How To Slow Down

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you don't ever miss another podcast episode. And if you love these podcasts, you're definitely going to love my free journaling lesson that I just created about a month ago. If you go to mindsetmentorjournal.com, you can download the absolutely free lesson. There's a video lesson on there with 30 free journaling prompts so that you can start getting better at journaling, coaching yourself, and helping yourself grow. So once again, that is mindsetmentorjournal.com.

0:38Today, we're going to be talking about how to slow down. I'm going to give you a simple secret to success. And it's funny because if I would have thought of this podcast episode and started thinking that this was a thing when I was, you know, three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I'd have been like, this doesn't make any sense. There's no reason to slow down. And so, you know, when I first started in personal development, first started building businesses, that was, you know, I was 19, about to turn 20 years old, and I'm 37 now. And I guess you could say in the past 17 years, I've matured in some ways.

1:13And I've made a lot of mistakes. And I've screwed a lot of things up. And I've had some successes. And I've had some failures. And through all of that, I've kind of learned what works for me and what doesn't work for me. And when I was younger, I was go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. I thought in order to be successful, I needed to be going 100 % full speed through the wall at all times. And I was working at all times, you know, from 22 to 25 years old, I worked 110 hours a week for three years straight. I would usually be in my office and I was usually there by about 7 a.m.

1:52And I would usually leave by about 10 or 11 p.m. every single day. And that was seven days a week, no days off, three years straight. And I thought in order to be successful, that's what it took. I had to struggle my way to success. I know a lot of people out there listening right now, you think that that's what's required to be successful. You have maybe even built something successful by doing that. But if you think about it, it's like, you know, if you look at a race car, right? A race car can't be going 200 miles an hour all the time. It's got to slow down. It's got to turn off. It will eventually break if it's going 200 miles an hour all the time.

2:32But I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I thought that was what was required in order to be successful. I thought that you had to struggle your way to success. I thought you had to go, go, go, go, go, go, go all the time. And what happened? I burnt myself out. I ran my business and myself into the ground. I went from being the number one franchise in an entire company to literally going out of business within 18 months. And so now that I've been doing this for 17 years and been able to build a couple of businesses, run a couple of them in the ground, and finally build a business that is successful, that is growing, that is sustained.

3:12We do have over 30 team members that work for us at this point, and we continue to grow year after year after year. now that I've been doing this, I feel like I have a massive secret to success that I never hear anyone in hustle culture talk about. And it's rest. And I want to preface it. Before I want to talk about this, I know some of you could use this, could use rest as a way to deflect taking action that you need to when really you're not at the rest moment of your life. You're not the rest moment of your business. And when I say rest, you're going to hear when I start talking about it, it could be something that's literally five minutes in the middle of a day, but not five months, right?

3:59So maybe it is five months. Maybe it's not. I don't know. But I just want to, before we dive into it, there's a thin line between resting when it's necessary or deflecting responsibility and saying that you need quote unquote rest. I can't help you with that. That's your own personal life decision and what you're going to do. But I just want to bring that in before we dive into it. Because in hustle culture, go, go, go, go, go, rarely do I hear people, if ever, I don't even think I hear anybody talking about the importance of rest, the importance of taking a break, the importance of actually not working, the importance of being alone with your thoughts, the importance of simply existing with nothing that you have to do.

4:44And so this is something that I have struggled with for years and started getting better at, of removing myself from my business, removing myself from having to work all of the time. And this is really, really hard for a lot of people. In fact, I'll tell you this. I see that most people who, if you're a business owner, most people who grow businesses, they usually grow a business so that they can not have to work for someone else because they hate working for someone else. And then they grow a business and they start working and working more and working more and working more. And then they become basically like a slave to their business.

5:20And now they hate this thing that they've built, that they basically hate this baby that they've built because they can't figure out how to remove themselves from it. Whether that is they don't know how to give other people jobs to do and trust them, or they get their significance and self-worth from their business. And so it's hard for a lot of people. Lots of people are go, go, go, go, go. And they struggle with taking time away from their business, taking time away from the company that they work through, work for, and just being alone with their thoughts. And being alone with their thoughts is really scary to a lot of people.

5:58Do you know how scary it is? There was actually a study that was done, and this is what's crazy about people. There's a study that was done is either, and basically they gave them the option. You could either be alone with your thoughts in a quiet room with no phone, with nothing, but just sit in a quiet room for 15 minutes and be alone with your thoughts. Or you could get an electric shock and leave the room and be able to do whatever you want. Now you might listen to that and be like, I would sit for 15 minutes. I would be fine sitting for 15 minutes. But when it came down to it and people could either stay in the room for those 15 minutes, you got to ask yourself, how many people do you think actually chose electric shock instead?

6:40How many people decided to take electric shock instead of being with their thoughts for 15 minutes? 30 % of women chose to get electric shock instead of be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. And 60 % of men chose electric shock over being alone with their thoughts. Let that sing in for a second. Like how crazy is that? That people have such a problem being in their own head that they would rather be electrocuted. Obviously it wasn't like electrocution until death, but it was an electric shock. 30 % of women chose electric shock. 60 % of men chose electric shock. And so you have to start thinking to yourself, what is wrong with being bored?

