The Art of Aligned Action: Balancing Timing, Surrender and Perseverance

As a coach, I understand the significance of goal setting and working towards our aspirations. However, I've come to realize the transformative power of surrendering to the universe's grand plan, which often exceeds our own limited vision. By embracing surrender alongside focused action, we allow creation to flourish in ways we couldn't have imagined.

Join me as we explore the intersection of surrender and persistence, and discover how this dynamic duo can guide us towards creating businesses and ventures that are not only fulfilling but also make a positive impact on the world.

I share the remarkable story behind the creation of my company, Rad Hats for Rat Humans. Join me as I delve into a decade-long journey of desire, perseverance, and ultimately, surrender, that led me to build a business that combines art, beauty, and a meaningful contribution to mental health.

In this episode, I unravel the true definition of surrender, debunking common misconceptions, and emphasizing its powerful synergy with focused persistence and unwavering trust. Through personal anecdotes and insights, I illuminate how the delicate balance between surrender and perseverance allowed me to manifest a venture that surpassed my wildest dreams. I invite you to join me on this journey of surrender, persistence, and the magic that unfolds when we align with the universe's grand design.

Masterful Listening is sponsored by Rad Hats For Rad Humans. 30% of every purchase goes towards mental health initiatives. If you write a review of the show, you get 20% off a Rad Hat of your own.

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Email: Svetlana.thisisit@gmail.com
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Surrender. Surrender to this moment where we're gonna be talking. Or actually, I'm gonna be talking. You're gonna be listening masterfully, I hope, to an episode about the deep power of what it means to surrender, but also persevere. Perseverance is powerful. You know, working towards our goals is massively important. I'm a coach. That's what I do. I help people every day define their goals, set their deadlines, figure out what their resistance looks like, figure out how to overcome obstacles, get really clear, believe it, dream it. And the hardest part, and I think the most important part, is surrender and let go. And I think we often misdefine surrender. You know, when you think of the word surrender, you might think like, oh, well, I'm giving up, I'm surrendering, or I'm just gonna do nothing and see what happens. Well, that's not the way I define the word. In fact, surrender, there's definitely action in surrender, but it's about non-forcing, not forcing you to get to where you're going, not pushing, but masterfully listening to life enough to trust that sometimes the timing is not right, sometimes the goal might not be right, sometimes you might really need to pause, pivot, or just embrace that things are not the way you thought they'd be, and the path doesn't feel right. And so, what do you do then? Do you freak out and fight and get upset and push? I think a lot of us do that. I've done that, or do you embrace what is? Because I gotta tell you that this hat I'm wearing uh is part of one of my creations for my hat company, Rad Hats for Rad Humans. And I keep saying because it's true, my hat company started itself. When I started making these hats a few years ago, I wasn't trying to start a hat business. I was just feeling crappy. I had a hat with a stain and I decided to paint it. And I painted it. And what I thought would take an hour took 10 hours. And I wore the hat, and every single time I wore that hat, someone noticed it and said, Whoa, that is a rad hat. That's where the name was born. And they said, Where do I get one? And I said, Well, I make them. And I started making them and making them, and suddenly within six months, I had made over a hundred hats and sold them. I was in every boutique in Sausalito and some boutiques outside of this town I live in. And I almost couldn't believe it because for years, for over a decade, I wanted to find a way to make money with my art. I loved hats. I loved painting. I hadn't actually considered painting hats, which was also interesting in itself. But here I was selling hats. I've had moments throughout this time with rad hats where I'm like, I cannot believe this. This is so cool. I get to do what I love. I made to I get to make uh money, good money doing this. Wow, how did this happen? I wanted this for so long, but nothing I did in terms of turning my art into my work really worked. And at some point I kind of just gave up on it and then poof, almost overnight, it kind of just happened. But it didn't happen because I sat around doing nothing and thinking about it. It happened because once I started doing something I cared about, I care about, and people started asking me about it, I listened enough to be like, oh, there's something here. I hadn't seen hats like this. I realized that mine were really unique because they're not just beautiful hats. Each one has a mantra, a message painted in. They're intentional. And it's my mental health practice. And through them, I donate money to mental health initiatives that I find meaningful, which is incredible because I always say that my art is healing. And now through this company, I've been able to not just make beauty, which I love, and do what I love, but give back to what I believe in. And that's pretty freaking cool. So I'm gonna share a little bit more about that journey, and I'm gonna talk about what does surrender really mean? And what does the journey of surrender look like if you're an artist, entrepreneur, or really anybody? Because if you're out there listening, I'm sure you have a dream or a goal and you want to work on it. You know, that's the whole part of persistence, you know, going after stuff, doing stuff, very important. Yes, and releasing it because the