up at the last minute and then whizzing here and whizzing there
As she tries to squeeze things into the gaps if she has got five minutes to spare.
So she was in bed today and having a little cuddle like we like to do and she said I’ve got to go now I gotta go and have a shower because I’m having my nails done.
Why she has to have her nails done so often. I don’t know.
But she is suddenly having to have her nails to be done all the time ago.
You it just had it done. No I didn’t. That was two weeks ago that I had my nails done.
Anyway, so she was flying around the house having anything but a stress free life.
And she said “Would you like a cup of tea before I go?”
I said “No, you haven’t got time to do that, just go. Don’t squeeze something in.”
And then two seconds later, she comes up with some biscuits, and a cup of tea.
It was still stewing and also a spare cup so I could take the tea bag out and put it by the side of my bed.
So it was very nice.
And I was laying in bed reading with a cat by the side of me.
So um, yeah, my day has started as a totally stress free life, and that’s kind of where my days operate every single day.
I just try to do these six things, which I’m going to go through.
Okay
The Number One Rule For Living A Stress Free Life
Do what makes you happy. Now.
A lot of people out there are going to go
“Yeah, that’s great for you, David. That’s all right. You are a bloody podcaster.
You just roll up to a little little office and you turn on the microphone.
That’s not proper work.
Yeah, we could all be happy if you do that.”
Well, I know that there’s so many people out there who are in a sort of situation I used to be.
Because i used to be you.
I know what you’ve been through. I wasn’t born a podcaster.
I started life in corporate land doing year upon year of stuff I didn’t want to do. You know, I worked in banking and insurance.
That is anything but a stress free life, you know.
How boring is banking and insurance. You make money for people, or you’re protecting their houses, and they don’t really want them protected.
They just want free insurance and being mad at you when you dont pay out for their claims.
That’s not a stress free life is it!!
So I spent years and years and years doing stuff that didn’t make me happy.
Now, in your life, what you gotta do is go okay, it’s the balance.
I’ve got to do an awful lot of stuff that doesn’t make me happy because I’ve got to pay the bills.
I’m in a position where I haven’t got the choice.
I haven’t taken the corporate leap. I haven’t moved into creating my own future and having a stress free life.
So how do I balance that by adding more things into the mix that makes me happy?
Because happiness is brilliant, the stress levels get less and less, you know.
I do little trips away now.
I used to love travelling in the early days.
I was always whizzing around the world going to China and Malaysia and Australia, and just kind of exploring.
Then I had kids, and it kind of dwindled.
I stopped travelling because I started saying it’s not as easy, not as easy with the kids.
But now I’ve started doing these kind of little weekends away or days away to towns in my area.
If they’re just towns, I don’t know we go for a walk around and we have a lunch and we look at the seaside or whatever.
And he is great. I’ve added to travel into my life and in a way that balances out now.
We’re going to New York for three weeks coming up soon.
So that’s going to be lovely and i’m sure it will be an amazingly stress free life.
Then I’ve got one or two other trips as well.
So im taking a lot of bigger trips that I can balance the happiness out with my life.
Now. If you go back two years and listen to Join UP Dots i wasnt having a stress free life at all.
I was so focused on Join UP Dots I wasn’t doing anything else.
It was just a totally unhappy time.
I was just ploughing through work after work after work after work.
So, you guys out there. I think one of the things you’ve got to do is you’ve got to have that balance.
Where you go, yeah, okay, I’m doing this crappy stuff. This This isn’t really making me happy.
But tonight, I’m going fishing with the lads or I’m gonna to go out and do something.
And it’s not just meet in a pub and get a load of beer down you.
Yeah, because that’s not good.
Ultimately, the best things in life are free.
The best things in life are free. Now that I’ve discovered what you mean to me.
Yes. I think Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross said that, and both of them are dead.
No, she’s not dead. Her brother Michael Jackson is dead.
I suppose he really is having a stress free life.
Luther has definitely gone somewhere.
And yeah, so the best things in life are free.
And it’s absolutely true.
A walk in the park or just being with your family, or whatever, can make you happy and you can squeeze it into your life.
