Alright everybody, I hope you’re having a great day today. I am doing okay. You know, life gives us these up and downs about all kinds of things. Some days we’re just hanging by a thread. Other days we’re doing good and other days we’re hopefully flying really high and happy and joyful, and that’s what we’re going to try and help you do today. Get closer to that as our goal, help you get unstuck live happy and free and I’m your host, Rick and I’m gonna be taking you through this episode as with all the other podcasts, please check out previous episodes, share these with your friends and on your social because anybody can use a bit of help, tips advice or just shared life experience from our great guests that are on of how they got out of a bad situation when they felt they were stuck in a deep rut, and they do lots of really interesting things to try and accomplish that.
Some of them turned it into a business. So we talked to them about that too and how they can help other people. Please do check out the links down below in the podcast and support, you know, places like Studio 17 Designz. If you go to redbubble.com and you just search Studio 17 Designz, that’s with the number 17 in the middle and the Z at the end. They’ve got some great inspirational, you know quotes on shirts and mouse pads and mugs and great you know, Christmas holiday gifts, funny Halloween stuff, but it’s all uplifting, you know, material to remind you on a daily basis or any time you look up from your desk or whatever it is and you see that thing you got from them. And it helps you to keep going, you know, motivates you to not quit and not give up. So we do like supporting Studio 17 Designz on redbubble.com and we love to support our guests and we’ve got one here waiting.
So I’m gonna get him right in the room now. This is not a kids’ show. So if you got some kids in the room, you might want to shift them out because I will be cursing or adults here talking about adult things and just trying to get through life. So let’s get right to it. I’m gonna go ahead right now and let our guests come on board. I’m really glad that he is with us today. And as always, I just try and take a brief look at our guest bio. what’s important to me is they’re humans just like you and me and all the all of our listeners out there, They’ve had their ups and downs in life and it’s great that they come on board and are open about sharing about those things and what the heck they did to try and get out of it. So I will let our guest introduce himself and tell us your name and where you’re from and actually, what do you do?
My name is Thomas Green and I am director of a company named Ethical Marketing Service. I also have a podcast and it’s named the Thomas Green podcast originally. And yeah, I’m happy to be here.
You know already from the show, this is all about helping people, you know, get unstuck, hopefully live happy and free how they really want to, and that’s a lofty goal for all of us. You know, we know it’s really damn hard to accomplish. some of us are lucky enough to um, you know, get through things that teach us things and then we use that to, you know, help others or teach others or do things the right way. sounds like you do with your with your business. Um, and we’ll certainly talk about, you know, your business in detail to and hopefully how that can help out some of our listeners. but for yourself personally, you know, I have there, I always start out with this question for folks, you know, what are any of the times for yourself? Maybe it was a personal thing, maybe it’s a business thing. Um, who knows, we all face all kinds of things in life, but for you, you know, what comes to mind when, you know, when I asked about when in life where you just ready to quit, you know, when were you done?
When were you like at the end of your rope and didn’t know what to do? And ultimately, what helped you make that better? Because hopefully that experience can help some of our listeners out there who are feeling not in a good place at the moment in terms of what makes things better or what I’ve learned recently, which would perhaps make things better for people. I a quote springs to mind, which is nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so mm hmm. Yeah. And I’m not when I first heard that quote, I was like, well, surely there are some things which are objectively bad, but I do think that the majority of what people tend to struggle or suffer with, it can be interpreted differently by someone else. We have opinions about ourselves and we act on them very convincingly. But you know, it can be the case, like I said, that you can have one situation which might be considered bad, which someone else would react completely different too.
And the question which I found interesting was where do we develop these opinions about ourselves? And I think maybe not all, but at least a significant percentage come from early life experiences how we are treated early in our life affects the way that we see ourselves. And so, you know, if you’re in that particular scenario where you’re maybe giving yourself a hard time, a good question is what early experiences did you have that might have contributed to the way that you view and you feel about yourself, Does anything spring to mind for you there? Yeah, I mean, you know, I, you know, with all of our guests, it’s just always great to hear, you know, people talk about what has helped them what self-examination they’ve done, you know, what early childhood experiences shape them or that they needed to revisit, you know, or to process, you know, in and now with an adult through an adult looking glass, you know, to understand those things and not have them reap you know, the, you know, the negative consequences that maybe they have had for most of their life.
So when you talk about looking at things through a different lens, and that quote, you know, my struggle personally is always, you know, I can, you know, we can all read as many self-help books or listen to a podcast like this or you know, read some quotes and as true as they, those things are especially the things that stick around for a long time, you know, such as, you know, looking at the glass half empty or half full. I mean, it’s just what you say to people looking at the same thing, but with a different perspective, right? In a different way or me looking at, you know, the great place I described of the UK and you saying, oh that’s not how I see it or where I’m thinking right. So it’s a perfect example and I’m curious for yourself when you find yourself in a situation where you’re looking at it in a more negative way, right? Or is bringing you down or you feel stuck about a situation, is there anything that you do or have done in the past that was helpful in turning that perspective around to the opposite side?
