Getting vulnerable | Success or failure… it only matters to you

– [Colin] Hello, hello, hello,
from Luang Prabang in Laos.

It is… I’m not too sure if you can hear.

I’m wearing this little microphone.

I don’t even know if this
microphone’s working but

it’s supposed to have this
little fuzzy thing on the top,

but it keeps falling off so…

But it’s raining in the background,

absolutely chucking it down,

and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll
try the microphone to see

if I can catch something.’

I hope the sound quality
comes out on this because,

primarily, I want to make
this a podcast episode.

I’m not quite sure when it will come out,

but I hope to get it
out as soon as possible.

But if the video’s good,
I will put that up too.

So, yeah, I am in Luang Prabang;

it’s absolutely chucking
it down with rain.

But I’ve been meaning to do
this episode for quite a while,

because today I want to
talk about vulnerability.

And there’s a reason I’m
specifically doing it today.

I wasn’t too sure if it
would fall into place today,

but as circumstances have
presented themselves,

I’m going for it.

But today is actually my 52nd birthday,

and I thought, ‘Well, that’s
a good day to reflect.’

And ideally, I would…

Well, we would’ve been hanging
out together as a family,

so I’ll just give you the
quick reason why we’re not.

And I shouldn’t be laughing.

As you know, Elly is 22
weeks pregnant at the moment

so, she’s just a little
bit limited on some things.

And her morning sickness
has been extending

a bit longer than she’d hoped.

It’s not everyday, but
it’s sort of cropping up,

and yesterday, it cropped up

and went on and on and
on, to the point that,

in the end, she was like,

‘I don’t think this is morning sickness;

I think this is food poisoning.’

But Little Miss and I were okay,

so we’re hoping it’s not
gone through the family,

because she was definitely laid low.

She was not a well person,

and pretty weak and…

So she was in bed all
day, and has risen today

a little bit better,

but we decided not to
extend ourselves too much,

so we just had a nice morning together,

which we normally do anyway,

and opened birthday cards
which Ayla had made,

and they sang me ‘Happy Birthday’ and

I was even given a little present.

That was very nice.

But they said, we could agree
that I could just go off

and have a normal working day,

or to have a little bit of Colin time,

so I’ve decided to combine the two.

I’m sitting here; I’m reading.

It’s not switched on but I’ve got my iPad.

I’m currently offline
because I’m recording this

in Airplane Mode.

The iPad’s in Airplane
Mode and I’ve just been

finishing off a book I’ve been reading,

which is Rise of the
Youpreneur by Chris Ducker.

And, I really enjoyed that.

I’ve been following Chris
Ducker for a wee while

and following people like
Pat Flynn and Janet Murray,

who sort of all interlink,
and many, many others,

which is kind of all
interlinked as to why I wanted

to talk today about vulnerability because

I’m 52 and, on some levels of my life,

I could go, well, I’ve been a failure

and I haven’t fulfilled
on all my potential

and I haven’t got this
and I haven’t done that.

And then on other aspects
of my life, I could go,

no, I’m extremely fulfilled;
I’m happy and contented.

I just wanted to share
that, just even that,

because it never ends, this feeling of

success, happiness, contentment;

it changes all the time,

but it’s not a competition.

It is not a competition

and it is not a competition
with other people.

If there’s any competition going on,

then it should be with yourself.

And I’m aware of this, and I
wanted to say this out loud

because there are many areas of my life

that I’ve been put sad about.

But there are many elements of my life

that I’m very happy
about, and excited about.

And age should not matter, so I share this

as a 52 year-old, because I know

that the people listening, that
most of you will be younger.

There will be a few older,
but in people who are younger,

you still might be competing with doubts

of what other people think of you

or what other people expect of you,

and you shouldn’t have to.

It doesn’t matter.

It’s just how you feel and
what you want to achieve

and how you feel about yourself.

Are you a good person?

Are you doing good in the world?

Are you making a difference to yourself,

to your family, to the wider community?

And you’re not going to necessarily be

the most popular person with

people you want to be popular with.

It doesn’t matter.

You can’t…

There’s a great quote, and I
can’t remember who said it but,

‘what other people think of
you is none of your business.’

You can’t, you can’t help what
other people think of you.

You can only help what
you think of yourself.

