5.23 /// Redefining Success: A Journey Beyond Expectations

Welcome back to episode 5.23 in the new format . Well , it's not a new format anymore . I've been doing this for the entire series and I've pretty much swapped all my old episodes out for this format as well . So , welcome , welcome . Welcome , though , and how are you ?

If it's your first episode with me , then welcome , and if it's not , then welcome anyway , um , yeah , so today's episode , I just wanted to go through some , you know , some some thoughts really about what represents success in life , in in this journey we go through , and what does that mean to you and other people ? And do you need you know ?

Do you feel like you do it for respect ? You do it feel like you do it for respect ? Do you do it for yourself ? Do you do it for that appreciation from others ? Yeah , so I've got a few themes today .

So how this comes about is mainly because I've always , like I've never really known what I should do with my life , really kind of kind of um , I don't know .

My mental state has always given me multiple paths to go down , and I'm quite lucky , and I don't want this to come across as um cocky or big-headed or anything like that , but I I'm I'm not a stupid guy , I'm quite clever , um , in some aspects more than others , like everyone else , and I think I have quite a rounded intelligence and I can hold my own , I

think , with many types of people , and I don't know if that was because the way I was brought up and my kind of social stature , I don't know . I lived in an area when I was growing up in between like a nice area and a bad area , so I had mates or people I knew for the 30 really that were from rougher places .

I could integrate with them as well as integrate from the people from the nicer areas , as well as the people that were from the place I was from . I feel like I've always been able to metamorphosis into this um , I don't want to say character , but I I can .

I can basically get along with anyone really and hold , hold a conversation , um to a good level I would say I'm don't really like politics . That's probably where I'm weakest on . But general history I'm not too bad on . Um .

Don't ask me detailed questions , obviously I'm I'm a generalist , but you know I I have , I have wide spanning knowledge , I would say um , but I also like to listen and contribute as well . So I think I'm quite a reasonable conversationalist . Um . I try to be at least name .

I know sometimes I can talk too much , hence I started this work , this podcast , um to try and get some of it out , um , but I do love to listen to people's stories , so if you ever , ever have a conversation with me and I'm ranting on about something , just tell me to wind my neck in .

Um , not here , though , because this is the whole idea of this podcast . This is , this is brattle . This is this is infinite brattle . Forever ramblings , um , but yeah , for me that was um .

I think that's kind of how I've always been and because of that it's given me a lot of opportunity , I think , in what my thinking of a career could be , if that makes sense .

So not , not , not a stupid person fits in with lots of people saw a lot of life in my early kind of career on the railway , because that's where I work now and it's kind of been a common career and not meant to be , but it's where I sit now in the rail industry and I started that as a kind of a temporary job but kind of fell into it and my planned

career path was the army and that's really the only thing I've ever really really , really , really wanted to do , apart from maybe be a rock star , uh , musician , um , but yeah , I think the whole army thing .

And there's another episode , a couple of series back I think it might be series three , series two maybe where I talk briefly about my escapades with failing to join the army . There's a reason behind it . Then I joined the railway and you know , money starts coming in and then you know , kind of the world beats your dreams out of you .

I know that sounds terrible and stereotypical , but life just keeps going and flowing and it doesn't wait for you . I mean , if I could go back , I don't really regret anything . But if I could go back and maybe kick myself up the arse a bit , I think that I may have pursued other areas of life and I'm not old , I can still do that , I am trying to .

But I think I started other things , maybe progressed them a little bit or at least kept up the general level . I was on for things . So my music slipped away a little bit because I let people tell me what to do a little bit and beat me down , so it kind of took a sideline . And the same with writing and stuff like that .

I think people get the impression of me that I'm very , very confident , and I'm'm not . I am to a point , but like most people , I have doubts and fears and and if you tell me something after enough that it probably won't happen , then I'm probably going to believe you at some point . Um , yeah , but life gets in the way , doesn't it ?

