Rusty Osborne

Get angry.

People don’t always like that I say it.
But seriously. Get angry.

Get angry that you’re not further along.
Get angry that you’ve held yourself back.
Get angry that you’ve let yourself stay stuck in the same problems for too long.

Because anger creates action.

Not all angry actions are helpful. So use your brain too.

Use your anger to start something new.
To begin a new system.
To break an old paradigm.

Get fu***ng angry.

Sadness will leave you mopey and still.
Grief will keep you sad and in one place.
Even gratitude for a problem won’t solve it. (Sorry positive thinkers.)
Get mad. Do something about it.

You don’t have to stay mad.

But get mad enough to get yourself out of the issue. For real.

Perfectionism is a bitch.

Because two things are happening in your brain at the same time.

On one hand, you want to do a great job. You like doing a great job.

But on the other hand, you need to get it done. Faster. Because you have so much more you need to
do.

Can you do both? Is it possible?

It’s possible. You’ll find your way to do it. But only after you heal the mental block that’s causing it.

Your need to be perfect came from somewhere.

It showed up when you were young to keep you safe. Safe could mean physically safe. Like you’d get hit if you weren’t perfect.

Or maybe it kept you socially safe. Like you’d get made fun of if you weren’t perfect.

So if you go back and heal that root cause memory, you’ll learn more about how to be perfectly
imperfect.

Because you know what’s worse than doing something bad?

Not finishing it at all, because you tried to get it perfect.

What I don’t want you to know about me today…

I spent over $150 on chocolate products and cookies in the last two weeks.

I lost sleep because I was busy playing video games while eating those cookies.

And I didn’t want to work yesterday because I lost that sleep.

So I sound like the best “high performer” to learn from right now 😬

Here’s why I did those things. I’m testing a new idea this month called “acceptable failures.”

I learned that some really successful people choose what to fail at. They know which ball they’re going to drop. And they drop it.

So I decided that this New Rusty will eat more sugar than normal. Which led to worse recovery and lower will-power. Sooo the cookies and late nights got to me. Oops.

But New Rusty also is not drinking. Not watching TV with dinner. And he’s working harder on his business this season than the last few.

There’s a few friction points… but they’re worth the trade off.

My marriage is better and deeper. My faith is better and deeper. I’m physically stronger because my workouts have been on point. And my business is bringing in more moolah than before.

Think about it - You know what to do but you’re not doing it. Right?

You’ve got to start working more ON instead of IN your business.

You’ve got to finally build out the new products, write the book, put yourself first.

You’ve got to do the work you’ve been putting off for so long, because more urgent things are taking your time and focus.

But your success doesn’t wait for that.

It’s on the other side of right action.

When I was fat, I had a good idea. I didn’t have too many of those at the time, so this was exciting.

I’d do what the skinny people were doing.

They were skinny. I wasn’t. So I figured I’d just follow their lead.

They ran on the beach. So I started running on the beach.

After a while, I hurt myself from running too much while fat. I didn’t know I had to strengthen my muscles and joints to support all the fat I was carrying.

So if I couldn’t run, what could I do? I knew skinny people ate healthier than me. So I decided to fix my nutrition.

That’s when things really took off. But I did one thing different this time.

I didn’t try to just manifest a healthy body. I didn’t visualize my skinniest or most muscular self.

Instead I said to myself “I’m going to be the healthiest person you’ve ever met.”

So then my only job was to do what a healthy person would do. If I had two choices, I’d just ask which was healthier. It was easy.

The point here is that most people that want to manifest a bunch of money or a dream business are looking in the wrong place.

If you’re only visualizing the final thing, you’d have to have a ton of imagination and action to get there.

But for mere mortals like me, I needed some smaller steps. Something easier to manage. Like “Who do I want to be? Who would naturally have the results I want?”
I knew a healthy person would weigh less. So I’d rather be healthy.

So, over to you…

What kind of person would you need to be, who’d naturally have what you want?