So, I decided today, I would stay offline

while I finish reading
Rise of the Youpreneur,

because I wanted to have
a little bit of Colin time

before I started work,
but I also wanted to

try and reflect on why
something may have worked,

may have not worked,
because I’ve been working

on myself for 12+ years.

Maybe since a very special
relationship came to an end

back in 2003, 2004, and I
really struggled with that.

I’d never done any personal
development work up until then,

and I thought everything was
on a natural, career-wise,

going up and up and up,
and back in the UK then.

Yeah, nothing bad really
happened in my life,

but that one knocked me sideways and

knocked me off my perch,

and I was bitter and
twisted for quite a while

for the first time in my life.

But it was also a pivot point because

it was the start of my
personal development journey.

I’d discovered personal
development, read through one book,

and then, slowly but surely,
just more and more and more.

And I haven’t stopped being
a student of life ever since.

And I don’t want to get into the details

of why I went on that journey
but what I’m trying to say,

I’ve been working on myself ever since.

The reason I want to be
vulnerable about this is that,

even though I’ve been working
on myself for so long,

I am far from a finished product.

In fact, I’m making
more mistakes than ever.

I’m tired; I’m stressed,
on certain levels,

not on every level.

I’m very content on other levels.

I get so much quality
time with my daughter

and I have more quality time with Elly

in a different sort of way.

We’re strained on other levels,

but we’re traveling; we are
now location independent.

We haven’t nailed it all but
we’ve worked out how to do it,

and now we just need to get better at it.

But we love the traveling lifestyle.

This is not for everyone.

Packing your bags, having
virtually no possessions,

it is not for everyone.

But we’ve kind of got some
systems and rhythms going on,

and because we’ve always been travelers…

Always loved traveling, but
never done it as a couple,

and now a family; we’re liking this

and we can see how this
can work for us full-time.

Now, whether it works full-time
for six months, a year,

two years, ten years, who knows?

Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.

But even with the pending
arrival of Little Miss’s sibling,

which would be in January of 2019,

so it’s about four months away from now,

we have decided, at the
moment, our decision is

we’re going to carry on.

And we’re really looking forward to that.

But at the same time,

we’re certainly not holding ourselves…

I’m certainly not holding
Elly to any commitments

that she makes right now.

I’m fully aware that
when a baby comes along,

she will be in her home.

Well, she won’t be in our home.

She’ll be in her hometown.

She’ll be with her mum, with her dad;

she’ll have familiarity around her.

And if she chooses to stay,

I will totally back it and support her.

And the skills we’ve acquired
in the last eighteen months

made me more comfortable with
going back to New Zealand

and growing online location
independent business

in New Zealand.

But that’s just a kind of Plan B,

and the current thing
which is we will carry on,

and we’ll maybe come
back to South East Asia;

we certainly have only just
skimmed the surface of it.

We know there are World
schooling communities

that we can tap into

and, one of the reasons we’re staying

in South East Asia a bit longer,

we are going to a Project
Worldschooling Summit

at the end of October, so
lots to look forward to,

lots to be excited about.

Really looking forward to
meeting more of those families,

to see what opportunities
that opens up about

spending more time with families that have

made the same decisions as us.

We know of some and we’ve met some,

and now we’re looking for more of them

and who we can spend more time with.

But if Plan B is that we stay
in Gisborne, New Zealand,

that’s something to look forward to.

New Zealand’s a wonderful place.

I’ve got some new skills
that I know I can leverage

and I’m excited about that.

But in the last eighteen months,

it’s taken me a long
while to get to this place

of feeling excited and looking forward to,

which I kind of want to link to this book.

It’s not that this book’s pivotal,

in any one way, although it is going to…

It’s leading me to a course of action

I’m actually going to take today,

because I’ve been challenging myself

to take a particular course of action

and I’ve been wanting a
little milestone to come up

and I’ve created a bit of
self time for Colin today.

I’m going to combine all of this,

take some action and look at

moving ourselves to the next level.

But the vulnerability
that’s linked to that is

this constant learning
development and growing.

If you’re following a similar stream,

and certain things are
not working out for you,

or you’re frustrated by
this, that and the other,

I just want to share my
experiences about that

because it’s normal.

And despite anyone who’s known me,

or has known me on my
personal development journey,

will know that I’m not lazy.

