#189 Gratitude and wins of the previous year, and looking ahead in 2022.

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Episode Transcript

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0:09  
welcome to Personal Development mastery podcast episode 189. And Happy New Year 2022. It's been two weeks since the previous episode. And this is actually the longest break I've had since the podcast started. And and here's why. Since 2017, during the ending period of it's here, I do an annual self reflection process, what I take time to look at my wins of the year, the things that went sideways, the lessons I've learned. And of course, it's also a period of setting goals for the next year. Last year, in particular, and towards the end of December, I felt a need to go inwards and have a deeper period of introspection and reflecting, while at the same time turning down all the noise and incoherence coming from external sources. And probably the biggest source of that kind for me, is social media. So for the first time, after many years, I took a complete break from social media, I deleted the apps blocked my browser success, etc. To do it properly, you know. And I also took a break from something I was doing daily for over four years now, which was posting on social media a quote a quote of the day, every single day. 

1:53  
So the break period is over now. And in this episode today, I'd like to share some of the appreciation wins and gratitude for 2021, the year that ended specifically in terms of the podcast and myself as a podcast host. One of the most important wins or achievements of the year that has gone by was for me the successful completion of one year's alcohol free adventure. So I went throughout 2021 without having any alcohol at all. And the interesting thing is that the podcast in a way, they facilitated this by giving me the opportunity to hold myself publicly accountable. So at the very beginning of 2021, I had a podcast conversation with Andy Ramage, one of the cofounders of one year no beer. And at that time, I told him and I actually declared it on the podcast that 2021 would be a year that I would not drink alcohol at all a one years alcohol free adventure. The important lessons and realisations, realisations and overall sense of achievement. And everything that comes with not drinking for a year now is quite a big topic in itself. And in due time, I will come back to it and discuss it in more detail. For the time being I will share with you a short snippet of that episode where I declared publicly my intention to go on an alcohol free adventure for the whole 2021. And naturally, this year, it's the first time that I have decided to go for the full year because, you know, I went to six months and then I went to four months and back. And this year, I wanted to really be different. So what's different than six months really go for the whole year experience for myself. And actually, that's the first time I'm, I'm saying that to anyone but I thought it was appropriate to set an example as well. So 2021 for me will be the year of my full alcohol free adventure. And I love it

4:30  
Good on you, as well. And what's really important about that description now is that you've gifted yourself the opportunity to come over to the fun side of the island on a few occasions and you know what's waiting for you and that's always been my sort of approach relates like look, you can't have that reflective conversation with yourself if you've never tried it. If you've never tried it with the right mindset for long enough. How do you know that it won't be the greatest thing you've ever done.

5:01  
And the only thing I will add at this time is that it feels incredible, it feels amazing. And certainly I'm not in a hurry to go back into drinking alcohol. If I ever do that. I haven't decided yet. So I might as well do the dry January while I'm at it. I have been doing dry January for the previous three years anyway, so I will take it from there. And let me carry on by sharing with you some more big wins of 2021 and things that I'm really grateful for. And I'm going to do this for a very good reason. And that is to hopefully inspire you. Maybe by listening to one or another of these you will be inspired to take some kind of action yourself. It is the beginning of the year anyway. And the best resolution is to take action. 

6:07  
One of my wins for which I'm very grateful was having the opportunity to co create the special audio feature on Gaia net, which was presented in three episodes starting in number 160. And the reason why I feel this sense of gratitude, and achievement as well is twofold. First, it was a very creative process where I interviewed five of the co founders of Gaia net, and I asked them the same questions and I collated the answers into a feature that tells the story of guy in it and how it was created. And why and who is it for. The second reason why this is such an important milestone is that in these times that we are living with the government, encroaching more and more on our freedom with censorship of opinions alternative to the mainstream narrative, these things are realised that rather than trying to fight against the situation, it is better to place our thoughts and dreams and intention towards what it is that we would like to happen. So rather than trying to fight against the reality that we don't like, let's put our focus and attention and actions towards a better future. And let's actually co create this better future. This is much more important and effective. And it starts by allowing ourselves to dream about a better world. You can listen to the Gaianet feature on episode 161.

8:19  
Other element that I'm grateful for is for increasing much more the solo episodes that I did last year on the podcast, I found that interviewing people is quite different than holding the microphone just yourself, sharing your thoughts. And in many ways, it's more intricate and even intimidating at times to share your thoughts in such a way. And I'm very glad that I have done it said more of my voice and my thoughts. And of course, the result of these increasingly more shallow episodes was that I became more vocal, questioning and even political about what is happening in the world, and how the covid situation is being used by governments all around the world to gradually take away our freedoms. And I have shared my thoughts about this in Episode 183 called upside down liberty, which leads to an extensive interview with the author Mark Gober about how the government actually threatens our liberty, and also what is a possible pathway into a truly free society. So if you want to find out more about this, listen to episode 183.

9:54  
One other big win, I'm really grateful I had the opportunity to experience in 2021 was running the London Marathon, which was the first time I ran a marathon. And it was one of the most memorable, unforgettable experiences in my life. Just Just thinking about it puts a big smile on my face still. And again, I recorded an episode describing and documenting my experience, the reasons why I did it and what I learned from it. And you can find that in episode 167. 