Think on that one. And tomorrow I’ve got something to help you do this.

I’ve got some introspections to throw your direction.

1. Go outside.
If you feel anxious, go outside. Depressed? Go outside. Feeling good? Go outside.

2. Nature heals.
It may not be instant, but enough time outside and you’ll see new solutions to your problems.

3. Chemicals impact your brain.
For me, decaf hikes have more nature appreciation. Caffeinated hikes solve more business problems (but sometimes come with more anxiety).
If you don’t experiment, you don’t know your options.

4. Brain impacts your chemicals.
If you spiral on anxious thoughts, you’ll stir up more cortisol. Which will blow through your adrenal hormones and cause burnout faster.
But your thoughts are what start that spiral. Solve the thoughts, you’ll calm your nervous system faster.

5. The higher you fly, the more grounded you need to be.
The weeks that I have tons of free time, I can skip more meditations and still feel amazing.
But the weeks that have lots of work to do, I do two meditations per day. So I stay grounded, clear, and inspired.

6. Create more ceremony around your work.
Say a little prayer before you work. Take a deep breath before you start zoom. Say “thank you” when you close up for the day.
It’ll ground you, and keep you more present. So the day doesn’t fly by without you realizing it.

That’s what’s on my mind today. I’m practicing these things and thought you’d find them useful.

Most people are sitting on problems they’ve had for years.

“I can’t let people know how bad my finances are.”
“I’ve been dealing with this health issue for years!”
“My husband and I don’t really talk anymore, it’s been a long time since we really connected regularly.”

One day, the pain of the problem gets so bad that you finally do something about it…
But what keeps us from seeing the problem and the solutions to it sooner?

It’s pretty simple. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Think about this: the thing that makes you FINALLY say enough is enough is… what? Do you know? I do.

Pain.

Once the pain is strong enough, you move. It’s biological and psychological. You can’t help but move or change when the pain feels bad enough. But then why do some people let problems fester so long?

They’ve figured out ways to not feel the pain.

Avoidance. Distractions. Bad habits. Addictions. Numbing.

So if you want to change your big problems faster…
Or if you want to see your problems when they’re small, and change them before they’re big…
You got one job.

Feel.

Get present to the pain, and feel it. For real. Is it uncomfortable? Duh. It’s pain.

But tune in! Don’t tune out.

P.S. I’m flabbergasted by how much energy and life I’ve felt since I stopped watching TV two weeks ago. I had no clue how much it was sapping my energy. Cutting out worse habits gives back even more.

And gives me more time to reflect on the Into the Wild Within Retreat in Iceland. .within

This winter was a bust.

We hardly got any snow. I mean, when it hit, I enjoyed it… but it was so minimal compared to the past few years here.

I spend a lot of time wishing for better. Like, when you give me a bowl of vanilla ice cream, I’ll eat it while thinking about how it would be better with chocolate syrup. Instead of enjoying the vanilla fully.

So now that spring is in full swing here — full of birds, bees, battlestar galactica (jk i’m not watching TV right now) — I’m having to remind myself to ENJOY IT.

The trees went from bare, to blooming flowers, to shedding flowers in like 2 weeks. It goes by so fast.

So I’m working on remembering this lesson in my life and in my business:

Embrace the season.

I’m in a season where I’m coaching a lot. I’m spending more time on zoom than I’ve done in a long time.

And I’m really enjoying it right now.

But there’ll be a time where I won’t have all these calls. I’ll have another business model built, or hell maybe a whole different business.

And that’s when I’ll look back and remember how great this season was… IF I embrace it fully now.

Even if you’re in a rough patch - can you embrace it? Surrender to the sh*ttiness of it, and learn from it?

Or if life is great - surrender and feel how great feels now?

Everything ends.

Embrace what you’ve got while you’ve got it. (Rusty, I’m talking to you.)

Call me weird if you want, but I love doing the dishes. Because while I’m there my thoughts organize and clarity shows up. Like shower thoughts, but in the kitchen.