You don’t have to restrict yourself from doing happy things.
I’m really happy reading for example.
And a lot of people say to me, “Have you seen so so on TV?”
No, no, don’t watch TV that really watch TV at all. My wife is always watching it.
She’s going through Game of Thrones now.
My god she’s, she’s, she’s like a Netflix locust.
You know how the locusts fly in and consume everything.
I can’t keep up with the amount of box sets that she’s watching.
She’s watched Dirty John. She’s watching Game of Thrones. She’s into The Good Fight. She’s watching.
She could go for every single thing.
And she says “I’ve been really busy today. But I know that she has been on Netflix.
And I look and i see that the shows have been watched and I go “Yeah”, well, I don’t say it because I’m not brave enough.
But I look at it and see,”Yeah you have been busy. You have been having a stress free life.
Four episodes of that’s gone through. I know what you’re up to wifey.
But if it makes her happy, then that’s fine.
Do what makes you happy.
The Number Two Rule For Living A Stress Free Life
Now, the second thing to a stress free life, I think is this.
One thing per day.
Now, what I mean by that is you might do lots of other smaller things.
But if it’s something big, just block out your whole day.
Don’t do anything else.
For example, last night I did my business masterclass my webinar.
And so, for the rest of the day, I didn’t sort of squeeze anything in, I was protective of my energy levels.
I wanted to make sure that I was focused on doing that one thing really well.
And so when you are sort of working in your own environment, building your own life and stuff, then be aware of that.
If you’re putting too many things in, you’re not giving yourself the focus to make that thing amazing and make that being brilliant.
Okay, and I try my best to make the best webinar best training that I possibly can.
We do it live. I chat to the guys. It’s a totally interactive thing very different from other people where they just sort of sit behind a PowerPoint presentation and sort of drone on.
I try to actually make the people feel like they’re in the room with me.
And so when I’ve got something on I only do that one thing.
Tomorrow it’s Join UP Dots day so I don’t put anything else in other than my interviews.
Friday is my coaching day so once again I do that.
But on Mondays and Tuesdays and Saturdays and Sundays that’s family time. Nothing comes in to that.
It’s good as you just wake up and you go “What we doing today?”
You’ve just got that one thing and you’re not rushing around like a blue arsed fly as they say in the United Kingdom.
I don’t know do flies have blue arses?
I don’t know.
Drop me a line drop me a line at joinupdots@gmail.com to tell me about the bottom colour of a fly, as we say over here.
The Number Three Rule For Living A Stress Free Life
Okay, the third thing.
Okay, so we’ve already said “Do what makes you happy and do one thing per day and do it really well.”
Now the third thing is take time to think and read.
How many times do you actually sit back and just think?
Now, I don’t have any devices, as I say.
So I spend a lot of time in that kind of state where other people would be bored.
If I’m on the train. I just sit there kind of thinking and looking out the window.
I saw a thing from the guy from Twitter, the founder of Twitter, whatever his name is, Mr. Tweet.
He said, “You know boredom doesn’t exist anymore.”
Because as soon as we’ve got 30 seconds of not doing anything, people get their phones out and start to scroll up and down.
Now, I don’t have that.
And I think it’s such a win to just allow your mind to wander.
Because when your mind’s wandering and not actually working on anything, the great ideas come through.
Your business becomes better and better. And you look at it, and that’s what I should have been doing.
And of course you couldn’t see it because you were so involved in it.
Your’e solely focused on trying to make something happen and not having a stress free life.
All the great inventors in the world, if you look back to the early days.
None of them had Facebook and tweets and all that kind of stuff.
They would just spend time allowing their imagination to works.
I think Einstein said something along the lines, that “I’ve gained more from my imagination than by my knowledge, or my intelligence.”
And so, yeah, just let your mind wander.
Just drive along without the radio on or CDs, or just sit in a chair for five or 10 minutes and just think nothing and just be aware of your thoughts.
It’s not sort of hokey and kind of Yogi.
It’s good. It’s good and you don’t have to sit cross legged and all that sort of meditation stuff as opposed to getting that way.
Allowing yourself to just float off. And while you’re doing that read.