world, the universe, God, whatever you call it, there's a higher plan, I think, than even anything that our minds come up with. I keep discovering that. And often in that state of confusion when it seems like nothing's moving forward or things are not going the way you want, we don't trust that. We fight it, we get upset. And yet, what if there is a higher plan? What if it's not time yet? So, how do we balance this persistence and surrender and figure out timing? Because it's all about timing, honestly, in life. I always say you can have everything you want, you just can't have everything you want at the same time. Literally, you just can't do that. So, how do we stop trying to push for the things to happen exactly how we want, when we want, instead of embracing that that's just not the way it works, but we can still move forward on our dreams, our goals, we can persevere and we can surrender. It makes it feel better. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in achieving all kinds of stuff and being stressed out in the process. I spent plenty of time doing that, not interested anymore. So, since we're in the furleds, furleds, furled, you like that? Yeah, worlds first. I guess that's what furls could mean. Since we're in the world's first super rad listening school, I will invite you right now to take a deep breath and think of a dream that you've had for a long time that hasn't quite come to fruition. Feel into how frustrating that might have been, might be, how confusing it might be, but also breathe into how much you really want it. Right? When we really want something, it could feel great or it could feel horrible because really wanting it deeply and not having it could kind of suck. And really just breathe into that for a few moments. Because I want you to connect to the thing that you're wanting to build. The fact that you can even imagine it means that in some reality it is definitely possible. Might even be happening in some dimension if we go little woo. And now just drop it. Let it go. Be here with me. Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for your presence. It is not easy to listen these days. It is not easy to stay focused and present. But I'm gonna invite you to listen as if you believe that anything is possible. With an open heart, an open mind, a beginner's mind. Because just because something hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it isn't right around the corner. And it doesn't mean that it can't happen a lot quicker and with more ease than you've imagined. We gotta learn how to surrender, which is not always easy, but it becomes easier just like masterful listening with practice. So may this episode be your practice of surrender. Surrendering to the moment, surrendering to what is because you know the world is always communicating to you. Uh life is somehow inviting you to listen right now and get something from this. And I want you to get something, and I also want you to do something at the end, as with every episode. You're gonna have some homework. And with that, we're gonna dive in. So, first of all, when you think of the word surrender, what comes to mind? Right, I think that it's often misunderstood as this like passive waiting or maybe even giving up. But to me, surrender is about paying attention to life and taking consistent steps in the direction that's seeming to appear that could be different, that could be a detour, and yet rad hats, rad stands for are really a awesome D detour. I wasn't trying to start a hat company when this began, I was just painting a hat. And then when the first person asked if they could buy one, I thought, yeah, of course, I'd love to make you a hat. And I enjoyed it. I surrendered into the enjoyment of that. And then the next person asked, and then the next, and probably after about five or six people, I thought, oh my gosh, I get to just buy hats and paint them. Maybe this is turning into something. Where do I want to sell them? Oh, do I want to sell them just personally out of my house? Do I want to sell them at stores? Oh, maybe I can have a hat studio, which I opened up within six months, which felt completely insane at the beginning of this whole thing. I didn't even imagine it. But then I met a woman at the UPS store while I was shipping out back a bunch of Amazon packages that I've held on for way too long. And so I was there for so long that when this woman ran in kind of stressed because she didn't have money to make a copy, and I offered to give her a dollar and she was so thankful and then said she loved my hat. I said, Well, thank you. She said, You know, I have a store. Maybe I can sell your hats. Oh, yeah. And then when we got to talking, she said that actually she just moved locations, but her other location, the store, was just sitting there. She's like, Do you want to use it? And she didn't even charge me for a few months. It was wild. Like, what? But I was paying attention. I was present. That is masterful listening. That is surrender. A book that I read that completely blew my mind around this topic of surrender is called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, who I love, who wrote The Untethered Soul. And even the way that that book came to me is wild and is such a surrender experiment in itself. I was in Costa Rica about eight years ago, living in a little hut. I moved there after a dark time. I wanted to write and just live and relax for a while. And I'd only brought a few books with me, but like the books that I always bring. And one of them was The Untethered Soul. And one morning I came out of my little hut, and there were like a few other little huts that these kind people were renting on their property. And I saw that there was a man who I guess had just moved in the night before to his little hut, which was like right by my little hut. And I walked over and I said hello. And he was making coffee and he offered me a cup of coffee. And so here we are, having our coffee and just talking about