The Pursuit of What's Essential
Today I want to talk to you about what you need to do less. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Roadman, welcome back to another Roadman Cycling Podcast. Hope you enjoyed Wednesday's interview episode with the amazing viola Foley. Does that old adage we've all heard from Seidlendass? If you want to excel in cycling, you can only choose two of all these things. So England, career, relationships, education, family or social life. And the YOLA is living proof that that's not true, that you can excel in multiple aspects all at one time. It's a brilliant interview and it'll just inspire you to get out and have an adventure. So today I want to talk to you about the quest for less and how we can have this pursuit of less. Before I dive into that let me just give you a reminder about Patreon, I've been slacking on my Patreon calls. Folks, Patreon is how we fund the whole podcast. That's what keeps the show alive. And although my, you know, the tone and the sort of, you know, sense of urgency in this call to action, at the start of the podcast, I have various from episode to episode make no mistake. It is the lifeblood of the podcast. It's what pays for keeping the show on the road. And we're up to episode 310. Can you believe that? We have made the episode 310 by Bootstrapping this shit. So thanks for everyone who has subscribed so far. If you're on the fence, please pause it. Head across now, it's patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscourwolch. Price of a point once a month. All we ask to keep the show on the road. I want to talk to you today about the pursuit of less. Well, less is maybe a little bit of a misleading title because it's not about pursuing less. It's about pursuing what matters most about what pursuing what's essential. So I'm talking essential relationships, essential hobbies, essential items, essential work practices. And for me, this is getting rid of the noise. And career wise, this is especially relevant to this podcast and the direction I'm going and my relationship with you guys, because I set up the coaching company. It's previous iteration. I called it A1 coaching before a roadman was born. And I set that up back in 2012. Can you believe that? So we're almost rocking up on the 10 year anniversary. And although it's been an unbroken run from 2012 all the way through to now, I spent so many years doing more because I thought I needed to have multiple streams of revenue because I was trying to self-educate in business and I thought I need multiple streams of revenue. So, you know, a long way, I tried to build a cycling coaching app and take on VC funding, go down to Holst Silicon Valley route. I built an event pre-registration platform, I set up a social media marketing agency, and I even bought a coffee shop. And that's all condensed into like a three, four year period. And I had to go on that journey, ultimately to find out what I was happiest doing, and where I'm making my biggest impact. And for me, it was stripping away all that noise, and circling back to roadman, doing less, finding what's essential, cutting out all those other career options which aren't essential.
Busyness Culture and Sitting Still
Now, I'm back at the very start, you might think, but I'm a different person and that old stoic saying and it's like a man never walks in the same river twice because it's never the same man and never the same river. I don't feel like I'm back at the start. I feel like I've had to take that journey to come back and truly appreciate what I had at the very beginning. So this is kind of a larger metaphor for life because most of going on around us, it's not vital. It's the trivial versus the vital. This is the battle that's been waged at the moment. And for me, I had to sit still and I can only say I worked for me and it's anecdotally it's worked for clients I've recommended this, that you need to sit still and you need to plot your course and you need to see, you need to understand where you are and where your next move should be. Because the mental battle to find out what's essential, it's becoming more and more difficult to wage, to get that quiet time, that non-distracted time. We're in a social media culture where everyone's just blast and they're life on you, somebody's having a crazy, cool adventure, somebody else is getting a promotion and work, someone else has got a new car. The lesson for me is this busyness, the hustle culture that we're popularizing, it's all absolutely wrong. I just love quotes. I always fuck up who made the quotes and I can never remember So when I got to tell people they're like you sure he said that but I think it's a mark 21 whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority It's time to pause and reflect and this culture of busyness hustle culture grind You know while that keeping up with the Jones has always been there. That's intensified with social media and You know if you ask anybody now ask call one of your buddies and chat to one of your buddies and you ask them how are they? And their response is going to be, I'm good, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm good, busy, busy, busy. Everyone is so fucking busy to get pulled in a thousand different directions all the time. And the hot take is because if you don't prioritize your life, someone else is going to prioritize your life for you. So to prioritize your life, to get rid of what's not essential, to start doing less, you're going to need one simple word and that's no. No is such a powerful war folks. But also no, it's a very difficult word to say because you feel like you're letting somebody down. But this is where everything changed for me with this realization that a no can be explicit, no, I can't make your birthday party or it can be implicit. And so many of us use these implicit no's all day long. And an implicit low no is like an externality. It's like an unintended consequence of our conduct. So think about it. Every time I sit down in the evening, every time I choose to binge watch Netflix, I'm saying no to training. I'm saying no to reading a book. I'm saying no to quality time with family. I'm saying no to any of the alternatives I could be pursuing at that very time. So it's true this lens and realizing that truer actions were already saying no. It's much easier to turn those implicit no's into explicit in those and take back purposeful control of the direction of our lives.
Protect Your Course to Galway
That way we can spend meaningful time living life on our terms, heading a direction we want to go. A lot of hot takes in there today, Roldman. Really enjoyed that podcast. I think it's wanted so many people need to hear at the moment. Some of my clients are struggling with it, some friends are struggling with it. They feel like after lockdown, we've been confined and we've maybe been kind of put on ice for a while and some businesses are open back up and people feel like they need to say yes to everything yes to every opportunity but by doing that you end up plotting this very uncertain course and you don't you're not in control of the direction you're going you think about it like you're trying to navigate from Dublin to Galway you know it's a straight road all the way across you are where you are now and you have a destination you want to get it if you You keep taking every exit to see what's every town along the way. You won't get to that destination. So protect that purposeful time to figure out what that destination you want to get to is. I love this podcast. I haven't done one of these ranty little ones in a while and I'm glad to bring you on. Roadmen, enjoy your weekend. We've group ride, roll and tomorrow and every Saturday from Clontarth, it's 9.30am. It leaves the bay, Clontarth. Jump on over to my Instagram. It's realman.cycle over there, the details of the group writer always over on the Instagram and generally just like over on Instagram, like pokes, share pokes, especially of the podcast that makes such a difference. Screen capturing the podcast you're listening to right now, adding that into your stories makes the world of difference and wherever you listen to the podcast, please take two seconds to like it, review it, share it into a group of WhatsApp group with friends that are into cycling, club mates, etc. All that makes such a massive difference. We're on episode 310 folks, this is building serious momentum, it's like pushing a piano up a hill, we're still on the uphill but at some point we're going to hit that downhill and it's going to be run away and I'll only have you guys to thank. Cheers roadmen, ride safe and I'll chat you again on Monday. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the roadman community. It's a challenge, It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guess walk out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner advanced. There's meal plans shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you through at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day