Now I’m going through about three books a week.
And they’re all self development books. And some of them you think to yourself “I’m not really sure about this. I think he’s just rehashing some other stuff.”
But generally there’s there’s a gem in all of them.
And more often than not once I’ve read them, I read them quite quick,I go back and I read them again.
I normally read them like three times.
I’ve been reading the “The Power Of The Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy”.
I’ve been reading that, and I’ve read it about three or four times because each time I read it, I think to myself, yes, there’s something in this.
Think and Grow and Grow Rich is another one.
I havent read it for a while actually, I better get that back out of the shelf.
Because that really does focus you to be good at your staff. Be good at your pain.
Okay, so if you haven’t read a book recently, and you go “Oh, no, I haven’t got time. I’m just watching Netflix and and flicking up and down the Facebook feed.”
Really seriously consider it.
Go over to Amazon, get yourself a book and and just sit and read.
You know, just being about what what you want to do in your life, somebody would have written a book about it, and it will help you.
Okay, so we’re up to number four on David Ralph’s rules for living a stress free life.
The Number Four Rule For Living A Stress Free Life
Don’t Take On Other Peoples Problems
Now this is a big one in my life.
My family get annoyed by me doing this, but this is how I do it.
Don’t take on other people’s problems.
Now. I have got five kids, and my elder ones have grown up with their own families now.
And with normal life and family life, there’s ups and downs, people go through difficulties in their relationships.
And I deliberately try to pay no attention.
I know it’s going on. I do know it’s going on.
But I try to know the bare minimum about anything because then you get sucked into it and it’s not your problem.
It’s somebody else’s problem.
And certainly with men, I think we were born to be fixes where we look at something, we go…
“Okay, I’ll get involved and sort things out.
But actually people aren’t asking you to sort it out They are just kind of telling you stuff.
I tripped up loads of times with my wife in the early days.
Well, I would leap in like Superman in my red pants to solve some issue.
And then she would actually say, you didn’t need to do that. I was sorting it out myself.
I said, “you were sitting there telling me about it”
So I’m very good with women now.
So if they’re telling me stuff, more often than not, I don’t pay any attention.
I just nod and grunt at a certain point, because then they go off and sort it out themselves.
So don’t take on other people’s problems.
Now. It’s not the case that you don’t care. I’m sure you do.
I’m sure you’ve got friends that will, you know, need your help at time, but you don’t want to be the doormat of everyone’s problems.
Because I promise you, when you’ve got problems, the world turns a blind eye.
Very few people look in your direction.
When I was going through my burnout stage, literally no one cared.
They really didn’t care.
Now, I could argue now that they didn’t care because I put such a brave face on it,they didn’t really know.
But at the time, there wasn’t a lot of areas for me to turn to, to sort of them to say,
Oh, this person would help me out. So there we go.
Don’t take on other people’s problems, keep it a far reach as possible.
The Number Five Rule For Living A Stress Free Life
Stop Focusing On What Needs To Be Done
Number five on the living a stress free life is this.
Stop focusing on what needs to be done. Now.
In that sort of timeline of where you are, that you basically are living in either the future the past or the present.
Okay? And if you’re in the present, it’s great because you’re just doing what needs to be done at that time.
You’re not thinking about anything else.
It’s just focus. You try to get in the flow, being in the present is great.
But more often than not, people don’t live there.
And I used to be a classic one for being in the future.
Where I’ll be thinking, I’ve got to kind of do this.
And I’ve got to do that.
And if that isn’t done by April then trouble.
But you know I can’t worry about the future.
Future brings about anxiety, you’re stressed out about what needs to be done and where you’re positioning yourself and stuff.
The same way as the past depresses you.
If you look back ore often than not you think “I shouldn’t have done that”
Or what was I thinking at that party that night i was drunk?
Oh, if we could go back and say sorry to that person.
I actually did that recently. There was my a picture that my wife showed me on Facebook.
And she said “Do you know this person because they they went to school with you? “
And I looked at the person and thought “I don’t know, you know, do I know her?
People look a bit different from the age of eight to nearly 50 after all.
I looked at it again, and I thought it might be this girl Nicola that I used to go to school with.
