The Truth Behind Success: It's Not Just About Hard Work

Welcome to the show.

Tired of the hype about living the dream?

It's time for truth.

This is the place for tools, power and real talk, so you can create the life you dream and deserve your ultimate life.

Subscribe, share, create.

You have infinite power.

Hello.

Welcome to your ultimate life.

The podcast show, YouTube thing, all of it dedicated just to one thing, to helping you create the life you deserve, the life you want, the life you crave.

I don't know how you describe it, but I say purpose, prosperity and joy.

Right now, I want you to say your words.

Maybe it's money, freedom and, I don't know, time or love, health, wealth and something.

Whatever it is.

Do you know exactly what it looks like when I ask people that and I ask them to get serious and really tell me?

Nobody can.

Very few.

I won't say nobody.

But easily.

90% can't really say.

They start with the easy.

I want more money.

I want more freedom.

I want less stuff.

I don't want to have to do things.

I want freedom.

And they say things that are emotionally reactive to this moment right now.

Like I'm reacting to the pressures I feel right now.

So I could just have that gone.

Everything would be great.

And that's just bogus as anything.

That's not true.

If those things were gone, you would find other things that were not what you wanted.

Not exactly.

Right.

You'd find them.

You'd find them, you'd find them.

So what is the ultimate life?

Well, step one, you need to know what you really want.

And sometimes that's hard to do because we live in a society where you're constantly, practically raised from the cradle with judgment, and you're not good enough grades and sports and siblings and neighborhoods and maybe race, ethnicity, religion, all kinds of stuff.

You're not good enough.

You're not good enough.

You're not where you should be.

It's not enough.

Try harder, work harder, be more, do more.

You're raised that way.

And when you hear that thousands of times, you operate under what's called the law of conditions.

There's a story in the law of conditions, and the story goes about a little fish, little fish is in the water and he's hungry and he's down there and he get ready to eat, and he looks down, there's a big old shrimp down there and he wants to have it.

And before he does that, he looks around, he notices what the temperature is and what the light is and what things, everything feels like.

You know, he notices all the things around him right then he gets ready to go have that shrimp and right at the last minute, a big fish knocks him out of the way and gobbles the shrimp, scares the crap out of him and hurts him a little.

So he's scared.

So scared he takes off and runs to another place in the ocean and you know, he's still really hungry.

So it's the next day and he hasn't eaten still.

So he looks down there and sure enough, there's a big old shrimp.

And then he looks around some more and says, you know, this water's about the same temperature and the light's about the same and things are feeling, you know, the bottom looks about the same and the algae and all the rest is about the same.

And he gets ready to eat the shrimp and then gets scared and runs away and doesn't eat the shrimp because the conditions were the same.

And so he made an assumption, he she it fish made an assumption about what would happen and so ran off and didn't get fed.

Now that law operates in your life all the time.

Mine too.

We get to a place where we recognize something we've seen before and we assume the outcome will be the same.

And the truth is that different place in the ocean had exactly nothing to do with the first place.

Now if you've done that or you're doing that right now, where you look around and say, you know, I tried to market my business or I tried to create a better relationship, or I tried to get along with my partner better or solve this problem or overcome a personal habit and things feel and look about the same.

Oh, it's the same.

And then we get into the story of it can't work, it won't work.

And then we go further and say, what's wrong with me?

What's wrong with me?

What's wrong with me?

And I doubt the fish was busy doing that, but boy, do we humans do it in spades.

So one of the solutions that we propose to that is the title of today's show, Rise and Grind.

Rise and Grind.

So we are taught from our first breath that we're not enough by being judged.

I don't know about you, but I was picked last often on sports teams up through maybe 14 or 15, and finally at 16, I hit puberty and started to grow and it was last.

So.

But for the first 15 years of life, I was a disaster.

Horn rimmed glasses, skinny and a nerd, and my voice hadn't changed yet and all that stuff and you know, all the stuff that goes with that Kind of teasing and so forth.

So what about you?

Where are you allowing this thing to come into your life?

Where are you allowing the feeling or thought that because you failed before or you said you failed, like I would have an issue with that.

And we'll do a whole thing on failure.

Now, we just finished last episode, eight episodes on fear and eight different ways that that manifests in your life.

And I've done some other episodes on failure.

We take failure, let's redefine failure.

Let's for the purposes of our conversation, say that failure is not getting the outcome you wanted.

