Starting Where You Are

No matter where you are...you can start there. We discuss how to take a moment to figure out where you are, and what you want to come next.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Dramatic pause.

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose.

You can't start something with a dramatic pause.

Well,

I'm breaking the rules,

Man.

There are rules for a reason.

Yeah,

But we felt it.

I got a kick out of us being in a dramatic pause.

It was just you.

I mean,

You know what?

I felt it.

Yeah,

You guys.

The awkward.

Yeah,

You guys were like,

What is he doing?

And that's why I did it.

Most of the time I'm like,

What is he doing?

Yeah,

Me too.

When I'm kind of just going,

Then I'm in it and I'm okay.

But then usually before,

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I know.

I was here before.

Yeah,

We were just talking about that.

And then after,

I usually look back and go,

Okay,

Where did that come from?

So I'm okay in the middle,

Just before and after.

Oh,

Man.

So hey,

Everybody.

How are you?

I'm good.

I was at rhetorical.

Yeah,

I was actually speaking to the audience.

Well,

They can't hear you.

I mean,

They can hear you.

You can't hear them.

Yeah,

They can't respond,

Which is really good.

Oh,

Man.

I get no negative feedback that way.

Yeah,

No,

Because otherwise you definitely would.

What are we talking about today,

Glenn?

Other than nothing.

Other than nothing,

Nothing is almost covered fully.

So after that,

We're talking about starting your journey where you are.

So basically,

I was reading an article earlier,

A friend of mine wrote,

And they were talking about their life and some difficulties that they were having.

And I noticed that the article was all written about the past,

Which led up to where they are.

You know,

So it's true.

It's okay.

That's where we are.

But what that has to do with the future,

You know,

That's where the learning curve comes in,

I think,

Is,

You know,

People will get stuck.

It's,

You know,

Einstein,

I'm sure I've said this before.

Einstein said that you can't solve a problem with the mind that created it.

So what,

You know,

So a lot of times we do need to get outside help to work through this stuff.

But that lands right into our point.

The fact that we kind of get stuck into a negative place is often because of the past,

That's what we've experienced.

So that's what we know.

If we knew different,

We probably wouldn't be where we are now.

You know,

So since that's all we know,

It's hard to look forward.

And it's easy to get caught up in the past.

You know,

And the problem with that is we are constantly creating our future,

You know,

By what we think,

By what we say,

By what we do,

We are constantly creating the future for ourselves.

And if we stay in the box of what has brought us unhappiness up until this point,

Then we're just creating more unhappiness for ourselves in the future.

And that's really what I want to talk about today is how the past happened.

But that's not the end of your story.

That's just where the story is up until now.

You know,

The rest of your story hasn't been written yet.

And you have the ability and the power to write that story.

So you can write whatever you want for the future.

And if you use your past to learn from it,

And go beyond it,

Then you can write one hell of a story,

You know.

If you stay in it,

And be a victim of it,

Then all you're doing is creating more of the same.

You're just writing a story that looks very similar to the past,

You know.

So what do you think about that,

Ben?

Ben I think it's one of the first,

It reminds me of,

I can't believe that we spent over a year without covering this topic.

Because it,

I think it was one of the first things that you ever talked to me about,

Was,

You know,

Wherever you are,

You have to start there.

And that's,

It's just,

It makes sense.

It's one of those things that you hear it.

And it's like you're remembering it.

Ben Yeah,

And it's one of those things that it's,

When it makes,

I just got that,

I do this,

I think everybody does this.

Sometimes we hear things that make sense.

And we go,

Oh,

Yeah,

You know,

Yeah,

And we do,

We kind of remember it.

And then we start thinking about what we need to do next,

You know,

And it just never gets implemented.

There's a lot of little sayings out there that are like that.

Happiness comes from within.

Everybody says that.

And,

But how many people really act like that?

You know,

Really,

Really search within.

It's always,

You know,

There's always a condition we can put on our happiness.

You know,

Oh,

Well,

If I was rich,

You know,

Then,

Then I'd be happy.

If,

You know,

If,

If I lost a certain amount of weight,

Then I'd be happy.

If I had this type of business success,

Then I'd be happy.

If I was in a romantic relationship,

Then I'd be happy.

You know,

It's always something outside of ourselves that it lets us off the hook.

We don't actually have to do the hard work,

You know,

Going inside.

I don't know,

Glenn,

I think that if all four of those things happened,

I would be pretty happy.

Well,

You're mistaken.

So,

And it's,

It's true.

