Guess who's back, back, back again, again, again, I am back for part two of the 30 reflections for 30 years. If you did not listen to the first episode, I would highly encourage you to go back. As what I've done is I've accumulated some of the best reflections that I've had across this past decade as I just turned 30 and I've had that time to just sit down and think about things, reflect on these past years as I progress through my 20s and I rather enjoyably shared the first time with you in part one. So you can find the link to that below in the show notes, so maybe you can go there first and then come back to this one, although they're not in any particular order, so do whatever you want as long as you listen to both of them because they will serve you well. So let's get back and go into number 11. Be open to the surprises that life delivers you and I mentioned in the last episode that it pays to be observant in this world. It pays to pay attention to the details because if you might pick up on things that you really just would have looked over it, had you not been paying attention and I love that aspect of life. I love the surprises that life delivers at times. It makes us spontaneous, it makes it exciting, it makes life not so predictable, right? A lot of us think maybe our life is destined to be the way it's supposed to be or that we have no autonomy or free will, but this kind of gives us a nice spice that maybe there is an ability to change the course of our life. I definitely think that's the case, but it's really exciting to just pick up on those things and out of nowhere, life will surprise you with something. Maybe you are trying to go through this door and you're knocking it down and you're just wondering why things aren't working out for you. Then all of a sudden, another door opens and you're like, wow, that's exactly why. My wife always likes to say that life is wise and it really is. It knows sometimes better than you do. Many times better than you do and there'll be many times where it surprises you. You have to be open to the surprises that it delivers because if you're kind of just closing the door and not paying attention or being super, super determined on a certain path when even though all the signs are telling you that it's not for you, you may miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime. And I would not want that for you because you don't know how often that's going to come around. So pay attention and be open to those surprises. Number 12, big one here, heal your trauma. Heal your trauma. Even if you don't think you have any trauma, go and do some work to find out if there's something hiding there. It's better to kind of start digging and try to look for something and realize that there's nothing there. I'm highly doubting that there isn't anything there. But it's better to look and see that there's nothing there to live in a world of kind of just being completely oblivious and not realizing that the paths and the choices that you're making in life are being dictated by a certain trauma. I'm not actually the choices that you want to be making on a day-to-day basis. I went back and I did this. Again, it was out of more of necessity, if I'm completely honest, versus active will or free choice, I needed to do something about my situation and therefore I did. And I am extremely grateful for life again, putting that in my way. Telling me, Elliot, you know, these other paths are not yours. You need to go down this path first in order to go to the other parts in your life. And it makes sense to me now. It didn't make sense to me in that moment, but it really does now. So if you're someone who's never opened a journal and just jotted down your thoughts, if you're someone who's never been to therapy or even considered therapy, if you're someone who knows that in your mind and in your heart, there isn't something quite right or maybe you're making these choices and you just know that they're not right, you know. Your intuition is just telling you something and maybe you haven't listened to your intuition in a long while and it's so very deep within you. You can't even make sense of what it is, but there's just that little off feeling. That is your intuition telling you something. So I would highly encourage anyone on this earth to go and look into healing your trauma. It might be very, very small, but it might be impacting you in more ways than you know. And again, you might be pleasantly surprised and not have anything really to deal with. And that might make you feel even more limitless than you were before, but I really do think it's worth kind of just opening up that can of worms and be prepared to face what comes as well. That's, you know, maybe about the second part of this point as well, you have to be willing to face what's on the other side and it's not always easy. It's generally not easy. That's the reality of the situation, but it will pay off once you've worked through it. It will allow you to live a much more fulfilled and a free life, but it is not easy by any means. So just a little bit of a disclosure and a little bit of a warning, but I do think it's valuable for just about anyone. Number 13, long-term gratification is both short and long-term gratification combined. This is a big learning that I think I've established maybe in my mid 20s once again. And basically, the idea is behind this, right? So let's say you are on a fat loss diet, right? And what comes across to you one day is you're out, you're with some friends and you are committed to your plan and someone comes across with, I know, a pizza and a beer for you. And then you end up being tempted, right? The short-term gratification would be like, okay, let me take this beer. Let me take this pizza and I'm going to feel so great afterwards, right? That's just generally how it goes. We all enjoy pizza. Maybe some of us enjoy beer, a wine, whatever it is. Just say someone brings something to you that's really, really tempting, but you're supposed to be committed to your fat loss diet. So what do you do in this sense? If you opt for the short-term gratification, amazing, you're going to feel good in that moment. But this is the beautiful thing about long-term gratification. Long-term gratification is saying, no, I'm committed to the bigger picture goal of dropping this weight, feeling healthier, waking up tomorrow, feeling