life, you know, as fellow fellow travelers. And somehow we got to talking about kind of fate and the universe. I don't even know. You know, I would get into these conversations with people all the time. And I mentioned to him, you know, there's this book that's really helped me, that's led me here, and I want to give it to you. I think you might appreciate it. Let me go grab it for you. So I run inside my little hut to grab the untethered soul. And as I came outside and was carrying it, he looked at me, he saw my book and he smiled and he goes, Hold on one sec. He runs into his little hut, comes out holding the book. So he said, Yeah, I'm reading it right now. I'm like, of course you are. So here we were in our little huts in the middle of nowhere with like the same one book. And in that moment, I thought, hmm, I wonder if Michael Singer has written anything else. I'd love to read more, but I hadn't heard of anything. So I just grabbed my phone to look it up. And I see that on that day, and I don't know what day it was, but I could probably look back at my, like, what was it, Audible? That day, the book, The Surrender Experience, no, The Surrender Experiment went live. Like, that's the day it hit the shelves. And I couldn't order it because I was in the middle of nowhere. So I bought it on an audiobook, which I'm not a big audiobook fan typically, but of course I was like, I gotta listen to this. And I just sat there on the porch of my little hut listening to this story, this story that doesn't even feel real about his entire life as a surrender experiment. And if you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it. This book came into my life then, and since then, I've been trying to live my own life as a surrender experiment, which is very interesting as a coach. Because, again, to me, the idea of surrender was you just kind of like let it go and you don't really work towards it. You just kind of like wait and hope it happens. Uh, first of all, it goes against my nature. I feel like absolutely you can just wait for something to happen. But I find that you usually got to meet the universe halfway, sometimes 80% of the way, sometimes 20% of the way. But as an entrepreneur, like I wanted to build my business. As an artist, I wanted to make art. And of course, I wanted to make money with my art. That's like the best. And so when I moved to San Francisco when I was 25, I was really into photography at the time. That was sort of my first art. And all I wanted to do was get paid to take photographs. And so I really focused on that. And I had a friend who worked at an event space and they had events. And I said, Hey, Al, can you just hire me to shoot one of these events? Even though I hadn't really done event photography, I was like, no, it's great. It's still photography, it's still me being creative. And so I got that gig and it went well. And then that led to another gig and another gig. And suddenly I'm like making pretty great money shooting these events, but I'm miserable. I do not like shooting events. Why? Because I found it really boring. I'm like taking the same type of photos. I have to do exactly what the client wants, which often was not very artistic or creative. It was also very stressful. Often I'd have to be shooting in like really bad light. And anyway, a few months into this, I hated photography. And I was like, wow, chasing this desire to make money with my art completely killed the art. And I was like, okay, no, I do not want to start hating my art because I'm chasing money. So I started thinking, you know what? Maybe that's not the path for me. Maybe my money will come from something else. You know, I was in the business world at the time. I was great at selling. I was in sales, then I got into recruiting, marketing, and then of course, ultimately I was always coaching. So I pursued that. But the art just became something I always did, but I did it on the side. Here and there I do a photo gig, but I always made sure that when I did a photo gig, it was more allowing me to have uh kind of artistic insight and uh put more of me into it because that's what I enjoyed. Really, I just enjoyed traveling and taking a bunch of photos when I was traveling. You know, that's what I loved. And and at some point I even met someone who told me that she and her partner traveled the whole world for free because they started writing articles and taking photos for like this big travel website. And so when they would go to places, they would get to stay at these really beautiful hotels, write reviews about them, and basically have all of their hotels covered, which is basically the most expensive part of travel. So then I said, Well, how do I do that? And then I did. She kind of brought me on as another writer. So then suddenly I get to travel. I've been doing this. Well, I don't do it anymore, but I did it for years. I got to stay in really beautiful places. In fact, on that trip to Costa Rica, towards the end of the three months that I was there, I reached out to a few hotels on the other side of the country and got like four nights at these beautiful hotels where I stayed. I wrote a review, which was another art. I loved writing and being creative. I took photos. And in exchange for that, I got to stay at this really expensive, nice place. I got to take a warm shower for the first time since I was in Costa Rica. I had a beautiful, cozy bed. And I was like, wow, this is so cool. So again, I didn't imagine meeting this person. I didn't imagine that, oh wow, I could just like travel and get my hotels covered by writing and taking photos. Boom. Again, I was masterfully listening to the world, and it wasn't happening the way I thought it would, but I said yes because I was paying attention. And that to me is this balance of persistence and surrender. The persistence was the part of me that met this person, showed genuine curiosity, followed up, uh, offered to basically just like do some work for free. I feel like where it started, I