Well, there are some ways of thinking which are unhelpful and you can sort of check yourself on whether or not you fall into this category. So there are negative filters, so discounting the positives and only emphasising what’s happened that’s negative and perhaps might be guilty of that when looking at the UK predicting certain negative outcomes based on your interpretation, this happened and therefore what will happen is this when we don’t actually know that will be the case. That’s a big not seeing things in proper proportion. So, the old phrase of not making a mountain or not making a molehill out of the mountain or whatever, whatever that phrase is appealing to emotion. So, because I feel a certain way that therefore that makes me correct, like, I should feel this way, because my emotions tell me I should I see a lot of people use this one, which is inaccurate language, I mean by that is like universal’s I never do this or I always do that.
So if you’re using those, then it’s sort of a might be a red flag for you, black or white thinking and generalisations, so generalisation might be, you know, my life sucks right now, when if you were to examine the various different sections of your life, it might be the case that certain areas aren’t quite what you want, but other areas are exactly, you know, just, just fine or they might be okay. And so generalisations, I think, I feel like a lot of people do that as well. Yeah, well, well either you’re just well researched or you’ve got some great experience, but those are, you know, it’s a great just list of things that you just rattled off there, you know, and one thing that comes up a lot you know, when I’m just chatting with people, you know, off of the show or sometimes on the show as well is you know, like you said, talking about you know, early experiences and how they end up, you know, looking at themselves because, you know, it’s how you view the entire world, right?
You know, with your own thoughts or like you say, how you either think about yourself or about the situation. and I literally will throw, you know, if I feel like I’m I’m getting stuck in that rut or that routine you know, I’ll literally, you know, throw up my, you know, list of, okay, here’s what to do at this moment, You know, just like the list that you just ran through. you know, that’s a great kind of toolkit for people to read, you know, through that list and ask yourself those questions like, okay, will this matter in five years from now? You know, am I generalising about this? You know, is it true that this always happens to me? Like, okay. And sometimes I tell people, um, you know, literally just start writing everything down. You know, whether it’s journalised or whether it’s a calendar, however the hell you want to do it. And when you’re thinking, everything is really crappy and going bad all the time, you know, write down what those things are.
So that, you know, you, whatever it is, I got into an argument with my boss, right? Or my mother or whatever it is, right, right down the day that that happened, right? And you know, write it down the next time it happens. And at the end of the month, look back at that calendar, you know, or look back at the notes of how many times you wrote these things down and you and say to yourself, you know, you have to be honest with yourself and you say, well God, I always tell everybody that like I am fucking fighting every day with my whoever, you know, my mom, let’s say, but you know what, I look at the calendar here and it only happened eight times this month. So God, why do I keep, you know, having this, you know, negative Over generalised attitude that I have a terrible relationship with that person or that I’m fighting all the time with them. No, you fought eight days out of 30 days. That’s not even 50% of the time. So it’s not even half of the time, right?
And sometimes we got to kind of knock ourselves on the head and really see things for what they are because it’s hard to have that objective look at reality when you’re kind of stuck in the, in the thick of it. Right? Mm I have heard journaling to be good from the other perspective as well. From the point of view of, you know, I always feel, I’ve noticed that I always feel rotten on a, on a Wednesday or something. And then they look at what the trends are of every Wednesday and it turns out they’ve been meeting with a particular person and they’re aware that that particular person is particularly negative and therefore, you know there now they have an answer as to why they don’t feel quite as good on that particular day. Yeah, that’s a great point. I always say to people that you have to, if you if you want to really figure out, you know what, what the, what the problems are, you know, and try to get to the root of things that you feel are constantly a problem then whether you like it or not, you kind of have to treat yourself and your life as or your life for the time being as like a mini science experiments, you know, and do just what you said, I mean that’s a great example there because you have to, you know, you, you’ve got to record the information, you got a record, you know what you’re doing that day and like you say, you can then see the trends or the patterns and you say funk, no wonder every, you know, Saturday morning, I feel like this because I didn’t realise that, you know, every Friday I have to do this thing and I’m really stressed out after that and so now I realise that so you know what maybe Friday, you know, nighttime is when I should schedule my workout at the gym because I can get out all that stress or frustration that happens on Friday and I didn’t really realise that and then I have to write down again, you know, starting in the next month, how do I feel on Saturday mornings now?
Has that change, has that made a difference? And you know, you can only change one thing at a time so that you know, if that is the thing that was the cause of the problem or not and you know, it’s kind of a pain in the butt, but you know, it’s up to you if you want to figure out, you know, the problems that can make your life better. It’s unfortunately, you know, something that’s, that’s necessary because nobody’s going to do it for us, right, Thomas. Well, I think there are some people that might help you along the way and I do encourage that ultimately, if you know the best information in the world, if you don’t, if you don’t want, they’re to be changed, then exactly what it is that you said is that, you know, nothing will change, Things will only change if you change. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I, like I said, I try not to see too much of information from the guests before they come on because I just, you know, I love to be, you know, informed as we’re chatting and asking them things and a big topic that always comes up for people is, you know, how the rest of the world is seeing them versus how do they see themselves and trying to keep up appearances or keep up the Instagram, you know, highlight real, you know, of the great life when everybody, I think instinctively knows social media in general is not a positive reinforcement for, you know, for the majority of people in life instead it just, you know, it does what American advertising does.
