Transcript #150 It’s My 150th Episode and I Don’t Feel Like Celebrating

Arise2Live Podcast

Transcript for Episode #150  ‘It’s My 150^th Episode and I Don’t Feel Like Celebrating’

Intro:  We are celebrating the 150^th Arise2Live Podcast episode and my husband, Scott, doesn’t feel festive. Can you believe that? I’m ready for a party. Today he shares why and a 4 step strategy to improve his celebration mood. Let’s see if Scott can find his party hat.

Scott R. Weaver:     0:32

Welcome to the Arise2Live 150^th episode and now is a time of celebration here. The first episode was launched in June 2018 and today I have more topics to talk about than when I first began. My brain is telling me it should be party time for my team, celebrating this milestone that many podcasters never reach or get the downloads that I’m getting. But to be honest, my heart is just not into celebrating now and that’s impacting my energy and ultimately my productivity.

Hello everyone, I am Scott Weaver, host of the Arise2Live podcast and business advisor.

For the last few weeks, my friends and my jolly support team has been slapping me on the back and congratulating me. I even planned out a big production for this episode, bringing back past interview guests and a YouTube video behind the scenes.

Then I woke up in the middle of the night and told myself I don’t want to do this. I just don’t. However, there was the temptation to put on the fake smiles and just go with the flow. But somehow, I just felt that would be letting you listeners down if I did that. Plus, that’s not what this podcast is about. It’s easy to Arise 2 Live when the sun rises to balmy blue skies and birds are happily chirping. But what happens when the clouds obscure the sunrise?

So in the middle of the night I decided not to have a big 150^th episode celebration. Instead, to be transparent here, I decided that I’m just trying to encourage the few folks out there who, like me, are not in the mood to celebrate though we know we should.

The first thing I did was to write out things that was preventing me from celebrating. Yes, I did this in the middle of the night. I listed out things using a method of identifying what’s bothering me. A lot of times, our conscious and our sub-conscious is trying to tell us something and we are just not listening. Listing out things helps us to listen. Plus, by putting a name on things that bother us, well, that alone takes power away from them.

After making the list I felt a little better and I went back to sleep. The next morning, I looked over my scribblings to make some sense of it. At the top of my list was this: “I’m not finished”. My new coaching packages were just coming out of beta testing and not yet into the market. Celebrating that time seems premature, like throwing the after-game celebration party at halftime.

The second thing on the list surprised me. It was the weather. Yes, the weather. For the last few weeks and a bit more, there has been multiple storms in my area of middle TN – bad ones: flooding, tornadoes, wind, snow, etc. I remembered being unnerved at 3 in the morning watching the TV and the weather person saying that a potential tornado was on target to hit my hometown in 25 minutes. Thank God it dissipated in about 10 minutes out. But it’s hard to celebrate when nearby towns were not so lucky and are in recovery and rebuilding mode.

Regarding winter weather, it can affect many people. There’s something called Seasonal Affective Disorder, aka SAD, and this impacts millions. The short days and long nights in cold, bad weather can get to a person and it got to me this winter. The good news is that it’s usually temporary and spring is coming in a few months. No winter lasts forever.

The last thing on my list was just a general overall situation in my country, which is the USA, mainly the economic, health, and social stuff that is going on—like just having one of those problems would be bad enough but three. Last year’s problems, they just seemed to linger on and this year’s problems are in sight. On top of that, it just seems that the new normal is to make decisions based on fear and the emotions of fight or flight instead of building for a better tomorrow. Recently the COVID has hit home, with friends catching it and a business associate passing away.

 

Okay, I’ve made my list and it was definitely a downer. No wonder I don’t feel like celebrating my 150^th episode. But now that things have been identified, what can I do? Stuff like the weather I can’t control, but I can control my reaction to it. Maybe take more vitamin D or buy a warm hat so I can exercise outside in the cold, in the sunshine. Other things on that list, like finishing my projects, that I can do. I can work on my scheduling. I can work on delegating tasks to make progress.

After seeing those actionable tasks that I can do, things are starting to look a little better now. That’s the advantage of making a list. Naming problems goes a long ways of getting the proper perspective on them so you can take action.

Now what?  Well, I grudgingly reached into my playbook and pulled out these three things:

1. Review your progress over time. That is, do a before and after comparison using information from your journals, your goal list, planners to see how far you have really have come along. Asking friends or a spouse is another good way too.