I continue to work hard; I
continue to work on myself.

But arguably, I perhaps wait
too long for the results.

I invest in delayed gratification too long

and now it’s to my own detriment,

and Elly and I have lost quite a lot.

But when I say we’ve lost quite a lot,

what we’ve lost is material
and we’ve lost money,

but we’ve actually gained so much more.

We’ve gained so much more in the way of

what’s possible or insights.

We’ve gained so much more of
special time with each other.

And we’ve gained so much more
in even wider possibilities.

I was always a big thinker,

and I could always see a
strong vision for the future

but now we can see even more.

Because by shedding our materialism.

But we weren’t materialistic

before we left,

but we’d got it down to virtually nothing

and it freed us up, and less is more.

We carry very little baggage and,

I mean, physically anyway.

And it is making our
life very streamlined,

so now we can be very careful about

what we choose to put in our lives,

what we choose not to put in our lives,

the people we choose to put in,

the people we don’t choose to put in,

things we choose to put in,

the things we don’t choose to put in.

So we’re feeling very
lean, very streamlined,

and we both now know how to
earn location independent income

and as I said earlier, we
just need to get better at it.

But yeah, so I’m just going to repeat,

despite this constant
investment in myself,

constant investment in
personal development,

and constant investment in people,

I haven’t always got the
return on investment result

I would’ve liked and hoped for.

But am I going to stop?

Absolutely not.

The point is, I need to look in the mirror

and need to reflect on things
that worked and haven’t worked

and continue to keep going.

And that is my segue into why

I’m sharing that I’m
reading Chris Ducker’s book,

because Chris has got a Mastermind.

If you’ve been following our
journey, you’ll know that

at the beginning of the year,

Elly and I made another big decision

when we went over to Bali.

We were in Malaysia,

and we had this big decision:

are we going to go to a Mastermind event

run by the Unstoppable Family
back in January in Bali?

It was a big commitment for us at the time

and we weren’t too sure
whether we could or should,

but in my heart of
hearts, I knew I had to.

It was really uncomfortable.

And we just knew had to do it,

it was like we needed to be part of
that Unstoppable Family community,

however uncomfortable it was.

And we have no regrets,

it was the best thing we could’ve done.

We were still vulnerable on many levels,

but we met so many inspiring people

and became friends with
many of the people there.

It was a small intimate group,

about 40 people, including the speakers.

We’re still in touch with nearly everyone

that went to the event.

Certainly everyone we connected
with during the event.

And I am so glad we ventured
into that Mastermind.

And so, I’ve been a
coach myself in the past

and I’ve helped other people
get some great results

but again I haven’t kicked on from there.

I was always struggling with
who would be my coaches,

who would be my Mastermind,

and now we’re in this
online marketing world,

the online coaches and
the online Masterminds

are a lot more prevalent and I actually

can pick and choose.

And I’m probably spoilt for choice,

so it’s about just finding one
that sort of fits the bill.

And Chris Ducker’s got an online one.

I don’t know Chris personally,

but I’ve listened to
a few of his podcasts;

I’ve listened to his peers’ podcasts.

And when you listen to podcasts,

you do feel a bit more
intimately close to those people.

There’s people in his
Mastermind that I know about

and have contributed to and
interacted with a little bit

and looking at price
points, looking at things

that are available
inside that Mastermind…

Like, no, that’s the one
for me at this stage.

It’s just going to take
me out of my comfort zone;

it’s going to give me some
resources that I need,

but it’s going to also push me.

It’s going to continue my
personal development journey,

so that I can get better, so
that I can be a better partner;

I can be a better Dad; I
can be a better businessman.

And it doesn’t matter if
not all things deliver;

it’s just the next stage of the journey

that I need to commit to,

I need to take action on,
and I need to embrace.

So when I have pressed
the end of this recording,

I’m going to finish Chris’s book

and I’m going to sign up
to his monthly Mastermind

and I’m excited about this
next stage of development,

because regardless of who this resolves,

I know I can do better.

It doesn’t matter what I’ve achieved

or what I’ve not achieved
until this stage.

I know I’ve got a lot to give this world.

I’ve given the world a lot;

I’ve taken from the world,
but I’ve plenty more to give.

And I want to give, and I want to take.

My life’s philosophy of
‘give, take, invest, enjoy’

has been around a while.