think this is where it started. Gosh, this was so long ago. But I was also really curious and wanting to, I loved movies. And the San Francisco International Film Festival is one of the biggest in the world. And it was obviously happening, I think it was always in April. And so it was coming to town. And I was like, hey, maybe I can pitch them on me coming as a film critic and a writer. So I like wrote up this pitch and I figured out who to send it to, or I sent it to a bunch of people. And guess what? I got a press pass. I got to see any movie, every movie. I did that festival for four years, I think, in a row, where I had a press pass. I wrote articles, I got to see amazing movies for free. I got to meet cool people, some actors, some directors, producers. And suddenly I'm a film critic. Like, what? That's the persistence. That's the perseverance. I did something, but I did it because this door opened, and I'm like, oh, I got creative. So I think when you think of perseverance and persistence, it's not fighting to unlock a door that you don't have a key to. It's seeing, oh, well, this door's opening, and well, I didn't even think about that door. What do I do to walk through it? How do I show enthusiasm? How do I really present myself, use my talent, do, and then let be? Right? Keep going, keep believing, keep taking action. But also whether it's a yes or a no, what do I always say? A no is a yes to something better. Stop trying to knock down the doors that are probably locked because you're not meant to go through them yet. Yet is a good word to remember. Just because a door isn't opening now. It's like, you know, have you ever tried to open a bottle that's just like, oh, you just can't open it? And you're like, maybe you're not supposed to open that bottle. I was trying to open a bottle of honey for a very long time recently, and it was very annoying. And then I just put it down and I thought, maybe I'm having too much honey. And then one day it just opened. I thought, wow, now I'm gonna appreciate this honey even more. Uh funny example, but the point is, God, when you fight with reality, you always lose that constant resistance. Ugh. It just sucks. It doesn't feel good and it's not effective. Start paying attention to what doors are opening in your life. They might not be the doors you've been looking for. They might look weird or sound odd, but are you at all curious to discover what might be behind door number three that you didn't even see there because you weren't open to it? There's a massive, massive component and connection to surrender and perseverance and listening. Like they're super connected, right? Because you know how when you're launching a business or you're coming up with a product or service, you can kind of research the market and see what hole there is that you want to fill, or you can create something new, create the market. There's different ways to get strategic about what you want to build as an entrepreneur, as a business person, as an artist. I think that most artists I've met are not super business savvy. A lot of them are uh they're more concerned about, well, I don't want to appear like I'm selling and I don't know how to sell. That's very legit. However, being strategic around art is possible. If you really want to make money with your art, you probably will have to compromise a little bit and figure out what kind of art are people buying? Am I willing to make that kind of art? For a lot of artists, the answer is no, and that's fine. But then you got to find another way, unless you have a trust fund. And then bless your heart. Most of us don't. I didn't. I didn't have years to just make a bunch of cool shit and not make any money and just live off of someone else's money. I unfortunately or fortunately, that wasn't my path. So I did have to find a way to be creative, but in any way that I could be more creative in my life by doing cool photo engagements that might lead to an opportunity to write some cool articles, to stay at a cool hotel and to get to travel. How awesome! That was a door I didn't even know existed, but I listened and I persisted and I persevered, even though there was a voice in my head that definitely said, you're gonna get a press pass to a film festival. I ended up, by the way, then finding out about the super cool event in LA. I don't even know what it was about, but I remember Eckhart Tole and Jim Carrey was gonna be there, and I was really into both of them. And I got a press pass to go there and I met Jim Carrey. Holy moly. That was so unexpected. But I I persisted, I persevered. And then by the way, when I got to the event, they didn't have my ticket. And I was like, oh my gosh, really? What am I gonna do? And I kind of didn't panic. I thought, okay, surrender. So I'm not gonna get that ticket. How else am I gonna get in here? And I'm telling you, because I didn't panic and I just kind of found a nice human and said, Hey, I'm having this really weird situation. I came here all the way from San Francisco to go to this event. They've lost my pass. I don't know what to do. I somehow was told to kind of wait, and I'm waiting at the bar, and everyone's inside, and I hear Jim Carrey speaking, and I'm like, oh my God, I'm totally missing it. And then I just stood there, literally trusting. And five minutes later, he walked through the door. He came out, and I'm standing right there. And I got a chance to talk to him and ask him the question that I'd been asking everybody, which was, what inspires you? And he was so taken aback by that question. And I was so taken aback by the beauty of his answer that I wrote down and I don't remember right now, but at the time, his answer, I remember he kind of took a breath, looked up at the sky, looked down at the earth, and then said something so deeply simple and profound that that guided me for years. And see, and now I don't even remember. That's not the point, though. I could have freaked out, left, and never had that moment. I surrendered. Now, when