The,

The,

It kind of,

We think that it would make us happy.

But yeah,

We say happiness comes from within.

Well,

That's two different things.

That's,

That's the ego that keeps us in that trap.

You know,

I mean,

The reason,

One of the reasons that I know this is because I've experienced it.

It's,

You know,

The,

I've,

I've had nothing in my life.

I was completely miserable with nothing.

And then the next day I was completely miserable with,

I was completely happy with nothing.

So I,

You know,

So since I experienced that,

I was able to truly feel the happiness knowing that it came from within and that,

You know,

It wasn't because of anything I've acquired.

And there are,

There are thin people that are miserable.

There are rich people that are miserable.

There are people in relationships that are miserable.

You know,

It's,

There are people who are thin,

Rich,

And in relationships that are miserable.

You know,

I mean,

That was one of the most miserable times in my life when,

When I had.

.

.

When you were thin,

Rich and in a relationship?

Yeah.

Well,

That,

That might be exaggerated a little bit.

I wasn't.

.

.

I wish I knew rich Glenn.

I wasn't really rich,

Rich,

But I had bought a house,

You know,

Had a new car and a driveway and,

You know,

Had a nice home,

Had my own business and,

And everything looked good on the outside.

And that was one of the most miserables I've ever been in my life.

When my life sucked,

Yeah,

Did I say miserable?

You said one of the most miserables.

One of the most miserables.

Okay.

That didn't make sense.

The most miserable.

I'm so glad you caught that.

Yeah.

Well,

When it came out,

I was like,

Huh?

And then I just kept going.

But yeah,

That was horrible.

It was a horrible time.

When I was,

When I had nothing and was miserable,

It was easier to handle because I could look around and blame it on everything else.

You know,

It was like,

Well,

I don't have anything.

Of course I'm miserable.

You know,

Then when I got everything and I was miserable,

Then I was like,

Oh no,

Now what?

Like I did everything I was supposed to do in this life.

You know,

I have my own personal training business.

I'm in good shape.

I'm married with a house,

The car.

My son had just been born and I was completely destroyed.

You know,

So it's it doesn't come from all those things.

I just watched a show last week about some new show.

It's called In Deep Shift.

With Jonas Elrod,

I believe is the host name.

And and he had a show on this woman who was overweight,

Had surgery,

Lost a bunch of weight and found she was more unhappy than ever.

You know,

And that's just such a typical situation.

If you find and I'm going to go out on a limb here because I truly believe this.

So I'm going to say it and I might get some flack for it and I don't care.

So if you find me somebody that's lost a bunch of weight and they say they're happy because they lost their weight,

They're wrong every time.

Either one of two things has happened to them.

Either they're lying to themselves and it's going to come up later in life that they're really miserable and they just haven't dealt with it yet.

Or they've done some sort of inner change in their journey to to lose that weight.

You know,

While they were on the journey of losing that weight,

They started loving themselves more.

They started feeling empowered.

So their insides changed along that journey.

But anybody that says just losing the weight made me happy.

They're wrong.

So there I said it.

Send your hate mail to Glen Ambrose dot l e s at gmail.

Com.

Is that your email address?

What would you say?

Send your hate mail.

Yeah.

Yeah,

You can do that.

You send it to g Ambrose dot l e s.

Is that what it is?

I thought it was Glen.

Anyway,

That's GM Bros.

Google it.

Yeah,

Just go to her website.

Life dash enhancing.

That's a great time.

Not a great time to be plugging your stuff.

That's all right.

I don't mind.

I don't mind fielding the questions.

You know,

It's sometimes sometimes fielding that and getting the other side of the argument.

You know,

One,

Hopefully it's going to enlighten that person.

And even if it doesn't,

What it's going to do is it's going to sharpen my focus even more.

You know,

That's one of the reasons why I like doing this podcast is because as I'm talking about things,

As these things are coming out of me,

It's coming in the forefront of my consciousness.

And I'm getting clarity on it,

Too.

You know,

And that's one of the beauties of just not scripting these things.

You know,

I think the thing that I like the most about the podcast is that I'm not really thinking about it as much as maybe I should be like it coming to the forefront of my mind when we're doing it.

And then like three weeks later when I listen to it,

I'm like,

I could use that right now.

Yeah,

Which usually happens.

Divine timing.

Yeah,

Most of the time it's that's one thing I've done with a couple people recently is just had them when they had a question,

Say,

OK,

What type of self help book or spiritual book?

It could be anything that you have around the house.