It just ups the ante of how like incredible and great your life should be or the materialistic things that you should have and then you’ll be happy etcetera. I’m not a fan of, of that at all. you know, and people unfortunately, you know, a lot of people, you know, it’s just what they’re bombarded with and maybe they haven’t had strong role models to, you know, to say, well, you know, think about what makes you happy or what’s really important, you know, as opposed to making sure you have the same car that your neighbour has or that your house is as big as this person or whatever because we all know the millions of people who are super rich or famous and they kill themselves or they’re sitting in their house alone crying because you know, their dad never said they love them or whatever the issues might be, which are terrible. and so you know, people who come on the show a lot of times, you know talk about not watching the news as much, you know, because you get all that negative stuff there.
Or you know, limiting how much you’re perusing social media and God, I mean even countries like China, you know, are now limiting the amount of time, users can be on certain apps a day and, and I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other about, you know, good, bad or otherwise because it’s just like anything, you know, if you use it in the wrong way, you know, any tool can end up being a bad thing or can end up being a good thing. So I don’t necessarily think it’s the tools, um, that caused the problem. It’s us as humans, unfortunately, and we’re far from perfect, but I hope, you know, we can help each other out. And I’ve, you know, for, you know, the businesses and entrepreneur things that I do, I’m, you know, I’m heavy on social media and sometimes I have, you know, kind of inner conflict with myself. Like, am I contributing to, you know, that, you know, same problem?
Or can I use this tool in a better way? And you with your ethical marketing, you know, company, um, that’s the name of it. And I know that, you know, you’ve got all the social accounts, you know, to communicate with people from TikTok to Instagram and so on the same as I. So I’m just wondering, what are your thoughts number one on? And there might be two different thoughts might be, you know, from a personal standpoint, might be from a business standpoint because, you know, those, all those platforms can be used for different things. So I’m just curious how you help people with your company, um, you know, to market their business or market whatever it is that they’re trying to get the word out about, um, in an ethical, good way that hopefully isn’t, you know, bringing anybody down in some way. Well, there’s a few different ways to answer that one in terms of how we help. It’s typically the summary of it is to get them more customers.
So digital marketing, how we do it in an ethical way is to only work with certain kinds of businesses that aren’t doing something which is detrimental to, should we say the community? And also be careful about your claims, which is, um, which is very, I don’t know, it should, it should be more like that in my opinion, in terms of you need to be careful about what you’re claiming. So we wouldn’t necessarily say something untrue. I think, I think that’s the main problem of what you were referring to about how people show what their life is when it’s actually not true. So telling the truth, I think is a big one online. And in terms of whether it’s good or bad for people and how they should use it in my view, I think you should be outcome orientated. So from a personal perspective, I typically only use YouTube and the reason I only use YouTube is because of the learning side of it. So I can get the most learning from YouTube. I don’t use any of the other ones because my outcome is to learn as much as I can do and I feel like if young people are, let’s say you’re spending a lot of their time on social and it’s changing who they are as a person and then they’re wasting all of their youth essentially.
It’s because they don’t have an outcome for it. So if they were learning something on socials or making friends legitimate friends or something, and I would be as not a negative thing, but since it’s essentially a drain of, you know, it’s not producing anything productive for them, they don’t have an outcome for it. And therefore it’s perceived as a negative thing, I guess. That’s the yeah, yeah, because, um, you know, I mean, like I said, you know, all tools can be used for positive or negative and, you know, it’s like somebody who, you know, they’re a, they’re a junior entomologists, you know, they’re into bugs and, you know, collecting bugs and displaying them and categorising, you know, what they are and all that stuff, but, you know, nobody that they know does that or, or the friends that they have or the people around them, you know, pick on them for that, right, and say, oh, that they’re nerdy or they’re not cool for doing that or whatever. And yet on social media, they find a group of people who, you know, post photos like that who do like that and end up becoming, you know, true scientists entomologists, you know, studying, you know, that part of nature and all that and this person loves it and they fit right in.
Right? So social media, in a sense, that’s great for them. That’s what gave them the confidence to move forward and not, you know, do something that they really didn’t want to do, but they felt forced into it because this thing wasn’t cool or you know, nobody ever, I picked on them about it, but now they found, you know, like-minded people that they could say, you know, it’s okay to like bugs and, you know, I want to be an entomologist instead of whatever else, you know, that my parents are trying to force me to do. or all my friends think I should do. So I think it, you know, social media can be, you know, a perfect thing um, to help you like bugs. Yes, I actually, I’ve eaten, I’ve eaten a bunch of bugs in different countries. I always travel as much as I possibly can. And, you know, I always throw myself right into it. So, you know, I’ve chowed down on garlic cockroaches on salted ants and I don’t mean like, you know, going to France, although I’ve been there and had, you know, chocolate-covered grasshoppers or whatever, but I mean, like, you know, the real deal stuff in nature, it’s always interesting to try new stuff, especially when you eat like maggots and things that you would never think you would eat.