10:41  
In terms of the actual podcast growth, I was grateful and delighted to see the overall downloads of 2021 been almost twice as many as the previous year. So it's exciting to see this kind of growth, and also seen personal development mastery podcast into the top 2% of podcasts globally. And for that, I have to truly thank and appreciate you for making this happen by listening to the podcast and enjoying the podcast and reviewing it. And by the way, if you have been meaning to leave a review on Apple podcasts, and you haven't done it yet, this is a great opportunity. I will also mention here a couple more things about the podcast that I believe were quite important last year and I was grateful to see them materialise or manifest if you prefer. The first one was the website, personal development, mastery podcast.com, which I believe is fantastic functionality. And second, becoming a partner with brain FM, an amazing app that I have been using quite a lot myself to enhance my focus and concentration when I really needed the most. So you can have a significant discount on the subscription rate by using the link brain.fm/agi. That's Alpha golf, India. 

12:20  
The last thing that I will mention, and certainly by no means the least, because it is actually one of the reasons that I'm doing the podcast in the first place. And that is to inspire you to take action towards improving your life in some way towards the next level of your life, whatever that means for you. And I was blessed to have many people throughout the year reaching out to me telling me that they have been inspired by something that they heard on the podcast, and they took some action as a result of that. And this really fills my heart with joy. As I said, it's one of the main reasons that I'm doing this podcast. So thank you very much for my heart for listening. And, of course, I have to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the 70 plus exceptional individuals who I was privileged to interview and have conversations with. They all have been my inspiration and catalysts of my personal development journey last year. So before I conclude this first episode of 2022, I'd like to share two quick last things. The first is that the next episode 190 will follow next Monday, the 10th of January. And we will go back to the usual the normal format of two episodes a week, Monday with an interview and Thursday with a solo episode. And I'm very much looking forward to another year of growth of inspiration of taking action towards improving our lives.

14:23  
The second thing is something that one of the listeners Gill had told me and she was referring to the interview about liberty with Mark Gober. And she said that even if she's not in agreement with everything that I shared, still those podcasts are offering a great discourse that encourages her own thinking. And this is something I believe it's extremely important, especially in this time and age that we live in That is to utilise our critical thinking and not just accept things, as they're told to us without critically evaluating them and seeing, is there another side to this? And if there's another side, why is he not allowed to be heard? And I will conclude this episode and leave you with a short taster of the following weeks episode 190, which is with Dr. John Demartini, the world renowned a human behaviour expert. And one of the things I asked him was about covid, about the polarisation in society and the two sides that sometimes seem to appears. And here is a part of his answer. That is both mind blowing, and also beautifully heart warming at the same time. Apart from the individual, other side of covid, do you see how do you see the collective blessing of all the situation as as humanity or meanness consciousness?

16:25  
Well, it shows that when a collective society is proceeding distress, that it reverts down into a lower brains function that goes into the amygdala where it wants to avoid pain and seek pleasure and becomes more, you know, subjectively biassed and more polarised. So we're getting to see the polarisation of people who are choosing to see one side without the other. And they're taking aside the pro vaccine and the anti vaccine, the pro life the anti life. These these pairs of opposites, which are given rise to in chaos theory to the law of Ristic. escalation, which is the balance of opposites are demonstrating still the pairs of opposites and always balanced. If you look, I just look. But if you choose to take a side, you're going to create an opposite side to the pose. Anytime you take a position you create an opposition anytime you transcend the position, you get to see that there's nothing but a balancing act going on. So the broader perspective, the more transcendent you look down at the the game you see it's an order. It's there's a hidden order to it. It's not about there's no out of order pneus that is just the choice of what you perceive. So it's about asking the right question. I I'm absolutely certain that a collective society, if it's led by a wise leader, the Wise Leader will help people ask the question, to help them centre themselves and see the order inside that and not take people into polarity. Otherwise, there's going to be the polarity, the polarity is still balanced, regardless of how extreme the polarity is, it's still balanced. And if you take the time to show that and reveal that you can calm down the society and and help them see that there's two sides. If you take a side and you say you're right, and you make somebody wrong, you're going to create a clash. Instead of you're addicted to being right. And addicted to being proud and addicted to being you know, only one side and your side, you're going to get it right guarantee the equal and opposite position coming in to humbly so that's foolishness. Wisdom is saying that you're not here to be right. You're here to love, your love. You're not here to put people on pedestals or pitch you're here to put them in your heart. That's the you can't be authentic. If you put people up and minimise yourself to them. You're not authentic. If you put people down and you exaggerate yourself, you're not authentic. But if you put them in your heart and get to be yourself, you appreciate who they are. How are you going to be loved for who you are when you're not being who you are not possible. So stop putting people on pedestals and pits and put them in your heart. Watch what life does. It's quite magnificent. But the truth is, every human being is worth putting in your heart. There is no human being that's not worth putting in your heart. And everything that we see in other people is a reflection of something we're too proud or too humble to admit we have. And our reflective awareness allows us to own what we see. And when when we own what we see we have love and intimacy because we have reflective awareness and we have gratitude.

19:27  
So again, I wish you a Happy New Year 2022 with personal growth, success and more critical thinking. And until next time, stand out don't fit in!