And the more I looked at it, I thought, I think it is, I think it is Nicola.
And so I did something that i rarely ever do. I sent a message to her.
And I said, like, I don’t know if you remember me, but if you do our birthdays are on the very same.
We were born in the same hospital next to each other in the same ward
You know, and all that kind of stuff.
And she came back and she went “Great to hear from you. Yes, Yes it is me”.
And so we had one or two messages back and forth you know, very, very quickly and I actually said that I remember making you cry when you about nine and I’m sorry.
I’m sorry about that.
I don’t know if you even remember it, but I want to apologise.
It was bad of me. I should never made you cry.
And she came back and said “I have no memory of this at all. But thank you very much, You swine. 42 years too late.”
But she was absolutely delightful about it. And I feel I feel good. I’ve got it off my chest. Now.
So I’ve started looking at other things that I might be dragging around me.
Because things from the past bring depression and things in the future just give you anxiety.
Which isn’t what having a stress free life is all about.
I’ve gotta do all this and I’ve got to do this now.
You can only do what you can do in the present and in the present is when you take action that makes a difference.
So don’t worry about focusing on things that need to be done.
Just do what you can do at the moment.
And then at the end of the day, go home and switch off.
You can’t do anything more than that you really cant.
And people that are working at weekends and in the evenings and over, you’re just gonna come to a sticky end. I promise you.
I’m cool telling you this because I did it and I did it twice.
And so you’ve just got to go. I’ve done as much today switch off, go and try and get the remote control out the wife’s hand.
Right. Okay.
And the very last thing, the very last thing
Which I’m a genius at is stop comparing.
The Number Six Rule For Living A Stress Free Life
Stop Comparing To Others
Now ironically, I just had to pause this recording because my wife came running up to the office.
She had to fly off and her face is red.
It’s sweaty already because she’s trying to do too much.
Calm down Wifey. calm down. S
o what I was gonna say is stop comparing, stop comparing what your life is like compared to other people.
Stop comparing what you see on social media.
Try to have a detox from what you see people let you see.
Because it’s not always true.
Yeah, they might be having lovely holidays, but they might be wrapped up to their eyeballs in debt.
Yeah, they might be getting a brand new car, but once again, they may not be able to pay for it.
All these things came true the other day when we were talking to a lady who my wife knows.
She’s always doing this. She’s always doing that. And through conversations, she said,
“Oh the stress that I am under. We‘ve had to remortgage four times now. And the interest rates getting more and more and more.”
And I thought to myself, wait, you’re an idiot, then why are you doing all these holidays and stuff if you’re wrapped up to your eyeballs in debt and you’re having to re mortgage left, right and center.
You know, that’s not good for your stress levels at all.
Just calm it down.
But people look at that and go, that’s great.
And you see this where you know, people win the lottery, and we all think it must be brilliant to win the lottery.
And then you know, they lose all their money and they’re really miserable.
So, look at what your own life is, and go, this is brilliant. I’m here. I’m breathing.
I’m listening to Join Up Dots.
My life couldn’t be any better.
Stop looking at what other people are doing because believe me, you don’t know the issues that those people are having.
You just see the kind of the highlights that floats in front of you.
You know my life. My life is brilliant.
I have to say my life is brilliant because I’ve now made it
But for a long time, it was terrible.
But people still kept saying
“Yeah, you’re having a great time. I’ve heard you doing this, I’ve heard you doing that.
But they didn’t know.
And I didn’t go well actually. Actually is a big part of poo at the moment.
I’m having a terrible time.
I just went “Oh, yeah, you know, yeah, it’s good. Everything’s going wonderful.”
That’s what people do.
So get off your phones.
Sit there and think, get into the present.
Get into the moment and think to yourself, this is good. I’m breathing.
I’ve got my health, or if you haven’t got your health, do something about it.
But work towards living a stress free life because believe me, once your stress free and you’re relaxed, your work becomes better anyway.
Your money becomes better, everything becomes easy.
It shouldn’t be hard, it shouldn’t be stressful.
It should be creating income that just blows to you naturally by finding the thing that you want to do in life