But I think adventure is a really critical thing to keep you keeping yourself unstuck, doing different things. Um, so actually that leads me to another question, do you ever need to force yourself into different routines or to go and do something so that you don’t feel like, you know, this is the same thing every day and I’m just, you know, kind of trudging away here at work or are you one of the lucky ones that like every day you’re excited to get up because you’re gonna work with a new client or you know, you’re going to go try that new restaurant or whatever. I don’t know. you know how you do that? Well, certainly not. I don’t get excited to get out of bed every day. That’s for sure. Okay, so that’s great. You’re just like everybody else in terms of the comfort zone question or part of the question. I don’t mind trying new things. so there’s a, I think there’s a trait that they recognised in entrepreneurs and that is that they’re willing to take action whether they’re certain of the outcome or not.
And there’s also a phrase or a quote. I think it was Tim Ferriss and the quote is to test your assumptions. So maybe you have assumptions about the way that something will turn out or an opinion on something. And I think you said regarding Journaling to be sort of a scientist and if you were to test your assumption in the let’s say doing something different. Let’s say I have an assumption about a particular restaurant. Well, go test it. See whether or not your assumption is correct and you can apply that to anything that you’re nervous about or anything new. Um, because then you’re, you’re not invested. You’re just seeing what the outcome will be. So have you ever had a time in, you know in life where you know, like you say, you’re not always excited to get up and say, you know, hello me to everybody else. Obviously. have you ever had a time in life where you have basically had to do something where you said, I just, you know, I need to change whatever.
You know, you might not have even known what it was. Um, but looking back on anything or any, you know, any turning points that made you say, well I didn’t realise that then, you know, but I ended up, you know, going a totally different direction and you know, maybe that was good or bad or at least I’ve learned this. Um, because I think one thing that people are afraid of obviously is, you know, jumping off the deep end and you don’t know um, what it’s kind of like if you what it would be like if you quit your job, you know, you have to pay your bills or you don’t know what’s going to be like if you and a friendship because you know, they’re being abusive and you know, you’ve, you’ve tried to try to make it right. But um, it’s time to end it. You don’t, you know, you’re scared. Well, well I have another good friend and we get, it’s pretty easy for us to accept. I don’t say accept painful things but accept things that aren’t so great because we don’t know if there’s anything better or not and I can sit here and say that’s a terrible way to live.
We should all be so brave and we should just freaking go and do, you know, something else or try something else or change the situation because you know what a way to live in. You know as that quote says, you know, most men live in what and quiet suffering or something like that, you know, because they just don’t, they’re not willing to try something different, you know, out of the fear of the unknown. And I have reached points in my life where I have totally changed my life. You know, where I’ve moved to another country where I’ve sold my home where I’ve sold everything I owned and just only have a suitcase, you know, and getting rid of 20 years of your life down to a suitcase giving everything away and selling everything whatever and “leaving forever” for years and just going to one place and say, I have no idea what the future is going to have no idea if I can do this or what it will be like in this other place, but I know I’m I don’t want to continue how it is here.
So maybe not so drastically for yourself, but were there times looking back where you said, gee I got to do something and you did change something? Okay, great. Well, I’d love to hear that list. Like you rattled off the first self-help list. Well, I suppose what would, I mean, I’ve done lots of different things in my life in terms of when I was when I was younger, I used to change what I did frequently because I was constantly looking for that thing that was going to quote unquote, make me happy, but in terms of like helping in relation to that topic, it’s to define what it is that you’re afraid of, because if you don’t define it, then it seems bigger, but you’re not as afraid of as many things as you think you are and you’re often braver than you are aware of.
So there’s less to the problem than you than you thought there was and so what you would do is break the problems down into smaller steps or smaller problems and then figure out how you will approach those smaller problems, so that is, that is typically how I’d go about tackling that issue of, I don’t know if I want to continue doing that and these are great, these are great, great practical you know, steps to do and you know, pieces of advice, I’m just curious, I mean, how is it that you seem to know this as well? Because, you know, we’ll have we’ll have people on the show. They might be a life coach or they might be you know, a therapist or whatever, but you know, it’s something that they do all the time. So it’s kind of like in their head they’ve already got their Here’s the 10 things, you know, I tell people to do. but you run like a marketing company. So I’m just curious how you have such a, you know, quick access to such good advice because it’s great advice.
Well, thank you for that, but it comes out of a lack more than anything. So you know, and one of the things actually, which I did prep for the for our conversation today, but if I was to summarise it of, you know, let’s say you’re feeling like your stuck, you want to get unstuck and you want to live a happy life. Well, one of the principles that you can do, which is what I’ve done, is to be always looking for that thing, which is going to help you. So there’re things that I wanted to share with you today, but at the same time if you have that principle and you have access to, let’s say the internet, then as long as you continue looking for that thing, whether it be on podcasts or whether it be articles, et cetera, then you’ll find it eventually that you’ll find the thing which is going to make you, um, get out of that. That route will make you feel better. Yeah, I think for sure that’s a, you know, something I always say just, you can only guarantee, hey, you know, I mean, there’s, there’s nothing you can guarantee.