You know , you , you want to do all these things and I I really appreciate people that you know really go for what they want and they have an idea and they follow it and they chase it up , and but everything takes money and time and effort , and you know , when you're doing 12-hour shifts and you're paying for everything managing a house and stuff you know

having that , having that extra bit of oomph , is hard to find sometimes . Um , but anyway , what's this got to do with ? What's a good pointer of , of success ? Um , I've not become a millionaire . I I've not really done the things I was hoping to . I'm 41 , uh , I've done a lot of things , though , and I'm always .

I think maybe part of the issue with me is I can always see the optimistic side , which is a really , really good thing , but it also is bad , because I can talk myself out of being in a rut , and that rut sometimes pushes you forward , so I can almost kind of convince myself that you're where you're meant to be and it's okay .

Don't beat yourself up , where sometimes , I maybe should beat myself up and give myself a bit of push to do the thing that I want to do . I don't know if any of this is making sense , um , but anyway . Um , I had a nice talk to my dad the other day .

We went for a coffee at lunchtime , uh , I popped out of work , we had lunch together , we had a nice chat , and he basically said that you know he was , he was proud of me , which is nice .

He thought it was a bit awkward for him to say , because , you know , he's a man's , man's man , and he just wanted to let me know that he was proud of where I am in life . It was really lovely . It kind of sparked this thing in me that , as hard as we are ourselves , sometimes you are where you are .

And if you had aspirations of being a mega movie star and you're not , if you tried , then that's great . If you didn't , then still try . You know there's time for everyone . There's literally time for everyone . And I'm trying a few ventures . I've got some stuff on the side .

I'm trying to do a bit of writing and you know I've got my book , that I'm trying to do , a couple of books I'm trying to do and I'm trying to do my media stuff and I'm doing the podcast and I don't know where that's going to take me , whether that suddenly becomes successful , whether some people start listening to this podcast and it takes off .

That really doesn't worry me . I've got the band as well and I've really enjoyed the whole process of picking , picking up the guitar again and singing and I really , really want to push that . I'd really like to , you know , really push my music .

And again , if that's just me singing in a pub to some people that really enjoy what I'm doing and know what the band's doing , then that's fine by me .

I think for me , the main part of where all this comes from because I joined the railway maybe had a bit of an easy in because my dad worked there , but I've got to where I am now just by , you know , keeping my nose clean , going to work and just showing up and you know when it was needed , listening when it was needed to talking , and I don't feel like

I've made , I don't feel like it's been too much of an effort and I don't feel like I've made I don't feel like it's been too much of an effort , but I suppose that in itself is the effort . That in itself is the key .

It's just to keep showing up and keeping your nose clean and doing what you're told and going that extra mile sometimes and trying to be happy and nice to people . I think that goes a long way and I hope that in all the jobs I've had that you know , people have thought you know , oh , he's good at his job or you know , never , ever messed up .

But I hope they realize that it was never intentional and that I've rectified any mistakes that I've ever made , whether it be towards someone or anything like

that . It sounds like a very , very sounds like a very um counseling session this , but I just wanted to . I was , I was where I'm going with all this is . I've got to where I am today , um , through a little bit of luck , but just perseverance , and you know you have to learn things in life .

When you buy your own house it's a massive thing , um , and just learning that responsibility of learning to keep keep things going . And , yeah , my dreams , some of my dreams , dreams had to go , maybe push to the side a little bit , because maybe I thought they weren't possible or work got in the way or I lost interest or lost hope .

But I think the biggest thing for me was when I started working full-time and I owned a house . It was very much a pressure of I'm the only one that can do this . I can't like stop work and blah , blah , blah , um , because obviously the responsibility of a house um well , you can't .

You actually have lots of time in the day , uh , and if anyone's ever read the Arnold Schwarzenegger's um autobiography , he actually basically says , like you know , you sleep for seven , eight hours , you work maybe for seven or eight hours . You've still got like eight or nine hours in the day left , depending on you how you break that down .