Now when we don't get the outcome we wanted and it's way good, then we take all the credit.

Woo.

Look what I did.

When things happen that we didn't want, sometimes we take the blame harshly and other times we blame others.

But what we do is we tend to personalize it.

I suck.

I'm not good enough.

I can't.

It'll never.

I won't.

It.

You know, on and on and on.

You know what that feels like?

That is the antithesis of creating purpose, prosperity and joy.

It's the antithesis of enjoying your life, of being in love with yourself and with your circumstance.

I was doing an exercise earlier today with joy as we were driving to the computer store.

Now, I explained several weeks ago that I'm working at a different station, computer station, because my computer, my regular computer, which is on a desk behind this backdrop, broke a few weeks ago.

And so it's been in the shop and finally I got a new CPU from Intel, mailed out and I got it Friday.

And so we took it in today.

It'll be fixed, I hope, later this week.

Anyway, my point in saying that is I can't even remember I was telling a story about that my computer broke and it meant something.

Oh, failure.

For a long time, for like several months, I blamed myself.

What did I install wrong?

What did I do wrong?

Are my drivers not up to date?

And I went down the road of thinking I'd done something wrong.

And the truth is the CPU was faulty.

It worked enough so that it worked sometimes, but it failed.

And then I kept getting blue screens of death and I didn't do anything.

So I delayed.

I delayed the repair for several months, thinking, if I just do this a little better, if I just do that a little better, if I reinstall.

Finally, I reinstalled Windows 2 or 3 times.

Now, those of you that have done that know what that is, right?

Oh, you got to reinstall all of your programs.

And that takes half a day.

So you reinstall windows, you got to put everything back on it.

That's like half a day.

So I did that two or three times, and I've wasted, I don't know, probably 100 hours in the year since I built it.

I built it last October.

So, you know, and that was because I kept thinking I'd done something wrong.

I should have taken it into the shop two months ago, three months ago, and just said, hey, find out what's wrong for me, because this is over my pay grade.

But I kept thinking I needed to fix it anyway.

I don't know if that kind of thing has bothered you or not, but one of the solutions that we get, one of the pieces of advice that we get for entrepreneurs, for self improvement, personal improvement, all that is the idea that in order to be successful, you've got to rise and grind.

Rise and grind.

Now, I am absolutely a hard worker, and I'm for working hard.

Love it.

Love what I do.

But you see, I also live the ultimate life.

I have a life of purpose, prosperity and joy.

And so I love every day.

Wow.

What a cool thing.

Today was kind of funny, though.

I'd been gone for last week for, like, seven days.

And so for seven days, I did not do my ice bath because it was too complicated to arrange in the place I was staying.

I probably could have done it, but I just went for a week without it.

In that week, that water temperature here in Edmonton went down, the ambient temperature went down, and the ice that I had in my freezer froze harder and harder and harder.

So my ice bath this morning was, yeah, freezing cold.

It took me an hour afterwards just to get to room temperature.

But anyway, it doesn't matter.

Just a funny little funny thing.

So we've been taught to rise and grind.

And the idea of that isn't work hard, because that's all good.

The idea is the grind, grind, grind, grind.

I've got a client that talks about that.

He says, you know, I feel like everything's got to be grindy.

Everything's got to be grindy or it's not.

I'm not doing it right.

And somewhere along the way, he got a story in his mind that things had to feel grindy, a little uncomfortable grind, or you weren't doing it right.

Now I know where some of that came from for me.

My parents taught me to work hard at chores and yard work and housework and all kinds of stuff.

And that was great.

I think that's, you know, learning, responsibility and Doing things to get whatever you get as an allowance or however the money works in the house.

You know, those things are all fine.

People have to learn how the world really works.

But the grind part is associated with.

It has to be uncomfortable, not fun.

And that piece for me came in the phrase, you can't play till your work's done.

And so I associated work with sucky stuff.

And play was fun.

Now I don't feel that way anymore.

Everything I do is play.

Making this for you is fun.

Writing another book called Masterpiece.

I'll keep you updated as I make podcasts all along the way about what's going on with Masterpiece.

Masterpiece.

Seize the day.

Live in flow.

Change the world.

That's not fanciful thinking.

It's real and you can do it.

But the starting line for that is learning to live a life of purpose, prosperity, which includes cash, of course, and joy, or whatever your three words are.

So I want to.

The title today is Rise and Grind is Bogus.

Bogus.