fantastic, not lethargic, not like I've broken my word to myself, and you're not going to necessarily feel the impact in that moment or are you? And I'm going to tell you that in a second, but you're going to feel that later down the line. When you wake up the next morning and you get that new low on the scale, you're going to be like, yes, hell yeah, I did it. It was me. I made that awesome choice and I am going to be even more empowered in the future because I know I can do it when that time comes. And initially, you might think that that's the only reward. However, in that moment, you get the satisfaction of realizing that you can say no, that you can resist the temptations that come your way. And that feels incredibly gratifying. So you've just opted for long-term gratification, which is feeling good the next morning because you didn't take that pizza and feeling more confident about what you can do in the future. However, you also won in the short term as well because you prove to yourself that you don't give in to peer pressure or you didn't in that moment and that gives you confidence that you can do it again. You resisted the temptations. You stayed true to your word and that's amazing because you got the long-term benefit. So of staying on point of your plan and the short-term benefit, however, when you pick short-term gratification on the other hand, yes, that pizza was enjoyable and it felt great in that moment and that glass of wine or that beer felt fantastic, but it was short lived, maybe it gave you a little bit of pleasure during that moment, but how long did that really last? Maybe, I know, an hour, two hours, three hours max and it definitely does not feel good the next day either. You definitely don't get any long-term gratification from that. And again, I'm talking about the person who wanted to stay on point with their plan here. Not the person who was open to having an enjoyable night at their socials, which included alcohol and pizza or whatever that might be. But when you wake up the next morning, you are heavier on the scales. You're feeling lethargic. You are feeling incongruent, you're feeling like you didn't stick to your word, and now you're doubting whether you can handle the social situations in the future. So by picking the short-term gratification, all you got was a very short-lived amount of pleasure, which from time to time is not an issue. However, when you are trying to maybe stick to a new habit or a new lifestyle, it really pays to really focus on that long-term gratification because eventually you realize that you get both the long and the short, whereas if you chose the short, you only get the short. And unfortunately, that short can be very short. Okay, I've said short enough times now, right? Number 14, if you get out of your head, life is a lot easier, more fulfilling and more full of opportunities than you would expect. This brings me back to the very first reflection in part one of this episode, which was that you suck up more in imagination than in reality. And this is the same thing. If you spend so much time living in your head and not in the real world, you'll find that you close so many doors on yourself, you'll find that things seem a lot harder, whereas when you get out into the world and you actually do the thing, you find that it is so much more enjoyable. It is so much more easy to see progress and you don't tend to find that you come up against all of these limitations that you had in your head. It seems to be a lot smoother and a lot more frictionless, or at least you're facing real life challenges and not just the ones that you made in your head. And when you actually get through these challenges, you're going to see some sense of success within this pursuit. However, if you just keep living in your head and you're trying to solve challenges that might not even exist, it just doesn't really amount to anything special. So get out of your head and get into the real world. Number 15 is that being a little delusional is important and you might think, what are they being delusional? And yes, I have not met anyone in life who is ridiculously successful who wasn't a little bit delusional about maybe their ability in this specific pursuit or the path that they were going to take or the ideas that they had. They almost had to be a little crazy in order to make it happen. And this doesn't mean you have to be one of these Einstein-esque sort of guys who spend all their time on their own or anything like that. But you have to be willing to overcome the normal people thinking that, you know, you might not be able to do this or there's going to be a bunch of challenges in the way and you're not qualified to do it or you just don't have the skills or anything along those lines. However, you do not want to be delusional without a plan or without making an effort towards the things that you want to achieve in life. If you're just delusional and just say, one day I'm going to be a millionaire, but you don't actually do anything to make that happen, then you will just go into the categories of delusional with just no benefits from being delusional, just living life as a delusional person. However, if you are a little bit delusional about what you can achieve, the expectations you have for yourself, the ability to learn and the ability to gain skills and the ability to be the best in the world at a certain thing, and you actually have a plan and you have efforts and you have action that backs that up, damn, you are going to be unstoppable. As long as you pursue your thing for long enough, there is no way that you are not going to see the success, and that brings me nicely on to number 16, which is your ego is necessary. You shouldn't try to destroy it or believe that it's evil. I love the author Ryan Holiday, however he has a book called, "Ego is the enemy and I categorically disagree. I think your ego can be your ally as long as you learn to navigate it and you learn to harness the powers of your ego." Yes, the ego would be the enemy if you're unaware of it and you allow it to dictate your life choices, however if you know how to harness it then it can be a very powerful ally. This comes back to two of my previous points. The first thing is that the delusion might live in your ego and that's why you might want to let them play a little bit because if that's where you're going to be able to set