And a lot of people will have if if they're interested in working on themselves at all,

They have at least one like spiritual book could be the Bible could be anything.

And I tell them just to get that get the question that you have in your head of what you're concerned about and ask for some guidance and then just open up to the book to whatever page,

Whatever page.

Just don't even think about it.

Just open up the book and start looking on the page.

And then you'll see the two pages that you opened up to and you'll find something in those two pages that's going to help you.

I've done that with people lots of times.

I haven't done it for a while,

But just recently I've done it like twice.

I was at the Life Enhancement Center and somebody was like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I've got that book at home.

And oh,

I was wondering about this.

I was like,

Oh,

All right.

I just take the book and I just had them think what their question was or what their concern was and open up the book and it popped right to the right to the page that that had their answers.

You know,

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

The signs are around.

The help is around.

If we open up and look for it,

You know.

So the flip side,

I want to get to the flip side of this issue,

This start where you are issue is the it's not over.

We talked about this a little bit before we started the idea that if you are doing things,

If you have implemented changes,

If you are heading in the right direction,

If you have gotten some level of success,

If you have maintained your happiness and done self work and all of this stuff,

Say you're a fan of the podcast and you've implemented all of the 26 or so.

Yeah,

Lessons from the first year.

You're a superstar and you're a superstar.

Are you done?

Heck no.

That's the beauty of it.

It's you're just and you know,

That's actually a little bit of a concern with people too.

Sometimes they think that if they give themselves credit for where they are or what they've done,

That they'll find that they'll be complacent and won't want to move forward.

That's the case,

You know,

Success breeds success.

When you're when you're feeling good and doing things,

You're empowered to feel good and do more.

And it's so it's it's easier,

I think,

For somebody to grasp that has success.

Like,

Like we're talking about my life enhancement center.

It's like,

Okay,

Well,

Now I'm in there.

I do,

You know,

So,

Okay,

That's something I wanted,

I achieved it now.

Am I supposed to be all like happy fulfilled and just sit there for the next 30 years and retire?

Absolutely not.

You know,

This is just another beginning.

This is,

I mean,

I'm,

I'm just warming up,

You know,

So I'm excited for what the future holds.

And all this accomplishment did was give me more confidence and more of a platform to launch off of into the future.

It's,

You know,

This is by no means the end of my story.

It's just,

This is,

It's,

You know,

I've heard it said it's the first day of the rest of my life.

Today is the first day.

And I can start.

And I used to tell my son this a lot when we're younger.

When,

Well,

Yeah,

We were younger,

I was gonna say when he was younger,

But I was.

Yeah,

That,

That's the realization made you chuckle so much.

That's what I was just thinking too.

I was like,

Yeah,

I got to check a lot of that.

But when he was younger,

I used to,

You know,

He'd get upset about something and then he'd,

He'd just brood about it and just be upset.

And I taught him that you can start your day over as many times as you want.

And I'm sure I've said that on this podcast before.

You know,

Just start your day over.

Well,

You get to start your life over too.

Whenever you want,

As many times as you want,

You know,

So it's just draw a line in the sand now.

Be like,

Okay,

What's the,

What's the next portion of my story going to look like?

And start writing it.

And,

You know,

One of the best things we can do is write.

So you can literally write your story on paper and write it out.

And that's going to,

That's going to help.

It's a wonderful tool to use to start creating your future because our thoughts create our future.

Our words and our actions create our future.

You know,

So if,

If we talk about things in a positive way,

If we think about the future in a positive way,

If we take action in positive ways,

Positive things are going to come.

It's going to,

You know,

The only time we don't see,

And I mean,

I have experienced this plenty in my life.

You know,

I've got the,

I can be the one with the big dreams and,

And pie in the sky thoughts and all this stuff.

And then all of a sudden get frustrated because it hasn't manifested over,

You know,

A couple of years.

And I can get frustrated.

Be like,

Why am I doing all this work?

I've been there,

You know.

But it's every time if I take an honest look at myself and really start looking at what is,

What is the majority of my thoughts?

Am I living consciously?

Am I getting caught up in the day to day doing of things?

Are past beliefs about money and lack taking me over?

Do I think about that when I think about money?

Do I get excited about how much I'm going to have?

Or do,

Do I get fearful because I lived in lack for so long and how am I ever going to overcome that?

And if I'm honest with myself,

When I am,

When the money is slowing down,

Then my thoughts and my fears about money are increasing.

You know,

So I have to,

I have to work on that and pull back my fears and really focus on the future and,

And how bright and wonderful my story is going to be as I continue to write it.