And I started with the caveat that I'm not talking about not working hard or diligent or putting in paying your dues or whatever that is.

Sure, I have.

Maybe you have, too.

Probably you have.

You wouldn't be listening to this podcast.

So what do I mean?

Well, the idea of rise and grind, what does that feel like?

Well, immediately, I don't know about you, but immediately, as soon as I say that I feel an element of resistance, I feel an element of I gotta do this and gotta have to grind always carries this sort of element of resentment.

There's.

I'd rather be doing something else.

I don't really want to do this.

If I had my druthers, I'd what, sit on a beach and sip Mai tais and read?

You know what?

That gets old.

Been there, done that.

You get old.

You and I were built to work.

We're built to do stuff, create stuff, make things happen.

We are.

And you know, one of the things that's interesting about that, when we do stuff that is full of love, kindness, service, we feel good.

Our body rewards us.

Our mind rewards us.

Our spirit rewards us.

And that's not socialized.

Our neurochemistry programs us to.

Programs us to be kind, loving, and helpful.

We beat the crap out of that.

Sometimes circumstances of poverty or injustice or cruelty, you know, camouflages or destroys that.

But we're built that way.

So the grind part to me suggests resistance, resentment.

I'd rather be doing something else.

And so the rise and grind is bogus, because Rise and Grind will not produce happiness.

Rise and grind may produce money, it may produce success, it may produce elevation over someone else, like you're more successful than another person.

It might produce all those things.

I got to turn that light away there, that's better.

It might produce those things for you, but none of those are happiness.

And if you think that money gives you happiness, I promise it doesn't.

Money magnifies every weakness, every problem, every difficulty that you have.

If you want to be lazy, money magnifies that.

If you want to cheat even a little, money magnifies that.

If you're unkind, money magnifies that.

If you say, well, I don't have to be kind, I don't have time, I got to do this.

And if I step on a few people, it doesn't go away because you get money.

So money doesn't solve anything except it buys facility and tools and your ability to do more of who you are.

Think about that.

More of who you are.

Well, that says the most important thing then is who you are as you make the money, not after you make the money, who you are today.

So the coaching that I do is central.

Starts with that all the time, every time.

Who are you in the world?

Whatever you're doing, having a get up, getting up in the morning, you have a morning ritual or morning routine.

I call it a daily creation process.

And I've done some episodes on that.

If you want to know more about that, reach out.

I'm going to pause right here in the middle and issue you three invitations.

One, I invite you to share the podcast with someone that you know who's trying to create their ultimate life, a life of purpose, prosperity and joy, who's an entrepreneur who's trying to build and bless and lift others and themselves, and who's trying to make good cash.

Share it with somebody, you'll be doing them a great favor.

The second invitation is if you're already living that life of purpose, prosperity and joy and you flip out with excitement every single day, I want to know.

You had a chance this morning to have a call with friend of mine, Christopher Doris, who's fantastic.

I love him.

And he was.

He's written a few books and so have I, and we've talked about that.

He's been on LA talk radio before, so I was just asking him this morning what the next year or two is planned for him.

And, you know, what's going on.

And he talked about, you know, his business and his balance and what he's trying to do.

And he's one that is living the life, you know, he said, my life's just about like I like it.

And he wants to make some adjustments here, there, but he loves it.

He's living a life of excitement and joy.

So if you're like that, and you are, I want to know you.

I love knowing people that have created that kind of success.

So I'm inviting you to connect.

Third is if you have a message, if you have a message that you want to get to the world.

My commitment this year, now, my year started a week ago, October 14th.

I'm making a public commitment.

My commitment is to reach 300 million people this year.

And by reach, I mean give you the message of divinity, capability, possibility, divinity.

Because you're a divine being, capability.

Since you are created by the divine, you have divine DNA, divine embryo.

You can do anything you want.

And your possibility to create is infinite.

Now, rise and grind doesn't feed into that.

Remember, I'm not saying don't work hard.

I'm saying the grind part is antithetical because you're built to have joy.

I know that because when we love and serve each other, we have joy.

We're happy.

So rise and grind.

There's a different way to say it.

There's a different way to think about it.

It's not just semantics.

It really matters.

Shall I tell you what it is?

It is to lean in now when you have something exciting to do.

Think about when you're going on vacation where you have a gift in front of you or something's happened that you really like and you are leaning in.

Ooh, that excitement, anticipation.