But the one thing you can guarantee is that nothing will change or get better if you don’t, if you stop or if you quit or you give up or you stop looking, just like you say, you know, so if you don’t, if you don’t do anything about it, um, then yes, you can guarantee that nothing’s going to change. And that’s goes to that quote of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, which I couldn’t agree with more. So that leads me to something, you know, that a lot of people talk about and that is finding something that is meaningful to them in life or passionate. You know, they are looking. And they find something, whether that’s in their line of work, whether that’s a hobby, whether that’s, I mean hell doing these podcasts, I mean, although I’ve been on FM radio as a talk radio host. Doing these podcasts is, you know, it’s like free self-help for everybody and myself, it’s like self-therapy. So it’s like for some people just starting a podcast about whatever it is that you love doing cooking, or you don’t get the opportunity to do that much because you work at a different kind of job that you really fucking hate, but you can now come home and every Saturday it’s three hours of, you know, talking about podcasts about something that you love.
So I’m just curious for yourself. how, you know, I don’t know if this is the case for you that that your work happens to be something that helps to motivate you, or obviously it’s your company is your business. So you must be, I would think passionate about it and you know, want to continue doing it. but what is it about your work that that does help to motivate you or keep you going and, you know, tell us a little bit more about, you know, what you do for people because just literally, you know, helping people right, that draw that broad term and as we all know, helping others definitely makes you feel good, you know, as a beneficial for you, a thing for yourself. and you’ll be helping people with marketing services, you could be helping people as a fireman, you could be helping people in lots of different ways. Right? So I’m just curious, you know how your line of work plays into all this.
Well, I’m 100% on the same page with you in terms of you should be focusing on as much meaning as possible, so what’s meaningful to you about what you’re doing and if you have a lack of meaning in your life, then most likely you’re going to be unhappy or eventually unsatisfied with that in terms of how I apply meaning to my everyday life in all my work life is that we as a company, we sponsor Children in underdeveloped countries, so that’s with education, food and clean water. And so if ever I am in the place where I’m like I really don’t want to go to work today, then there are some people who are significantly worse off than I am who need me to go into work and then also job creation. So I have employees and if I decide to not do my business anymore, it’s no longer just myself that is going to be affected.
It will also be the livelihoods of other people. And so I mean that’s where I find the most meaning in what I do in terms of doing a good job for people, I do think that it’s beneficial for me to be doing what I’m doing because there are an awful lot of people in my industry who don’t tell the truth or are detrimental to businesses, there are a lot of agencies out there who are not very ethical, hence the company name. And I do think that us being in that business is a good thing, but I never found that meaningful enough to really kind of get me going. So, those initial two things were the things that really drive me, wow, it’s great to hear that, because I will say recently, as a few hours ago, literally helping some kids get back into school who live on the street and don’t have parents and all of that.
And so, you know, having things that are bigger than yourself, I think, is hugely beneficial. That’s, it’s really just, it’s great to hear you say that you know, what you guys do with you know, the revenue or some of the revenue that comes into your company. And by the way, for folks who you know, I would love to get in touch with somebody who does some ethical work when it comes to marketing, digital marketing. How can they get in touch with you, what’s your website and so on in any ways that they can get in touch website is ethicalmarketingservice.co.uk. Yeah, we got the dot com as well, but it’s got to yeah, so it’s it’s great that you’re paying it forward or you know, finding something, you know bigger than yourself in order to contribute. So with you know marketing actually is something I’ve I had to do a lot of for different industries and still continue to do.
So actually I’m just curious and you know, this is you know, so you can plug your business and what you guys do as well, you know, if somebody comes to you and they say, you know, well I need some digital marketing and let’s say it’s you know, a middle of road person, they’re not a total novice at it. They’ve done some of it, you know, they have their, you know, they’ve run their Facebook ads and those kind of things the typical online things Instagram at or maybe Pinterest advertising or something and they’re coming to you and I guess that it’s better I let you maybe pick you know, a small to medium enterprise and how you guys, you know, can potentially help somebody like that. Well initially some people have an idea of what they want in which case we will just you know, do the best that we can on that particular media, but some will sort of ask, you know what’s the best the best place for us to go, you know, to get our clients and it depends what business they’re in.
So we don’t necessarily specialise in a particular type of business, but I mean it would typically be, you know, it will be a conversation around how whereabouts their clients are. So you know, where can we get in front of the right people and then that’s where we’d focus our and what got you into marketing. Marketing was a double major of mine in college and I was just fascinated by, you know the psychology part of it because you know buying and selling. I mean it is all just psychology. So I mean how did you get into marketing? Were you in something totally different and you wanted to, you know, make a change or how did it come about? I used to work for a big corporate and then just started taking courses a lot of self-development stuff and some marketing stuff. I think mainly again as a from a point of lack, so, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t really know I do I do think I did have like an exposure to, you know, wouldn’t it be cool to own your own business type thing, but I never really knew what it was that I wanted to do.