Last night I realized I’ve been beating myself up a bit the last few days. While I was in Iceland, I journaled daily to catch my insights and thoughts. So many things happened there, I knew I wouldn’t remember it all unless I wrote it down.

But now I’ve been home a whole week from my trip, and I still haven’t finished going through my journal to review those learnings. So I felt like I’m wasting the money I spent to go there, by not reviewing my journal and remembering what happened.

While doing the dishes last night, The Voice spoke clearly and corrected me:

“I didn’t send you to Iceland to worry about what you wrote in the journal. I sent you there to learn how to act differently and more authentically.
Don’t live in the past. Even if the past was great.
Live now, and authentically express yourself in every moment. Create from your New You.”

I quit worrying about my journal in that moment. And I told Nikki - “Let’s get ice cream now, it’ll be fun.” Taking action instead of thinking about what action I wasn’t taking.

Even though I’ve got lots more learnings I’d love to share with you from my trip… it’s more important to show that I’ve changed than to tell what I’ve changed. Example speaks louder than words, right?

This might be too much for a Thursday morning... But I think I figured out the meaning of life.

Here’s the deal. We have a body with all these different parts to it, right?

And each part serves its own purpose.

The liver detoxes. Lungs breathe. The brain thinks (way too much sometimes). Legs walk.

And the better each part does its job, the better we function.

I mean, if the liver tried to take the hand’s job, it would suck. It doesn’t have fingers. And we’d die by not filtering toxins.

So now let’s zoom out...

Throughout human history, we’ve worked together.

Some hunt, some collect berries. Someone is the medicine man/woman of the tribe, and someone is the chief.

Plus, we’re all born naturally gifted in different ways. As if we were given these gifts to play our specific role better.

If Life put you HERE… with YOUR specific gifts… at THIS specific time… with THESE specific people around you…

Don’t you think there’s a purpose to that?

I think the whole point is this: Be as fully and authentically YOU as you possibly can be.

That doesn’t mean “scrolling and sending memes for two hours a day,” even if it feels “natural” to you.

The point isn’t ease or comfort. It’s expression. Really DOING things with what Life gave you.

You have skills. You have gifts. You have natural capabilities and tendencies you were born with.

So let’s state it more clearly...

The purpose of life is Full expression of your authenticity.

And think about this…

The greatest gift you can give back to Life is to create fully with the gifts Life gave you. Create what Creation created you for. And why wouldn’t I want to give back to the Life for all it’s given me?

I didn’t ask for my gifts. I was given them. So it’s up to me to use them.

And it’s on you to use yours.

So shine bright mo********er!

Iceland finally let me leave.

I’d been “stuck” there an extra couple days than planned, since the flights all got canceled for weather.

Which was fu***ng awesome.

I wasn’t ready to leave. I needed time to integrate everything I’d learned over the last couple weeks. Time to practice being the New Me.

So Iceland said “You got it, here’s some insane winds so that planes can’t leave.”

But now I’m finally back in my cozy hobbit hole, with a new problem: I’m afraid.

I changed while I was gone. I shed a lot of my bu****it. I saw how I wasn’t being authentic. I saw where I wasn’t being who God made me to be. And chose to leave that behind.

But now I’m afraid of the comfort of home. I’m afraid that warm weather and easy routines will pull me back into the “old me” instead of the me I decided to be.

It was way more comfortable to be in the pain of icy cold plunges, deep inner shedding, and Iceland blizzards.

I’d half-jokingly said “hurt me” the last handful of days. Because that pain was more comfortable than the pain of changing my “real” life.

But that’s the point of pain, isn’t it? To make you confront yourself so you can change.

So here’s what I’m doing now. I’m putting systems in place to protect the new me. I’m not letting old Rusty back in the driver’s seat. New Rusty runs the show now.

I’m afraid of falling back. But I won’t let that fear stop me.