What if every single thing you did all day long had that anticipation, the anticipatory excitement of leaning in.

The way I help clients do this is I help them eliminate everything from their calendar and only put things back in that they want to do.

I hear people so often say, I gotta this, I gotta that.

Oh, yeah, I have to do this.

Nonsense.

You don't have to do anything.

You don't got to do anything.

There may be some consequences, but don't fool yourself into thinking you have to.

So if you're going to say, I'm going to do this because I'm not willing to accept whatever consequences you imagine because haven't happened yet, so you don't know.

But whatever consequences you imagine are attached to the action or non action, then why don't you lean into it, commit to it, just enjoy it.

Because you can choose enjoyment instead of resentment.

So that's the first point.

Why Rise and grind is Bogus.

Get rid of the grind.

Lean in.

And if you can't lean in, get it off your calendar.

Get it off now.

If you've made an obligation or commitment to someone, if you've made a commitment, then you'll need to renegotiate that.

Or, or you will have to complete whatever you've said and then end it.

But clean out your life because the energy of grind is counterproductive.

You may get a lot done.

I'm not saying that, but it's not joyful.

The second piece is the difference between purpose and obligation.

I talked about obligation just a minute ago and how it carries the seeds of resentment.

The other side of that coin is commitment.

And commitment comes from having a purpose.

So if you, let's say you get married and you have a kid, you've made an enormous commitment.

You are now responsible for the life and well being of a child in this world.

Now that can be a joyful thing or a resenting thing.

It can be, it can start out joyful.

And the miracle and the little baby and it's beautiful and the miracle of life and everything.

And then when they're crying at 2 in the morning or 4 in the morning, or when they're teenagers and get in trouble and do all kinds of stuff or burn your house down or whatever, then you know, the resentment pours out.

And before then, all through life, kids do things because they're people.

Where is your commitment?

When I make a commitment, and this is learned behavior.

I wasn't like this when I started on this personal development journey in the beginning of end of 2007, beginning in 2008, I was the opposite of this.

I had boatloads of obligations.

Everything that I had to do, I hated most of it.

And my life was commensurately miserable.

It's not required.

It is not required.

And in fact, it's the opposite of having fun.

You're constantly living for the idea that I'll be fun, I'll have fun after this.

It's like working for the weekend.

Someday I finally get to vacation and then vacation from the vacation and do what I want instead of what I have to do.

Well, you're already doing that.

You're just naming it negatively.

You're choosing to have it be a negative piece of energy.

And you can stop that anytime you want.

That is my specialty.

The whole mess, not just that one thing.

Can you imagine with me for a moment, slow down here and imagine waking up every single morning, no exceptions, in love with the life you have in front of you.

Every activity, your morning creation is a thing of joy.

You love yourself and your partner if you have one.

Your kids if you have them.

You love the people that you're serving.

I love you.

I just do.

You're a divine being with infinite capability.

And all these episodes, this is number 900 and whatever, I don't know, a whole bunch.

I love making them because I love giving you encouragement and love.

You and I, we create our lives with every breath, with every word, with every thought.

We just don't know that or we don't remember it, we're not aware of it, or we just disagree with it because we think everything that everybody else does controls us, and it doesn't.

So if you want help with any of this, if you want help getting rid of the fear that we talked about in the last episode, or if you want help understanding how to turn all of those obligations you have into joyful commitments, reach out and let's talk.

If you have a message to share, reach out and let's talk.

I meet so many people that have just incredible stories of their life, what they've overcome, their resilience and their power, and, you know, what they're all driven to do.

Serve.

They're all driven to help.

They're all driven to share what they've learned and grown and created.

Why?

To add good to the world.

So I live that life.

If you do, I want to talk to you.

If you don't, I invite you to connect.

Now, there's a.

There's a URL on the screen.

Kellen Fluker Media.

Remember that URL.

Kellen Fluker media dot com.

Go there, check out.

It'll show you what I'm doing, what I'm about.

And there's stuff there that you can have.

Okay.

There's links to free stuff, and there's all these podcasts and YouTube videos, thousands of things that I have created because I love you and because you have every right and opportunity to create a life of joy and service and wealth that you want.

The last thing I want to talk about is I talked a little bit about commitment.

When I use the word commitment, I use it in a special way.

We make promises when we're not sure if we can keep them.

And maybe we fully intend to do something.

I intend to, with all my heart, and that's fine.

And then something happens, and we just sort of expect everybody to understand, well, you know, this happened.