When I did this, a few big things came up. So last year, I saw three clients reach their big goals.

I relaunched my speaking engagements after a COVID break– did 4 in total last year.

I launched two new coaching packages. Updated my backend marketing-technology processes and finished the first draft of a book manuscript.

After doing this review, I remembered once again some of my big wins over the last year. I think this has moved my celebration meter up a few notches.

2. It’s okay to keep the faith

There’s a relevant old saying that goes like this: “We live by faith, not by sight.”

If we only looked at today’s problems, then things look pretty dreary and defeating. It’s been a while, but Billy Joel released a song called “We didn’t Start the Fire.” That song lists umpteen problems of the day when it was released. They were big problems back then and we have big problems today. The point here is that if we only see the problems before us, we can’t see the positive things that could be, or even find reason to take action.

It takes faith when racing for the future and building a better tomorrow, partly because our sight into the future is limited, very limited and partly because we need to have confidence in the unseen to step out. We all have faith. It’s just that sometimes it needs to be brought out to the surface.

For this coming year, I have 3 potential speaking opportunities already. Nothing yet in writing, just verbal, but I have the faith they will happen. In Q1, I have a coaching marketing campaign scheduled. Will the campaign be successful? I don’t know. I don’t know at this time. I can’t see that far, but I do know that I don’t have blind faith. I have done the prep-work and positioned myself for success. I have done the hard work to get inputs from people and have put the behind-the-scenes technology in place. However, I know that this is not enough for any guarantees.

In reality, our own efforts usually come up short of expectations. We often take on too much and quickly get over our heads. That’s where faith comes in: faith in a Saving Grace, or for some, help from Jesus Christ, and providential source of power that gives us confidence that whatever comes our way, we’ll be okay in the end.

Now after doing this step, I have something to look forward to in the future and my celebration meter has moved upward some more.

3. It’s okay to rely on others.

For many of us business owners, we are so often out there as the leader, the solution provider, the rain maker providing vision to customers, and blah, blah, blah. But we often forget that we need people too. We forget that we are not superhuman to carry the whole load ourselves.

This might be a bit of surprise but relying on others should lead to gratitude and thankfulness.

So here’s people that have really helped me with this podcast. And yes, this is a bit of a look behind the scenes of the Arise2Live Show.

I start out with a shout-out to Jenna Weidner, an aspiring songwriter and singer in Nashville. She recreated the current Arise2Live Podcast music theme, a big step up in the sound from before. I wrote the original theme song, but Jenna took the music to a whole new level that I could never do on my own. There’s a link to her website in the show-notes.

More shout-outs to D. Scott Smith and John Nimmo and Orit, my on-line coach. Their encouragement and pushing me has resulted in a much better podcast and podcaster, in spite of my resistance and grumpiness.

Another big thank you goes out to my support team at The View-from-the-Top Mastermind group. They hold my feet to the fire, provide insider advice, and set examples for me to follow, which is very important when you can’t see very far into the future.

Kudos to my son, Marcus, who has done an awesome job behind the scenes on the website and video support. He is also the voice for the sponsors.

I can’t forget my daughter, Tegan, and she has been a big help. We have done several podcasts together and she has even done one all by herself when I was sick.

Of course, I must include my wife. She has done every Arise2Live introduction since the beginning of the show and also does the transcripts. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that without her, there would be no Arise2Live podcast.

 

Okay, after going through these 3 things, my celebration meter is now in the positive zone. 150 podcast episodes is something worthy of celebration. I just might have the energy to schedule something up for this weekend.

In closing, I hope that some of you have found some take-a-ways, some encouragement in this episode. The strategy that I used was:

1. Write the list of things that are troubling you. Naming problems is the first step to solving them and determining if you have control over them or if you can only reduce their impact.
2. Review the progress over time. That is a before-and-after picture to see your growth and seeing that is very important.
3. It’s okay to keep the faith. Having faith that you are a key-part of creating the better future is a lifesaver when things get rough.
4. It’s okay to rely on others- You are not alone.

There are various ways to do this, but in this episode, I listed out the people who helped me have a successful podcast and to start to reflect on the gratitude and thankfulness I have for them.

Very likely you’ll have days you don’t feel like celebrating, but don’t stop there. Use the strategy from my playbook that I shared today and improve on it for yourself. Why? So that in those down days where you know you should be celebrating but don’t feel like it, you have a doable path upward to Arise to Live.