It is Friday, April 23rd, we’re at Pints with Pat, where we no longer really drink pints anymore, we just… We just talk about the week. So we just had our monthly staff meeting, it was awesome. I just love the fact that we even have monthly staff meetings now. They go really smoothly, and it’s a great way to keep everyone aligned in actually what we’re all trying to do and where we’re going. So that was awesome. I’ve never… One thing I said there was, I just never felt better, and I know I’ve never said it on this podcast before, but never felt better about the staff, and people, and the direction that we’re going now. The growth has been strong, the people take an ownership of things, taking control. It’s just been awesome. And so really, I think we’re in a really, really good spot.
Interesting thing, it’s weird how the timing and everything works out. We just started the book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. We were reading that in our Sequoia Book Club right now, and the whole theme of that book… I honestly didn’t know who Michael Singer was before I started reading it, but the whole theme of that book is that the universe is vast and much more intelligent than you are. So for you to stress out and try to control everything, every day, you’re just gonna drive yourself mad. The universe is gonna take you where it’s gonna take you. So just surrender to it and trust. Trust in the universe, is basically… It’s basically what he says.
So I think there’s some sort of balance to that, obviously. You need to be a little more purposeful, but it is weird how anyone that’s a big reader or anything, it just seems like sometimes books just hit you at the perfect time. ‘Cause as I’m reading that book, and he’s talking about surrendering and going with the flow, we’re thinking seriously about the next three, five, 10 years. And I’m trying to figure out that balance between… Okay, how detailed of a plan do we need to make, right? ‘Cause the entrepreneurial handbook says, vivid vision. Create this exact plan of what you are looking to build in the next three years and you’ll manifest it. But what’s the balance between doing that… I’m curious, anyone who watches this podcast, has an opinion on that. But what is the balance between that exact plan of what you’re trying to do over the next three years, and just letting things kind of flow in. We had some opportunities flow in this past week that are great opportunities that we never… We had never considered or we definitely didn’t write them into our plan for this year. So does that mean they should be ignored because they’re not in our plan? Should we stay focused on exactly what we’re doing, or should we kinda ebb and flow and say, “Yes.”
So we’re gonna be saying yes, to those. But I’m just curious, people’s opinion on what is that balance there. Another thing I wanted to mention quickly was, was listening… I don’t listen to a lot of Joe Rogan podcasts, they’re really… I like Joe Rogan, but they’re just really long. So I was listening one the other day. I see Jane’s watching now. Me and Jane were listening to it when we were on a ski trip in Colorado. We were driving to the airport and he was interviewing Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL. The movie, Space… The movie Lone Survivor with Mark Wahlberg is based on him. And he was talking about… He was… Him and his SEAL team were in the mountains of Afghanistan on some mission, and they came in contact with… I can’t remember the exact details, but a lot of Afghani fighters, and got… Three members of the SEAL Team died, and he was the only one survived. But he was in rough shape. He fell down a mountain, he was shot, he had broken bones, he was all torn up. And he talks about… He was talking to Joe Rogan about how sometimes the hardest point in your day… The hardest point in your day, the hardest point in your year, or your month, can be a defining moment in your life.
And he talks about how he was in that hole in Afghanistan after he got blown up, and blown down a hill. He was just in a hole, and he said, “I was dying in there. I could have laid there and died easily. But at that moment, something inside me told me to get up and start crawling. I don’t know what the hell I was doing, where I was going, but I got up, started crawling, and did something.” So he… What he said in the podcast was, he’s like, “I could’ve died in that hole. I got up, I crawled out of the hole, and now I’m sitting here with you, Joe Rogan, on this podcast.” And it was cool to hear it ’cause I love stories like that, very intense war stories, because you can relate them to business. They’re just much more watered down, right? Obviously, business is not life and death, but it is your life’s work. YellowBird right now is my life’s work, so I take it very, very seriously. And sometimes when things do get hard, you have to keep it in perspective, right, what’s important in life.
But they can be a defining moment for you. And I think we’re kind of going through it right now with the systems and the processes. What are we gonna… How far are we gonna take this? Are we gonna take this are we gonna be a small shop forever, or are we gonna take this to the next level? How big are we gonna grow? I mean, now is the time that we… This year is gonna be a very, very defining year for us. And I’ve never felt stronger about, like I said, where we are now. And I think that we are poised to very much take it to the next level, and I know everyone, everyone here at YellowBird, is ready to do that also. So that’s pretty much all I got for the week.
Trying to think if there’s anything else. I’m personally in a spot now, and I can thank the GoBundance group that I joined, and it’s like just an accountability group, to where my past couple of months just have been very strong as far as routine goes. As far as the early mornings, getting up, doing the morning meditation thing, which I’ve always heard, most successful people are meditators and that Surrender Experiment book, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk about, The Surrender Experiment book, that guy, Michael Singer, obviously, he’s huge in the spiritual guy, very big meditator.
And the meditation I did this morning with a guy named Jeff Warren, it’s just guided meditation on Calm, he talks about, there’s not gonna be one defining meditation or any point in time that you really feel like this is making a big change in your life. He says, it’s just going to happen naturally, your life is just going to get better by practicing mindfulness, and mine, a 150% has. Being able to separate that voice, that chatters in your head from who you are as a being, being able to… We did a meditation the other day where you sit there and you picture your being or yourself as like a white light or whatever, and anything you’re feeling, anger, anger, stress, anxiety, that has nothing to do with who you are as a being, those are… He had you visualize it as a white light and anger and anxiety are just rotating around this white light. So if you are feeling anger or feeling anxiety or feeling stressed, you’re choosing to do that, and you can choose not to, as well. And that was a huge breakthrough, and it sounds so stupid and obvious, but it’s a massive breakthrough. If you’re feeling anxious or you’re feeling stressful, you are actively… The voice in your head is actively choosing to feel that way, and you can actively choose not to feel that way, by gaining perspective, by practicing mindfulness.
So honestly, the past month and a half, the GoBundance group meditations, getting up early has really changed the way I’ve been thinking about things, and my life has gotten significantly better, I’m not in my head as much, I have more head space. That’s the other app. One app’s called Headspace, the other one is Calm. I’m using Calm and highly recommend, and if you’ve never done it before, if you’ve never meditated at all, the Jeff Warren 30-day intro beginner to meditation is phenomenal, and it’s really helped me a lot. They’re just 10 minutes every morning. So, as cliche as it has become, [chuckle] in this day and age of the meditation thing, and the entrepreneurial meditation thing, being mindful, things are cliche for a reason, right? So, because they work. And, in a life full of chaos and everything’s a whirlwind here, at YellowBird now, never mind the stuff that’s going on in America right now, in a world where you have all that stimulation and so many opinions, and so much negativity, being able to be mindful and sit and just be with yourself still and quiet for 10 minutes a day can honestly be life-changing. And it has been for me recently. So, thank you everyone who listened, and please if you have any comments about the balance of planning versus letting things happen, the universe being all-knowing or meditation or anything, I love talking about this stuff. I’m very much a beginner. So… Yeah, please comment below and thanks for watching.