7:26What is wrong with being alone with your thoughts? Because being bored, people hate boredom. Why do they hate boredom? Boredom is just doing nothing. Why is doing nothing so hard? It's because we're addicted to stimuli. We're addicted to go, go, go. And a lot of people have to feel, and I'm going to do an episode on this in the future, have to feel stressed throughout their day. And so they make themselves more stressed. But we have to realize that the world goes through seasons. The world goes through seasons. It's just the way it's going to be. We have to have winter. We have to have spring.

7:59We have to have summer. We have to have fall. That is what the world actually goes through. Why would humans be any different considering we're a part of the world? Humans go through seasons. It's not spring forever. It'd be nice if it was because spring is amazing, right? But things just can't grow and grow and grow forever. But it's also not winter forever. So when winter's really cold, there's too much snow or you're too cold, you also have to remind yourself it's not going to be that way forever. Winter, trees and plants have to lose their leaves and they have to contract in order to expand and grow in the spring.

8:38And really, if you can start to think about your life through expansion and contraction, expansion and contraction, that's really the way I like to think about it, where there's moments in my life where I am ready to expand. and there's definitely moments in my life where I feel the need to contract. And it could be a day, it could be 20 minutes. But in order for trees to grow, they've got to lose all of their leaves and they've got to contract because then when the spring comes, they're able to expand again and grow bigger. So you have to think about this. There's no way that a tree could just expand, expand, expand, expand, expand forever.

9:15It expands, it contracts, it expands, it contracts. Why do we think that we could just expand, expand, expand, expand, expand, expand, expand forever? We've got to go through expansion and contraction as well. It's like if you look at everything in the universe, basically, except for literally the human mind, it needs expansion, it needs contraction. And in the contraction, it prepares itself to expand again. And so if you think about it this way, it actually starts to make a lot of sense. Even if you look at the human body, you can't eat forever, right? That's expansion, but it's got to contract.

9:48It's got to go inward. You've got to be able to digest and then get rid of whatever you were just eating in order to make space for expansion. Again, if you're going to work out, you can't work out all day long, every single day. You've got to have that expansion and you've got to have time to contract for your muscles to be able to grow, for your body to be able to lose the fat, whatever it is that you're trying to work through. There's always expansion. There's always contraction. I want you to think about this. Think about this right now. I want you to ask yourself this question and just whatever comes up is what is supposed to come up.

10:18Ask yourself this question. Am I in a season right now of expansion or contraction? And just see what feels right. Are you an expansion of contraction? Are you an expansion of contraction? Are you in a season of expansion or are you in a season of contraction? Are you expanding right now? Have you been trying to expand when maybe you're in a contraction season and it's been really hard, you've been forcing yourself? or have you been trying to contract, contract, contract when really you should be in a season of expansion? You can't always be expanding, but you can't always be contracting. So what does contraction look like?

10:58Rest. And rest can literally be, and this is why I say this, it doesn't have to be like an entire week off. It could be an entire week off. But rest can be a 10-minute meditation in the middle of the day. Maybe you wake up and you do your morning routine and then you get your workout in and then you're go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. and you get to two o 'clock and you notice, man, I've been going, going, going for the entire day. That's expansion, right? It can literally be in the middle of your day, a quick 10-minute meditation in the middle of the day and just sitting back and just allowing yourself to contract.

11:34And meditating is not stopping thoughts. People always think like, oh, I'm not good at meditating because I'm not stopping my thoughts. No, no, no. Meditation is basically just observing. everything that's going on. Just observing your thoughts, observing your body, observing the room and just sitting back and taking like mentally, spiritually taking a step back and just allowing yourself to exist. And so when I say that you're, cause some of you guys are growing a business right now. You're, you're, you're like at the infantile stages of your business. You're like, Rob, I can't, I can't take a week off.

12:07I can't take a day off. That's fine. I'm not saying that's what you have to do. But you could take 10 minutes off multiple times throughout the day. So you can expand throughout the day and then contract throughout the day, expand throughout the day and contract throughout the day. You can make sure that you're expanding hardcore Monday through Friday, and then you're contracting Saturday and Sunday and giving yourself space from your business, giving yourself space from certain things. You know, rest could literally be turning off from work 100 % at 6 p.m. to enjoy your life, being present with your family.

12:39That's rejuvenating. That's allowing yourself to be able to grow, right? Rest can literally be, I work from this time to this time. And when this time hits, 6 p.m. hits, I'm off. I'm done. And I'm giving my brain a rest. So expansion and contraction, when I say this, it doesn't mean like you have to take a week off. It doesn't mean you have to take a month off. It could be done throughout the day, multiple times throughout the day. You can expand and you can expand and contract multiple times throughout the day. It could be planning a weekend trip with your family and doing no work. That could be contraction for you.

