Growing Up: no one cares about the pool on your roof & the Resistance


"Rule of thumb: the more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel towards pursuing it."

Hi friends,
Jumping right in because brain on holiday mode (see below).

Last week I read Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, it having been on my radar on ages. Did not disappoint.

Resistance is infallible

Like a magnetised needle floating on a surface of oil. Resistance will unfailingly point to true North - meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.
We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.
Rule of thumb: the more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel towards pursuing it.
Resistance and fear
Are you paralysed with fear? That's a good sign.
Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.

Good stuff. I look forward to reading Pressfield's Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t next.

And now (if you're still here and haven't put your phone down to do that thing your soul is calling you to do but you've been avoiding out of fear) I have some fun anecdotes / wisdom from my last two podcast eps (details below).

Kai on how to not care what people think:
DB: Okay wait, were you scared at all about talking about this stuff and everything being really public, or how people would react to you?

KK: Yeah, I was scared. In the first episode, you will kind of see it.
But then I noticed that nobody really cares. Like, I thought, I think I'd said this to you that when you're watching some other guy or some girl talking a podcast, how long are you going to think about them?
You're not going to think about them for long. You're thinking about you're thinking about something they said or you like their personality, but you think that about like one minute and then you're like back on the topic.
And so I noticed that in a way people are not like they they don't like, they're not that interested in you. They're just they're just entertained or they they relate to something or I'm helping them with something.
It's always about them. Like you're the you're the hero of your own story. I'm the hero of my own story and that's like everybody else is the same. So in that when you realise that my, my fear, it just went away.

Khe & the NYC rooftop pool
KH: There's this building in New York on 13th and A. It's called the A building and it's one of the few buildings in New York City that has a pool on its roof.

And so the first apartment that I bought was a 505 square foot, alcove studio in that building.

And I was like, I'm a 28 year old who owns an apartment in New York and there is a pool on the roof. I'm going to invite all these women over and be like come to come see the pool on my roof like I'm a baller, blah blah blah.

And guess what happened?

I met the woman who would become my wife like 3 weeks later. So she was the only woman that saw the pool and she thought it was like the biggest D bag scene of all time.

She's like, I hate your pool, it's so fucking lame. It's a bunch of Wall Street losers.

So anyway, that was the thinking. And then that's funny. It's like how it played out.... We never went to the pool.

The billion dollar test
How much of your day would you still do if you had a billion dollars?

KH: Like if I had a billion dollars, I would still be super excited to have this conversation.
I wouldn't I wouldn't cancel the meeting. I'm like, oh, I have a billion dollars now. I don't need to go on this podcast.

** !!! this is my new hurdle for the podcast... please only come on and chat to me if you still would if you woke up as a billionaire tomorrow.

This (and last) week on Growing Up with Delia Burgess

Ep. 103 - Kai Karar: drugs, sex, violence & going viral
Kai lives in Tampere Finland. He is a ghostwriter, podcaster and former MMA fighter.
Kai Karar tells his Growing Up story on Ep. 94 - Kai Karar: addiction, stealing cars, Russian drug supply & getting clean
He currently hosts a popular podcast in Finland (he monetised his YouTube channel in 49 days) & here we are mostly chatting about this!

Ep. 104 - Khe Hy: leaving a $2.3m Wall Street salary at 35 & finding peace
Khe Hy worked on Wall Street for 15 years and was one of the youngest Managing Directors at BlackRock. He followed the playbook of status and income, but was hit with the striking realisation: "Is this it?"
At 35, he left and started RadReads, the blog that helps hard-charging professionals step back from their busy lives and ask themselves life's biggest questions. Is this as good as it gets? What does it mean to make an impact? What does a rich and fulfilled life look like?
Khe has been called “Oprah for Millennials” by CNN and the “Wall Street Guru” by Bloomberg. RadReads has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, TedX, Time, Quartz and LifeHacker.
Now based in LA, Khe works as a coach helping high-performing professionals lead more productive, examined and joyful lives.

Enjoy!

xx Delia

P.S. I am writing to you from Portugal! Have had the best few days surfing + lots of yoga. Back to London tomorrow.

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