And then, I mean I’d like to tell you it was like purposeful and I have like for it, but really, you know, if I’m honest with myself, I did stumble into it a little bit, but, you know, you make the most of it when you’re in it. And if there’s, if there is some, if there was something that I really feel like I was called to like my passion, then I’d definitely go for it. But I think predominantly, I think what I’ve found in terms of what my passion is just being a dad. so I’ve got a family now, and kind of happy doing what I’m doing on a day to day basis, and, you know, that’s where my passion lies is being a parent. That’s great to hear that you do have something that you’re passionate about and that you, I mean, it’s inspirational actually to hear you know, talk about how you incorporated something that you’re passionate about, that, you know, helping the, you know, the greater good and the bigger cause and how you guys sponsor, you know, people who are in need through your business.
So for folks out there, maybe you’re stuck in a job that you don’t really like, right? Because statistically, at least in the states, it’s only 23% of people that do say that they like their work. So that’s a big percentage that doesn’t like their work, and I think it’s like 20 4% say they hate their work and the rest just say they don’t like it. Alright, so that’s still, you know, it’s still a huge number that doesn’t like what the hell they’re doing. And so I’m always, you know, recommending to people number one, trying to get a bit more control, feeling like you have control or input or ownership of your work, and that doesn’t mean owning the company, you’re the owner of your company, right? It’s your business. Yeah. So it’s like, you know, for somebody like yourself, yes, you can feel much more control because you’re, you know, making the larger decisions and so on. But for, you know, even, you know, folks out there who are feeling like, well they’re just going there and, you know, punching the clock every day and doing what they’re told you know, I always say to people, you know, start out small, you don’t have to, you know, quit your job and go do something, you know, that you think you’re super passionate about and take such a huge risk.
You know, you don’t know, you may end up liking your job, or at least it’s much better for you because you suggested, you know, some programs, some internal program, just like, you’re talking about sponsoring people, right? You know, maybe you put together a proposal that you take to your manager, your boss and you say, you know what, you know, in the factory, I noticed we have all these boxes all the time that, you know, whatever we don’t use or they get recycled. And I thought, you know, I know this place that, you know, we could take a few employees on one Saturday a month and we could go down there and we could pack these boxes, you know, that end up, you know, going out to food, shelter or whatever and you know, obviously it’s good for the company, you know, pr you can use that, you know, if you want, but, you know, it might bring some team work together to people, it might make them feel a little bit better about what they’re doing whatever, you know, the benefits you think you are, you could get out of um, you know, the program you’re proposing, you still have the opportunity to be creative in how you, you know, could potentially make your crappy work situation better because, yes, the other bigger forces around you, such as paying for your kid’s school, or health insurance, or the bills and the mortgage or whatever you say, well, there is just no damn way I can leave this job, but you can potentially, you know, make it better.
So, I’m just, you know, letting the listeners know out there, it’s ah, It’s not 100% certain that your job will suck forever. Even if you stay in the same job, you know, you potentially could do something about and for you, as, as, as a boss, as a business owner, what would you say? You know to employees of how to potentially propose, you know something in the workplace. Well, it’s tricky because not everyone is a good manager, it may be the case that you know, if someone was to propose something, then a manager might feel threatened by that or you know, and that’s good advice right there, right, it’s good advice right there, but if you’re in a smaller company, then I actually do think, you know, you can make your job what you want to make of it. So you know, there isn’t, there isn’t like a, if an employee came to me and said like I’ve got, I found this opportunity for you to be more profitable, then you know, I would be like excellent, you know, do what makes the most the most money or makes you more happy in your job, essentially.
If you’re in a big corporate then I would, I would look at how you can get more variety into it if you don’t like your life because I do think that if you are unsatisfied then that comes from lack of repetition, excuse me, lack of variety and repetition are doing the same things over and over and you know not being satisfied with that, so, you know, I just want to get back to, you know, your other passion that you mentioned about being a dad because that’s a huge change in people’s lives, you know, starting a family or you know, having that kind of responsibility for some folks that you know, it becomes a giant stressor and can break relationships apart and for some folks it becomes a bonding thing So for yourself personally, if you if you don’t mind chatting about it, because actually I was just chatting with somebody else who was telling me, well they’ve been together eight years, they have two kids, but you know, they’ve lost their passion and you know, they’re totally they’re done with it for the last several years already, but they’re still staying in it because well they don’t know what else to do or because financially it would be a wreck and blah blah blah, all these things, so it’s like, you know, of course I say, well do you think long and hard about it because 20 years from now, do you want to be saying shit, I wasted 20 years, you know, and not being happy at least, you know, hopefully they’ll start some conversations that may repair it or change it, or maybe it’s you know, it’s time for them to change, you know, in a much bigger way, I don’t know up to them obviously, but so for yourself for people out there who maybe feel stuck and don’t feel like, well this is a great thing, I love being, you know, apparent whatever, you know, how it just like with the job that you just talked about, how they could do something maybe differently in order to change that, even though they stay in the same job, what about for folks that you know, maybe are now a parent and or a growing family and they feel that is the thing that is, you know, keeping them stuck or has brought them down or you know, how can they look at that differently?