those audacious goals for yourself and actually make those damn things happen and another is the dark energy that I mentioned in the first episode. Where do you think wanting to prove the bully's wrong and the school teacher's wrong or your colleagues wrong with your family wrong comes from, it comes from ego, it really does and that's not necessarily a bad thing because we definitely want to harness some of that dark energy from time to time so I really think that we need to kind of put out like a bit of a public service announcement to say that ego is not the enemy. An unmanaged ego can be the enemy, however a well managed ego can actually be your ally. It might not make such a good book title but it's definitely going to make more sense in your life. Number 17, traditional values will always stand the test of time so I know that we live in a bit of a world where people want to be a little bit more controversial, they want to be a little bit more polarizing and that's absolutely fine if that's who you are but I think so many of us are just trying to play a role based on what we believe society thinks that we should be at this moment in time versus what actually makes sense to us and that's why I think a lot of us are kind of a little bit lost in this world at this moment in time is because we're trying to live out the societal expectations rather than staying what's true to us and maybe more traditional in a sense, let's take monogamy as an easy example where you are simply in a romantic relationship with just one person and no one else versus being in a polyamorous relationship where you're intimate and romantic with multiple partners, right? Obviously the traditional one is that you find a partner, maybe you choose to have kids and then you raise those kids in a two parent household where you are dedicated and committed and only romantically involved with the partner that you choose, whereas let's say everywhere you look people talk about polyamorous relationships and having more than one partner and they're talking about how amazing and fantastic this world is but that's just not making sense to you but because of everyone else is doing it you feel that you need to do it and what you end up finding is that you are incredibly unfulfilled in your relationship, you feel like the other person is almost cheating on you, you're not actually exploring any other intimate relationships or you are and you actually feel terrible for doing it because of you don't actually align with that but you continue to do it because of that's what society says and maybe it's a situation that every relationship you arrive at the person on the other side of that actually wants to be in a polyamorous relationship because that's just what society is doing at this time, however I would encourage you to find what value suit you the best, not listen too much to what society says but truly align with what your intuition, your soul, your mind and your heart says and it will be tough because you're going against the grain of society and you might not fit into your social circle as well as you used to, however when you opt to congruency and you listen to your intuition and you follow that path and you go down the root of what truly makes you fulfilled and truly makes you happy you'll eventually find what you're looking for and you are going to thank yourself so much and don't be surprised when the traditional things come along and they seem to make a lot more sense than what's trending right now, that has definitely been the case for my life that's for sure. After 18 and I like this one a lot, your parents become a lot cooler as you get older and you'll find yourself wanting to spend more time with them than ever, I would say that since maybe the age of 23 I would say onwards my relationship with my parents is being absolutely phenomenal and honestly any time that I go home is just a privilege and a joy, like I actually love spending time with my family, I love spending time with my parents, you know, every family goes through something that's the reality of the situation, so don't think it's all going to be sunshine and rainbows but I've found that each year especially as I've gotten older and older and as the years have progressed I've increasingly enjoyed spending time with my parents and that's not to say that I didn't enjoy spending time with them before but it just gets more and more and more and more and it continues to be something I look forward to and something I value especially considering I spend a lot of my time on different sides of the world, I always make sure that I do my best to be very very present in the times that I am back home and just embrace and enjoy time, it doesn't have to be anything particularly special, it's just kind of being in their presence, conversating with them, so if you're fortunate to have your parents around or if you're fortunate enough to have a great relationship with them, continue to value them just as much as ever and if you're super young right now and maybe you're in that stage of life where your parents aren't the coolest people in the world, you'll eventually get through it and you'll know what I mean. Number 19, it's impossible not to grow if you travel and especially if you open the door to other cultures and I'm definitely not talking about you guys who go over to Spain and only drink and eat in Irish parts, that is not the point of travelling people and I honestly, I don't know if I've ever said this on a podcast or not, but I didn't expect to be the person who lived their life in the way that I live it, I didn't expect to be living in a bunch of different countries, I expected to maybe travel a little bit on holidays and maybe not stay in the UK on a long term basis, however I did not expect to be doing the digital nomad thing for the last four plus years now, which kind of still blows my mind to a degree, however here I am and I'm loving life and I'm really enjoying doing it with my wife as well, that's really been something special and added that extra layer, I remember going to Columbia and I was in an apartment where I actually booked an Airbnb but they cancelled it and they gave me another one and the one that they gave me was breathtaking in terms of the view and I remember going out onto the balcony and looking at it and thinking oh this is amazing and how amazing it would be if I was sharing this