And be grateful for what I have and what's coming in the future.

All that,

You know,

That,

That's how we shape our thoughts and,

And our actions and our words and start creating a future that's different than the present.

But it's,

You know,

Whether we have success,

If you have success,

Most often,

Most often you're going to want more of it.

So you're going to keep moving forward.

Every once in a while people get complacent and then they get,

You know,

Then they try staying where they are and they find out that they can't.

And now we can never stay where we are.

We're constantly moving,

Expanding.

Otherwise,

You know,

I think I was talking to you about this.

It's,

You know,

We think that we're like a car on a hill.

And we think that if we're in neutral,

We're just staying there and we're not.

Yeah.

If we're in neutral,

We are rolling back down the hill.

You said that to me,

I think yesterday.

You said there's no such thing as neutral.

Yeah,

We're either going forward or we're going back.

There's no just staying,

You know.

So if,

If,

If somebody does achieve something and they get complacent with it,

It's not going to take them too long to,

For them to start getting itchy because they're either going to be going backwards or they,

They're going to be like,

They're going to be feeling that pull to move forward and they either act on it or they're going to go backwards.

You know,

That's what life is.

Life is expansion,

Growth.

It's,

You know,

It's never just sitting there,

Not doing anything and expecting to be happy.

There's no happiness in that.

All right.

So it is time for our quote.

Quote.

Our quote of the episode.

This one has to do with our topic today,

Obviously.

Oh good.

It had nothing to do with our topic.

It'd be a foolish quote.

All right.

It is.

Sometimes they are.

Okay.

So this is start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can.

Arthur Ash.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's experienced some success in his life.

Who is Arthur Ash?

Tennis player.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can.

Yeah.

And that's,

That's it.

You know,

That that's all we have to do.

If there is nobody that has succeeded with things other than that.

You know,

Everybody has started where they are and used what they had to go wherever they went to.

Everybody has started somewhere and everybody's got issues.

You know,

And the thing with with the our childhood issues is,

You know,

We either learn from them and grow from them and and use them to propel us forward.

Or we hang on to them and we're victimized by them and we are held back by them.

It's you know,

It's one of the two.

So if we can take where we are,

Accept that whatever happened in our past happened.

And,

You know,

A lot that something like that,

I mean,

Most people,

Including myself,

Need help with that.

You know,

I mean,

There's people my whole life that told me,

You know,

Oh,

Just,

You know,

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and push on.

And I did that many,

Many times.

And I just kept sinking further and further and further because I never dealt with what was bothering me.

You know,

I never dealt with my issues.

Right.

So I needed to have some help to work through my issues.

But once I did,

They became assets.

You know,

There's no way in heck I could be doing this podcast,

Helping people in all the different ways that I help people.

If I hadn't been through what I had been through and I get fulfillment and happiness by doing this podcast and helping people.

So what brings me joy comes from difficult times.

You know,

I can draw a direct line to those and most people that that are successful can do the same.

So it's just that we're going to learn from it and grow from it.

And again,

I do.

I think that we need going back to Einstein's quote,

You know,

We can't solve a problem with the mind that created it.

A lot of times we need to get that outside help so we can adjust our perspectives on what has happened.

Feel it,

Work through it and then use it to our benefit.

And it's.

That is the best way to help people.

That's the best way to help others.

You know,

It's if we want we want to move.

Move through things,

You know,

Everybody wants to help others.

It's this this article that I read earlier was about helping others.

It was,

You know,

That was the intention behind it.

It was to help others.

And it's like,

OK,

Let's.

Let's what's the rest of the story?

What's the that's where the help comes,

You know,

And you touched on it before.

It's like the fact that I have a life enhancement center now is.

Beneficial to my audience because they can see me moving forward through the work that I have done.

That is what motive.

That's what's exciting to people.

That's what motivates people,

You know,

And I sure as heck started where I was,

Right where I was.

Got very clear on where I was,

Understood where I was,

And then started working with what I had,

Which what I had was nothing.

You know,

Except a different perspective,

I just started looking at things differently.

And then now.

It's I have a completely different life.

That's not necessarily true.

You had a what you had that you used to work with was a.

Particular set of skills.

That you had honed from the time that you were unhappy.

And you figured out how to use them.

Yeah,

But I didn't have that when I started.

Like when I when I was when I just started to change my life,

I didn't I didn't hone.

I didn't have honed skills.

Right.

I honed them over years.

No,

But you had you had.

You had a you had a foundation you had done personal training when you weren't.