And I’m not faulting anybody who might feel like that because, you know, it’s that’s a natural thing, your life changes, or there’s a huge amount of stress and so on, and it, those things affect people in different ways, it doesn’t mean that you’re not a good person because you’re like, God Damn, I hate waking up at 3:00 AM and changing diapers, you know. No, that’s not a bad person. It’s difficult to know without knowing the exact circumstances, but there is one thing which springs to mind which is a, I believe it’s a stoic principle, which is negative visualisation, so instead of, you know, the positive, seeing, seeing your things how you want them to be, it would be in this person that you spoke to him, he’s got a wife, I believe, and I would say, you know, what happens if you were on your way home one day and you’ve got a call and you know, you never got to see your wife again, basically, or there was some instance and I don’t know you had to move and you never got to see your kids again or something you want to bet that it would be seen different if that were to happen.
And it kind of comes back to how we started the call actually, which is nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so, and I know that like if you, the more vivid you get with that particular example meaning, the more for example more you make it real details and everything like that, the more you can put things in perspective for yourself because people do tend to get a bit carried away thinking about how bad things can be and then they can get completely snapped out of it by a phone call. Oh, man, yeah, that’s a boy, that’s a great piece of advice that nobody has brought up in the past, you know, doing that kind of scenario. I mean, of course everybody myself included, you know, says, well, just be grateful or just, you know, if they just realised it could always be worse, you know, or well, I know you don’t like this thing, but what if you, you know, tomorrow you find out you have a terminal illness or, you know, loved one passes or whatever it is, you know, you think of a bad things like that, so it’s along the same lines, but I think that’s that’s a great it’s a great piece of advice there is to, you know, really sit there and think about the thing that’s causing your problem.
You know, turn it on its head basically and see maybe you might miss that thing, or maybe it’s not as bad as you think if you really, turn the scenario into a much more negative way. Well, I know we’re getting close to the top of the hour here, so I really appreciate all of your time, but before we get off, I’m just wondering if there’s any, you know, thing that, you know, either throughout the conversation or just, you know, that comes to the top of your mind, they think might be helpful to people out there who are feeling stuck and regardless of situation that, that it might be anything else that comes to your mind. Well, there is, um, one other thing which I think has been valuable to me in terms of, let’s say if you’re, if you’re suffering if you’re thinking about all the negative things and it is to categorise your thoughts by, um, but one of two things. So is it intentional thought or is it thought which has come up and arise out of nowhere that you haven’t asked for, So an intentional thought might be, you know, I I’m going to go to the gym because I have a particular goal or I’m going to go to work today because I want to meet a particular income goal or whatever it might be.
And a thought which is unintentional or just arises may well be those inner critic thoughts that come around and they say something along the lines of, you know, you’ve never done this before, you’re not good enough or your crap at this or whatever it might be. And the question is, did I choose to think about that right now? Because you can spend, I mean, years of just unintentional thoughts where 60 or 70,000 thoughts a day, I think, is the number. If you were to ask the question of, you know, did I choose to think that right now? Is that the best is that the best way for me to use my mind at this particular moment? A lot of the time, the answer is no. These thoughts that just pop up out of nowhere and the inner critic is supposed to make you feel, should we say, supposed to protect you, that’s what it’s there for, but because we’re in a modern world where the fight-or-flight response is not entirely useful anymore, it can actually be very unhelpful.
And so I’m always trying to think to myself, is this is this thought something I chose to think, or is it something that just appeared out of nowhere they didn’t have any choice in. And that can sometimes help. And what if it is unintentional one. and you say, well, you know, because I always ask myself a question, is it useful? Which is basically what you’re saying to, you know? so if it’s not useful, if it’s not doing any good, then you know, you don’t want to be there, right? So, but if it’s unintentional, and you don’t want to be there, what do you do too? Try and get rid of it. You would perhaps go back to the cattle, the ways that we the list of things that we spoke about previously, which is the generalisations and the inaccurate language and that sort of thing. Running it through the tests, it’s the facts versus opinions thing. So the fact might be, yes, I am going to work today, the opinion might be I’m not going to do well at work today.
And so if it’s a fact, then there’s no getting away from that. But if it’s an opinion, then we don’t really know what will happen. Yeah. Have you? I’m just curious because, you know, you I mean this is a good thing for people to know obviously about your business. First off, Thomas was early for the call, which I would say that’s only about 20% of the people are early for the podcast. You know, cordially waiting in the waiting room for you and has done research outside of what, you know, his normal work would be in order to be prepared. So I’d say work with this guy, you know, for your business and your digital marketing because of those two reasons right there, number one. but I was just gonna ask you lastly, you know, if you are having those unintentional things and you do run it through the tests and you say, okay, well it doesn’t you know, pass these tests.