13:11But then the funny thing is, I used to think this in my mind, so I know a lot of you are thinking this right now. But Rob, if I slow down, won't I be less motivated? Won't I not get to where I want to be? I used to think that. But the crazy part is, it's easier to go for a run the next morning when you have a really good night of sleep, isn't it? Think about this for a second. If you want to wake up and go for a run in the morning, You could have a shitty night of sleep and you could have a good night of sleep, right? Is it easier to go for a run after you have a shitty night of sleep or actually have a great night of sleep?

13:46Really good sleep. Why? Because you're rested. Some of you growing your business, growing your family, doing whatever it is you're trying to get to the next milestone won't allow yourself to rest. And you're actually hurting yourself more by being go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Now, mind you, Rob at 22, 23, 24, 25 years old would have been like, this guy's freaking crazy. Rob at 37 now can be like, Rob at 25, shut the hell up. I've been through a lot more than you have. I've built the business that you wanted to build for a really long time. It's taking a step back and just allowing things to happen.

14:21And when I say taking a step back, I don't want you to think like, oh, two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back. It's like the way I say when I think taking a step back, I mean like when you're going to shoot an arrow, you have to pull the arrow back. And the further that you pull it back, when you let go, the further it's going to go forward. And so to shoot an arrow, you must pull it back. The further that you pull it back, the farther that it flies. The whole universe is expansion and contraction all the time, except for, I guess, the universe itself is, you know, 95 billion light years from one side to the other.

14:56That seems to be according to what, you know, I guess these people who seem to know what they're talking about, constantly expanding. But other than that, everything inside of the universe seems to expand and contract, expand and contract. Everything goes through seasons. And so the reason why a lot of people burn out is because they're, and this is coming from this one who has burnt out fully, is this go, go, go, go, go, go, go without any contraction. Expand, expand, expand, expand, expand without any contraction. And so it means when you turn off for work, you turn it off completely. You pull the arrow back so that when you go into work tomorrow, you can let it fly further than if you hadn't pulled it back as much.

15:37When you notice yourself in the middle of the day, not 100 % mentally there, assess the situation. Have you been go, go, go, go, go? Have you been full expansion mode? Can you take 10 minutes to contract? A lot of people think like, oh, if I take 10 minutes for meditation, I'm so unproductive. A lot of times meditating is the most productive thing you can do because your brain's kind of all over the place and you need a hard reset in order to be like, the way I like to think about it is this, like if you've ever been on your computer, if you're one of the people like me, where you go to like your Chrome and your Google Chrome, you've got like 40 tabs open, right?

16:10And what happens is I'll have 40 tabs open. Then my computer starts running slower and slower and slower. And I've got like, ah, damn it. You know what? I need actually full reset on this computer. You full reset, you start it back at one tab and it just goes so much faster. Some of you throughout the entire day, you're opening up a new tab, a new tab, a new tab, a new tab, a new tab in your brain and you've just got a hard reset. Quick meditation, 10 minute contraction. And then what you do is you're just gonna go straight into it. Okay, cool. Now that I've reset my system, I've reset my computer, I can go ahead and feel like there's more that I can do when I do go back to work.

16:47Maybe you just need a quick break. Sometimes your brain just needs to file things away. You know, when you go to sleep, your hippocampus, which is a part of your brain that replays the day, files things away at 30 times to 60 times faster than when they happen. So it goes over and over and over again. But what's crazy about it is a quick meditation or going outside without your phone and just staring off in the distance for 10 or 15 minutes will actually start to turn your hippocampus on and allow your brain to file things away 10 to 20 times faster than you did it early in the day. So if you're like, go, go, go, go, go all morning, and you're like, you know what, I need a 10-minute break.

17:23You take a 10-minute break. It allows your brain to do the same thing that your brain does when you go to sleep, which is file everything away. So it's basically like taking your entire morning, filing it away inside of your brain by closing your eyes, by meditating, by doing a breathing exercise, by just allowing yourself to exist with nothing to do. It allows your brain, even if your eyes are open, to start to file away everything that you did today to give yourself space for the next part of the day. Maybe you just need to file some things away. And so really what it comes down to, and I want you to understand, is you can't be go, go, go, go, go all the time.

17:56Maybe it's taking a day off. Maybe it's taking a weekend off. Maybe it's making sure that you're done by 6 p.m. Maybe it's a 10-minute break in the middle of the day. But you've got to think of yourself in seasons. Expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction. contraction you work out you rest you work out you rest you have a long day you take it you you take a nap you have a you know work all day long you have to get eight hours of sleep there's always got to be that contraction side and that's what i see a lot of people missing if you can master the expansion and the contraction you will actually end up being way more productive than everyone else around you so that's what i got for you for today's episode if you love this episode please share it on your instagram stories tag me in it rob dial jr r-o-b-d-i-a-l-j-r we just had over 500 ,000 people that follow me on Instagram.

18:42So if you want to be one of those people and see some of the valuable stuff I'm sharing on there, go ahead and follow me on there as well. Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way. I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission. Make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.