So, giving, taking, investing, enjoying.

That vision, and that philosophy of life,

for those of you who know me,

you can even go to our website.

You can find how I’ve written out…

Give, take, invest, enjoy.

They need to just constantly be.

For a while we weren’t enjoying.

So, asking why has allowed us to enjoy.

So just keeping the balance of giving.

Giving can take so many different forms,

whether it’s just listening to someone,

giving them your time to listen,

or whether it’s donating

or whether it’s investing
in a project full-time.

Giving your knowledge, giving your skills.

Giving can take many, many forms.

And the taking is a constant like

being aware that it’s okay

to say thank you with no explanation.

The world has got everything we need

and sometimes all you have
to do is say thank you,

accept the gift, and move on.

You may never be able to pass back

to the person who gave it to you,

so don’t try to.

When you follow in the
footsteps of others,

you can never often give back,

because they’ve moved on and

what you’ve got to do
is not what they need.

So pass it on, play it forward.

If you haven’t seen the
film Play It Forward,

or read the book Play It Forward,

watch that film – it’s fantastic.

And get comfortable with the taking

that can take different forms.

As I say, the investing thing is,

carry on investing

even if you don’t seem
to be getting results.

I’m a big one when it comes to reading

or listening to podcasts;

some people say, ‘Oh, I know
all that, I know all that.’

If you adopt that mentality,
you might just miss that

one little system, that
one little piece of advice,

or that one little turning point that

functions to take action
in that particular space.

In Chris’s book, there is so
much I kinda know I need to do,

or I even know how to do but,

for one reason or another,
whether I don’t have

the right systems or I don’t have a VA

or I don’t have this, that or the other,

it doesn’t really matter.

I know I need to be surrounded by
some high-achieving online marketers,

if I want to be a high-achieving
online marketer myself.

I don’t need to know how, but
I need some help getting there

and that could just be having
a better team behind me

who can execute some of the systems.

I know I have to write the
systems to produce the systems

but if I’m executing them,
then I need to use the time

that I could be doing the things

that I need to be doing
that no one else will do,

which includes doing these live videos,

recording the podcasts
and sharing the skills

and knowledge that I have
and that people want to hear.

I’m not worried about the
things they don’t want to hear,

because they’ll tell me
what they don’t want to hear

and I can get on and do something else.

So that’s the investment,
and by doing that,

I free myself up to enjoy, and in my case,

enjoying is more time with Elly,

more time with Ayla, and
more time with the little one

when it comes along.

And more time doing this,
because I really love doing this,

interacting, seeing if I can be of help

because it fits in with
everything else I do.

So, I can see that I’ve been speaking

for about 20-odd minutes.

I hope you’ve got some
value out of the fact

that I’ve shared my vulnerabilities that.

It doesn’t matter how old you are,

where you’re at, what you’ve achieved,

what you haven’t achieved;

it’s how you feel about yourself,

how excited you are about the future.

Respect the past; be present, but today,

that’s fundamental.

But make sure you’ve got something

to continue to be excited for.

Try not to delay gratification too long.

I am a big one for delayed gratification.

I’m always investing in the future,

but not at the expense of the (?) of mind.

So we’re very much living
more in the present,

enjoying more of the day today,

but of course, in my current situation,

and you will have your own situation,

your own family circumstances,
business circumstances,

you do need to be
preparing for the future,

and having some long-term strategies.

So that’s the balance I’m trying to find,

and I’m staying present
enough, but I’m investing

in the right things that
are going to carry me

and carry the family
through our remaining years

and the energy I have to
live the rest of my life.

So, yeah, that was the
purpose of today’s sharing,

and if the video’s good,
I’ll get in on YouTube,

and I’m definitely hoping
the sound is going to make it

a worthwhile podcast, so
however you’re consuming this,

I look forward to your feedback.

Leave a comment, send an email,

connect with me on Messenger,
subscribe to the channel,

subscribe to the podcast.

That gives me the energy to
think of finding other things

that I can talk to you
guys, and reflect on them,

and see if I can make
them of value to you.

So from a very rainy
Luang Prabang in Laos,

on my 52nd birthday, cheers to me.

Here’s to exciting things to come,

and I look forward to
seeing you next time around.

Over and out, bye-bye for now.