Well, this happened.

Sorry, that's not how a commitment, a real commitment works.

If you've made a Real commitment.

I use the language.

Does this thing I'm saying rise to the level of a commitment?

Commitments are few, they're powerful, they're sacred, and they're far between.

And what it means to me is I'll do whatever I have to to deliver this thing as agreed.

And if some extraordinary thing has intervened, then my absolute commitment is to let you know as soon as I found out to tell you what's happened, and to make other arrangements to deal or deliver the commitment.

Blowing you off and hoping you understand or expecting you to is nonsense.

If something has happened that I'm sick and in the hospital and there's no way I'll be able to do a thing, then I'll say that for the foreseeable future, this, this and this.

I'm not able to do that.

What do I need to do to make that up?

That's how sacred commitments are to me.

What do I need to do to fix this?

Because I've made a commitment and those are bulletproof for me.

So I invite you to think about that.

And here's the fun thing.

Every single one of those commitments is joy.

It's joyful.

I don't make them unless I mean it.

And when I mean it, then I'm all in for it.

Joyfully, excitedly, making and keeping the commitments.

But I get to pick the other side of that coin is to say no.

When someone asks you to do something, don't grudgingly say yes, say no, say no.

You may want to point them in another direction.

I'm not able to do that.

Maybe you can do this, this and this.

No.

It's not your job to solve the problem.

If you know something and you're able to make a suggestion, do it.

If you're not.

Okay.

Now, the last thing I want to talk about is the antithesis of rise and grind, which is rest.

You know, one of the things I episodes a little bit ago was I'll sleep when I'm dead.

And I know that feeling, and I know that phrase and I know why people say it.

And that is there's so much to do and experience and see.

I don't want to sleep.

Waste of time.

I'll sleep and I'm dead.

So I'm not arguing with the idea of leaning in and experiencing all you can and all that stuff.

What I am saying is sometimes we end up feeling guilty.

The rise and grind is every day, no matter what, 10 hours, 12 hours, bust your ass.

And that's the only way you can have or deserve success.

Your ultimate life, you know, all that good stuff.

It's not true.

The earth has the sun go down for many hours.

Anywhere between, you know, six and 14 hours, depending on where you live and what the season is.

The time of rest is decreed by the divine in nature.

The earth rests.

God rested.

According to the creation story, we are given to rest.

Now we sleep away a third of our lives, you know, or maybe six hours a night or four.

I mean, some people need more or less.

Some people, if they sleep 10, that's not enough.

I don't know.

I'm about 7.

So if I get 7, I'm good for the next day.

I don't do 5 very long, very well.

And you might.

But my point is rest is okay.

Not resentful rest, not.

Wish I didn't have to go to sleep rest not I don't have time rest because that is only half rest.

If I sleep uptight for six hours, that's about three hours worth of rest.

So my urging from my own personal and sometimes bitter, extreme experience is rest fully, rest completely, and rest as you need to.

A refreshed and rested mind, spirit and body is far more capable of being creative, of being loving, of adding good to the world, of being able to solve problems that come up in your day, of being able to figure out, what can I create from this mess that just happened that I didn't want.

All of those things go way better when we're rested.

So rest your body, rest your spirit.

So that's, you know, that's why I said rise and grind is bogus.

Work hard, do commitments that you're really committed to, and then don't look back.

Never let things turn into resentful obligations.

Choose instead to lean in to each thing you're doing because you can.

So you get to choose your attitude and your feeling every day, all the time.

Nobody can make you or me feel grumpy.

That's mine to do.

And someone else may say or do whatever they do.

But it's on me how I choose to hear that.

It's on me whether I choose that to affect me or not.

It really is.

That's on me.

I invite you again to go to kellenfluekigermedia.com and check out all the stuff we have there.

And to get a hold of me, if you would love to talk about how to create your ultimate life, how to write your book, how to tell your story, how to create products and services, how to start a business, how to help in relationships, how to live every single day with purpose, prosperity and joy.

How to find your purpose?

It's not what you think.

I promise that.

Above all, I want you to know that I love you.

I yearn for your success when here to serve so that you can move forward right now and create your ultimate life.

Never hold back and you'll never ask why.

Open your heart and this time around, right here, right now, your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.

Every episode give gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.

If you want to know more, go to kellenflukegermedia.com if you want more free tools, go here.

Your ultimate Life CA Subscribe.