And you say, well then that then there’s no point in me, you know, taking time with it. What if that thing just keeps popping back in because you know, you, you know, you have to sit there and see your boss every day or you have to see to sit there and chat with your mom every day or whatever. So it’s like it’s a sort of unintentional, but it happens because it’s environmental, let’s say. and well, okay, so quit your job, so you don’t have to see that boss every day. But obviously some of those things are difficult. So I’m just wondering, you know, what you think about, you know, things that are recurring. and how to try and neutralise those more. I would maybe depending on what it is and maybe look at your early life experiences to see whether those have, whether those have created assumptions and rules for yourself. Because if it is the case that it comes back up again, there’s probably a reason for that. If we use the example of so mine is what the example I was going to give to you was that I I don’t like to make mistakes very often and that’s a rule of mine.
So that’s why he researches. Yeah, there you go. But the reason when I did some self-knowledge stuff on that, it’s because when I was, my hypothesis is that when I was little, I had a critical parent and therefore in order to not be criticised, I better not make many mistakes. And then my assumption or my rule from that is that I don’t I don’t want to make mistakes. But basically, although I’m now an adult. and you know, I haven’t looked at that assumption, I haven’t looked at that role and said, is this the best way to act. I’m just living my life that way and not really thinking about it. And so, you know, a big part of my personality maybe is something that happened when I was a child and you know, I’m operating completely, I don’t know via something that was years ago that, you know, I am not the person in control if I’m not looking back at those thoughts and those rules and assumptions I’ve made about myself, I can perhaps go back and look at that and say, well, is it really the case that you that you can’t make any mistakes and they served me well in some instances, like the ones that you’re referring to in other instances, like say for example, if I wanted to be creative, I’ve said many times, I’m not a creative person.
Well, like if I didn’t want to make mistakes when I was doing something creative, well, that’s a lot of how creative people make great works or make great things. Is that there just exploring. And so I think a lot of us are just, you know, walking around not really realising the way why they are the way that they are. And if it’s recurring, then it’s probably an assumption that you learn in your early life. Right? Well, I think that is a great piece of advice to wrap up on and that is, you know, that we all should take a look at ourselves as painful as that might be and look at ourselves from as early on as we possibly can. Doesn’t matter how old we are now. But, you know, going back and examining those things and obviously you can do that with a professional, you can reach out to a therapist, you can call you know, hotlines or warm lines they have here in the States, which is just a peer run support groups for you to chat about anything and everything.
And I know a lot more of those have popped up during the pandemic times for people who are just stressed about, you know, things that come up due to the pandemic. So certainly research, you know, if you’re a listener out there who is just feeling like you’re in the crap and stuck and you know, have nobody to talk to about it, or you’re having a lot of anxiety about what the future can be. or what am I going to do now that, you know, I’ve lost my business because of the pandemic or I can’t travel or whatever things are. Um, you know, reach out to somebody whether it’s friends, family that you might normally go to or to a total Stranger on a hotline or a warm line that you might be able to go to. And there’s lots of great, you know, forums, as you know, as there’s always been. And you’ll be surprised. I think that you’ll find a place for you that you will find others that can relate to the difficulties you’re currently going through, or they’ve been through them already.
And they’re there to help. and that’s why Thomas and I are on the show today because we’re here just, you know, telling our life experiences and and telling some things that have helped us. And so I hope those things have helped you the listener and go back and listen to the other episodes of this podcast and Thomas, by the way, your podcast tell us what that’s all about and how people can listen to that. it’s pretty much everywhere that you can listen to podcasts. It’s Thomas Green podcast and it’s some business, some entrepreneurial topics, but it’s also some how to do better. So it’s not quite the same in terms of self-development, but it’s sort of close, you know, that that’s great, that’s great. So do check that out on Spotify anchor, just like wherever you found this one, I’m sure you’ll find Thomas’s podcast as well. And Thomas, I just want to say thank you so much again for coming on today, taking your time and opening up about, you know, both business and personal things.
I’m sure that it will be beneficial to folks out there listening. So thank you so much for your time. We’re starting off the new year in a good positive way. actually, you are my first guest of the new year because the other guests that was due on today, it was their second time that they rescheduled and they were no show today. So you see it’s true. What I said Thomas is, you know, in that 20% so work with Thomas if you need something, All right, well thank you so much for coming on today from across the pond as they say and thank you to all the listeners out there for taking the time to sit and listen and hopefully has helped you out. And if you need some more help anytime rick will be here with other great guests and Thomas anytime you want to be back on, feel free to book again. I’d love to have you on. Its great chatting with you. Thanks for having me. You’re a great host. Thanks so much appreciate that. Yeah, there you go, throw compliments somebody today or throw them a smile and you’ll be surprised how you feel and the effect it has on them because that just made me feel good.
So thanks for that, Thomas. But to all the listeners out there, do have a great rest of the evening, day, morning, whatever it is, do something for yourself, do something for others. And it will be the first step towards you getting unstuck, living happy and free. So take care of Thomas and everybody else. We’ll see you next time. Right back here. Take care, have a good day. Bye now.