Um , so that's a lot , you know , it's a lot of time really , and I think recent times it's got worse . I'm trying to , I'm trying to reel myself back from that and that's why , you know , I push this podcast and I put this podcast out there , but I'm also I'm not bothered about pushing it too much .

You know I don't want to like spend all my hours when I'm not at my main job pushing social media content , which I probably should be doing if I wanted to be a success success . But I also need my own downtime and some of that because I have so many hobbies .

Another reason I'll get back to that is in my brain I have so many things I'd love to do and then I can't fix Satan one , and then I just don't want to do anything and that's a . That's a big thing for me . I'm trying to really work on . That is like , if I've decided to like write some of my book , then I make a time for that .

I don't feel guilty about the things that I'm not then doing , be it housework or other tasks or you know . Something like that is this is how I feel at the time and I need to go and do that , or I've allocated time for that and that's what I'm going to do .

And I've talked about this before on the show , about how my brain works and it doesn't always work for me . Um , like a lot of people , this is something I'm I'm learning and it's taken me a while to get to this place . I don't think maybe I regret is I didn't get to this point like 15 , 20 years ago . Um , who knows where I'd be now ?

Um , but you know , you've got to grow as a person and but the biggest thing is , you know what do you rate yourself on ? How do you know you're successful ? Um , because a lot of people rate success as money and a lot of people rate success as the , the material items you have .

And I think I'm extremely lucky , um , because at 41 , I have a house with a smallish mortgage , to be fair for my age . Um , I have a car , I've got a motorcycle , you know . I've got my collectibles , you know , and then I'm so looking to have my wife .

You know I didn't mention her first , but you know , um , I wasn't mentioning things in the order of importance , um , but my wife , sarah , I'm so lucky to to have her and I've got my dog . And when you look at the things collectively , yes , I'm not a millionaire and I don't have .

Maybe the life that I ideally would like is like disposable income and time to travel , and when I'm going to try and make that time now , I think , when I make that happen . Uh , the more and more I get into like a more comfortable place , more confident place as I get older and these things become more easy .

Well , they should do , um , and I think we are our own blockers to things . So , if you think you're not successful but you're paying rent and you've got a job and you're holding a job down , then you are successful .

There's just a scale , like anything , and I I would say , on the very base level , if you're still alive and breathing and you haven't give up , you're still successful , like and that's a whole different topic of what happens when you hit rock bottom .

But I think I think for me , if you know , if you're here on earth and you and you're trying , and no matter what that trying is , then you know you're successful .

Um , I just it just triggered me in my mind that my dad basically said that to me um , there's some stuff going on personal life and I'm not gonna get into it , but I think I think he just felt that I needed that bit of , a bit of an arm around me and a bit of that to be the thing that's not said to be said .

Let's say which I think I did need . To be honest , I'm not one that would seek appraisal from my parents or anyone really , but a bit of validation every so often does go a long way , because I do try , I do try a lot and I'm always trying to be there for people . And it's hard , it's hard .

I am , in general , I would say , the person that people come to , but I never really go to anyone . Um , and it can be hard when it seems everything's one way and I make that situation myself , and it's the same with work . Like that's how I am with work .

I push and , push and push and never seem to get anything back out of it until the last couple years . Last couple years I've really felt there's been a bit of a change career-wise .

I'm enjoying what I'm doing , I'm seeing some active worth you know worth from my , my job and seeing results from my job , seeing feedback from my job and seeing results from my job , seeing feedback from my job , and it's been actually quite a pleasure .

I've got a spark for work again and if that's also like sparked my personal projects as well , which is good , you know , I think , yeah , my job might not be my ideal job , but it's a good job , I think I'm good at it and , yeah , I like my job , which is quite lucky really .