with someone else right now, not just filming it but on my Instagram story, so that's been a game changer for me, I absolutely loved doing that with a partner by myself, especially the partner that I have, so with that being said, coming back to the point, it is impossible not to grow when you travel, you are put in circumstances and situations that you are just not put in when you stay in your country and your comfort zone, right? It's very easy to kind of feel cultured until you step outside of your country and you go to another side of the world and you see the way they live, the way they interact with the world and the way that they do things, it's just so eye-opening and mind-blowing and like I said, especially if you open the door to other cultures as well and you're willing to go experience their food, you're willing to experience the way they live and that's what I've been blessed enough to experience because of A, I can spend a long time in any given country, which is fantastic because it's not just the quick weekend trip where you kind of do all the touristy things but you get to live like local when you do what I call slow travel which is where you spend a month, two months, three months or even some weeks in a country and your goal isn't to go tick off all the tourist destinations, it's just kind of to go do what the locals do and that's been amazing and also another bonus I've got is having a Mexican wife so I've been able to experience the richness of Mexican culture thanks to her, thanks to her mum, thanks to her dad, thanks to her extended family and thanks to us spending so much time in this amazing country as well so I've been really really blessed in that way to experience a lot of different cultures through just visiting and spending time there and also obviously marrying into a Mexican family as well which is being a rather incredible decision if I do say so myself. Number 20 and the final one for this episode, your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you'll ever have so take time to understand yourself and invest in this relationship, this brings me back to the heal your trauma one which I don't know if it was this episode or the last one but really just understanding yourself as a human being can be just one of the most interesting things that you can ever do, it's not only one of the most important relationships you'll have, it's also really fascinating and insightful relationship as well, it's so awesome to understand yourself, to understand why you do certain things, why you live your life in the way that you do, why you operate in the way that you do, it's just really damn interesting to have a level of self awareness and I encourage anyone who hasn't taken that opportunity or I would encourage you as well if you take the opportunity but maybe you've taken the foot off the gas a little bit to start discovering yourself a little bit more and you might think well how do I do that earlier and if I give you some things off the top of my head I would be just looking to start to question everything, question why you like what you like, why you dislike what you like, why you believe in the things that you believe in, why you don't believe in the things that you believe in and like maybe open up a journal and start asking yourself those questions and start writing what your mind and your heart is telling you and do your best to take off the limits that maybe you put on yourself from time to time and do this less from an analytical lens and do it more from a curiosity lens like you're trying to solve a puzzle for example and you don't have to have your analytical mind on here, you just have to be curious about how the pieces fit together and why they fit together in this way and another good one is also to try different things because of you might not never know what you love or what you like or what you really dislike unless you actually do those things, you might have a good idea that I know really random ideas that you dislike seafood, you really dislike seafood because of it just smells a little weird to you and you've never given yourself the opportunity to try it and then one day you say okay I'm going to try and find the seafood that looks the most appealing to me and it might not even look appealing to me but doesn't look like it's going to make me throw up and then you go try it and all of a sudden you like an octopus for example, that might be a brave choice to make the first time you're trying seafood but that could be another world for you and you're like wow I didn't realize that I liked octopus and now when I go to a restaurant by the beach I can order octopus and this is amazing and I'm super super happy about this discovery but you're never going to have the opportunity unless you give yourself the opportunity to try and the opportunity to learn what you do and don't like so those are the two things that come to my mind I'm sure there's many many other ways of getting to know yourself but questioning all of the things that you do in your life from a lens of curiosity and not criticism and also go out and try different things meet different people travel can be a fantastic one as well that really really allows you to know yourself especially if you think you know the world and you've only been in one or two countries and you've spent the majority of time in yours wow is there another world out there it really really is so that wraps up my next ten reflections I hope you enjoyed them guys I'm gonna be back for part three soon and the last ten reflections are just as fantastic as these first 20 so let me know your thoughts take care team and I'll speak to you all very very soon and that was a simply fit podcast I hope you gained a huge amount of value from today's episode I feel inspired to improve your health and wellbeing be sure to search for simply fit in Apple podcasts Google podcasts and Spotify or anywhere else you get your podcast from and go ahead and subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes also if you like the episode please don't forget to give it a five-star rating I'd love to hear your feedback or any questions you have so reach out to me on social media you'll find me on Facebook and Instagram @EliaHassoon thank you so much for listening and I look forward to talking with you all on the next one. 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