So then and I know that you didn't even do that for a while after.

Yeah,

I didn't have it.

Training for like six years for.

Yeah.

But then once you but then once somebody said remember like that used to bring you joy.

And you were like,

You know,

That that opportunity,

Then you were able to use something that you have,

Which is the background of this.

You figured it out.

I mean,

It didn't happen right away.

Right.

But when you eventually found out,

Oh,

I have something I have a vague memory of how to do this.

Let me let me get better.

And you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you were able to use you were able to use what you had,

Which were past experiences,

Even though they might have been negative to help you towards the positive.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

You can always use what what you have.

You're right.

Yeah.

So it's it's I I had nothing on on the outside.

Right.

Yeah.

You know,

And we all have plenty on the inside.

I mean,

Yeah,

I had plenty.

We've all you know,

Nobody has lived 15 years,

30 years,

50 years or 80 years without accruing life experiences that can benefit them once they decide to turn them around and use them for good.

You know,

So yeah,

That's it's as soon as I changed my perspective.

That was the thing that changed everything.

You know,

I had all those life experiences,

Good and bad.

When I was 34 years old and I was a complete mess.

Then when I was 35 years old,

Those life experiences,

I said,

You I changed my perspective and inside using them for good and started writing my new story.

And that's when everything started to change.

You know,

So it's as long as I was in this this kind of I think this is a good wrap up for it.

It's like this is where we started.

So when I was 34,

My past was dictating my future.

Because 35 and 36 and 37 were going to look just like the previous 34 years,

You know,

But then I had to change your perspective and start looking at things differently.

Then all the negative experiences turned to positive because I was able to use them in a positive way.

Then I was able to start writing my new story.

And it's in my kitchen.

I have something I got in the mail years ago.

Few years after I moved up.

Well,

It might have been like five,

Six years ago.

And it was from a local college,

You know,

Looking for students.

And somehow they had gotten my name and in big letters,

It says Glenn,

It's not too late to change your story.

And I saved that I've saved that for years and years and years.

And I have it in my kitchen still to this day where I see it on a regular basis.

It's not too late to change your story.

You know,

It's never too late to change our story.

But what we need to do is change how we're looking at it,

Change our perspectives.

Then we can use our past story to create a new,

Better one in the future.

And like you said earlier with the Einstein quote,

You can't you can't solve a problem with the brain that created it.

Yeah.

You know,

Sometimes you need help doing this.

You had to help.

I had help perspective.

I've had help changing perspective,

Which obviously was you.

And if people want to find you for that help,

How can they do that?

They can find me at that.

Do you like that segue?

That was phenomenal.

I kind of saw it coming.

Oh,

Yeah.

Everybody saw it coming.

He was a shill a mile away.

Go ahead.

You can reach me on Facebook at Life Enhancement Services.

You can reach me on my website,

Life-enhancement-services.

Com and my personal Facebook page,

Glenn Ambrose with two N's.

And and the Life Enhancement Center at 2076 New Sneck Hill Road in Coventry,

Rhode Island.

02816.

You can send all that fan mail there.

All right.

Well,

Thank you,

Ben.

Thank you,

Dave.

Thank you,

Audience.

And we'll talk to you soon.

This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions,

Executive producers Glenn Ambrose,

Benjamin Barber and David DeAngelis.

Reviews

Thank you for the enlightenment ❤️🙏 Your podcasts are a joy to listen to.

Excellent points as always, thanks Glenn and Ben 💜 x

Beautiful words! Inspirational! Actions we take to help ourselves and others are our prayers. It's about intention.

Wow, inspiring and informative!! Thank you!!

Very practical & motivating

I absolutely love Glenn’s talks! ❤️❤️

You and Ben continue to provide such helpful and meaningful insight. I have yet to listen to an episode that didn't open my eyes or shift my perspective for the better. Congratulations on nearing the 100 episode mark. Here's to 100 more!

Very helpful. Learn to change my perspective!!!

Thank you 💜 I will start my new story from right here

Another great podcast. Insightful, compassionate n practical advice. Thank u!

Glenn Rocks! Such a great help if you are stuck in the "If Only" mindset
Thank you!❤️🙏🏻🦋

Excellent discussion on being present and tips on being HERE.
Enjoy listening to you two very much.
Thanks for your insights.

Loved this - I needed this right now. Am struggling with moving on after divorce but I see my adult kids struggling also and that is my main issue. It has been years and I assumed they were fine but in reality they are not. I am really concerned and want to help them,