I think people say , like , if you go to work and you enjoy what you do , it's not a job . No , I enjoy what I do . To be honest , it's not a chore for me . I'm reasonably well paid for what I do , I think . And yeah , I think that the last couple of years have like probably lowered stress levels , especially recently .

Now I've got used to my job a little bit , I think that , and I've got my first big project over at Christmas , over the line , and I think that that will really help me in my personal achievements and trying to like hone them now . So definitely with the podcast stuff and the video stuff .

I'm not making any promises , though , because you know we're all human and I don't want to put any pressure on myself and as much as I kind of criticize , probably like the next generation of people , for basically trying to get that home , work-life balance and extract etc .

And I think people , a lot of people , do have pipe dreams of being like famous youtubers and stuff . Uh , rather than actually thinking about what career do I need ? You know , I have to set up a pension , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah .

We all do things our own way , but success is measured on , I think , especially today is money is what you have , what you're showing off , and it doesn't reflect right on social media . You're on social media . It warps your reality of what success is like . Standing in front of a mirror trying clothes on , you know pranking people , um , reviewing products online .

You know all these people that do these jobs . It's , it's amazing that people are making money out of being sent products to review them and millions of people watch them . I'm one of them people .

I'm one of them people that watches content creators create these contents , but it's not real and I think too many people of reality walked about what , what is actually real and what is achievable . But then I've got so much say on this subject , I'm trying to trying to be concise and it's really difficult for me .

I think the biggest thing is how then you measure your own success if you're not doing what you want to do ? And how would you push for that if you think it's even possible ? And I would personally say don't not push for that .

But you've also got to live in reality and think that a small number of people probably actually do what they want to do and it's probably holding a talent . I think that's probably the thing .

Over the years I've I've thought myself many times that , um , probably again due to my attention span and having so many interests , I've never really become an expert of anything . Uh , my actual full-time job people would probably class me as an expert in , which is kind of cool .

But then in my personal life , with my musical um instrument playing just slid off , you know , from what I used to be , from what I used to be , and quite considerably that's probably where I was like peak when I was late teens and it's just slowly dropped off . And who knows what I'd been if I carried on from that point .

But you know I don't regret anything . It's my income across that . I'm regretful and I'm , you know , picking on people , whatever , but I just think that you don't always see it when you're in it and I just think that I'm grateful and I think I am successful on a scale . Um and I . I just don't want people to cloud that view of success .

Um , and everyone should be proud of themselves if they're out there doing something and holding their job down and paying rent , and whether it's whether you're living with your parents , living alone , friends , house sharing , no matter what , you're out there doing something and take them opportunities and grasp them .

And and if something falls down and goes down to the wayside , hopefully you'll at some point and get back on that train um , pun intended , I just think that's that's where I feel like I'm at the moment . I feel like I'm successful , um , quite stable , and I think this is the time to go out and expand on them .

Other things that when I was growing up , I thought were unattainable , unattainable , easy for me to say um and and maybe pursue them a little bit . Whether I'm 41 or not , it doesn't matter . Um , yeah , and it's . I don't even even answer my own question there , really .

But yeah , that was my thoughts on success and how I am , how I am and my view of my own success . But it was nice to have a bit of a praise off my dad . He choked me up a little bit . I'm not going to lie , but it was nice . Again , you don't need to hear it , but it's nice to . So I'm going going to lie , but it was nice .

Again , you don't need to hear it , but it's nice to . So I'm going to leave it there . What are your thoughts on this ? What do you think is successful ? Are you successful ?

Are you trying to pursue one of these like finite kind of narrow careers where you know you might spark and die , or you might blow up and have a long career in e-media or whatever it may be , trying to launch your own business ? Let me know in the comments and just remember you are successful . If you listen to this , you're successful .

So until next time , remember to keep prattling . You've been listening to Infinite Drattle , thanks for listening . If you liked this episode , go back and listen to some others and please continue to listen . Your support is much appreciated . Please like , share , comment and subscribe , and I'll speak to you all again soon . Take care .