things don't go my way, and if I told you about all the things that haven't been going my way, you might start to feel sorry for me. But I don't want you to do that because I don't feel sorry for me. I have moments where, because of what's been happening in in life, I've been really sad and I've had a hard time trusting. And I always keep saying a no is a yes to something better. Surrender, surrender, but don't give up, persevere, keep moving, but keep moving slowly and keep trusting timing, timing that plays such a crucial role in us manifesting our desires, right? But just acknowledging that even if you take just this one thing away from this episode, that you can have everything you want, you just can't have everything you want at the same time. Imagine eating every delicious food you want all at once, you'd throw up, you wouldn't enjoy it. That's the point. Right? Like I started making my first ever rad hat just as a self-care ritual. And then suddenly that painting led to a company, led to passion, beauty, art, money, mental health awareness. I presented my work wearing my hats at a global happiness summit. I led workshops here in my community. I have 20 of my hats hanging now at a beautiful coffee shop where people see them every day and I still walk around Sausalito and a lot of people say, Oh, are you the hat lady? And I'm like, Yeah, how did I become the hat lady in Saul Solito? I mean, how cool. If somebody would have told me that that's what I would do, I would be like, wow, that's super cool. But if I was asked, how'd you do that? I guarantee that whatever I would have come up with when with my mind in my head would not have been anything close to what actually happened. And that's kind of awesome. It's kind of cool when you consider surrender as a way to let life surprise you a little bit. We have control over so little. We do not have control over what happens to us often. We do not have control over how people receive us. We do not have control of anything other than our stories, our mind, the way we choose to show up. That's actually very powerful. So I really encourage you to embrace surrender by paying attention to the signs. Develop a personal mantra that mine is a no is a yes to something better. Look around, breathe deeper and ask yourself, what door am I trying to push through when there's maybe another door? Maybe it hasn't seemed as interesting because I've been so focused on this one thing. But what if I walk through that door? What if it's a really awesome detour? And what can you say to yourself to trust the timing? You know what I say? I am exactly perfectly on time. A no is a yes to something better, and I am exactly perfectly on time. I want you to reflect on your own creative dreams, on your life. What hasn't yet materialized? Feel into what it would feel like to have it, to create it. Make a plan. Make a plan and then toss it and live and just do the things you love. Life is so chaotic. Do the things you love. When you do what you love and you talk about it, people want it. It's just like how I was always a top salesperson. I never tried to sell anything. I never tried to sell these hats. I just wore them. And when people asked me about them, I was so excited that by the end of pretty much every conversation, somebody wanted one. How cool! I'm telling you. This happened. This is real. And honestly, with life being a little wild recently, I haven't really been making many hats because at some point I was like, I love shoes. I'm gonna start selling rad shoes. And I did, and I have those at a boutique. And then it was the next thing and the next thing. I've now painted pretty much everything in my house, but I haven't turned that into a business because I wasn't trying to. Uh the things that are meant for you are seeking you too. What you seek is seeking you. That business that you've wanted to start, that dream that you have, it's seeking you too. But the timing just hasn't been right. I've been asking myself for many years, uh, where's this partner that I've been seeking? What's he doing? Is he seeking me? What's taking so long? And sometimes it's gotten me down. But then I'm like, you know what? You're off doing what you're doing, learning your lessons, you're taking your time. And when it's right, and I've seen this so much, it just will be. And then suddenly it'll happen, and I'll look back and be like, whoa, I don't even remember life without this person. I don't even remember life without this dog Rad, who came into my life two months after I made the first Rad hat, and his name was Rad. And it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and I definitely did not see that coming. But I paid attention enough to notice when something magical shows up, and I want that for you. You know, I was sitting out on my deck the other day on this swing bed. I've always wanted a swing bed, a swing on a deck. And when I first moved to San Francisco, I took the ferry from the ferry building to Sausolito, and I remember being on that ferry and pulling into Sausalito and seeing this kind of first part of it, this these hills with these houses on the water. And I was like, whoa, what is this place? I want to live here. I knew nothing about it except for that it was like insanely expensive. And here I am. I'm like, I think unemployed at the time. I didn't have a job. I was just starting out. I had a cute little rent-controlled studio apartment, and yet I had this dream of Sausalito that was completely unrealistic. I mean, the house that I'm living in is a $2.4 million home. I don't own it. I rent it, which by the way was a choice. I don't actually, I've never really wanted to own a house yet. Um, and the idea that now I live here with this view, and that my balcony is the size, just the balcony of my entire apartment that I lived in for 10 years, and that I have a swing bed hanging that is a queen size, which was an accident. I ordered a swing bed that I thought was like just a normal swing, like a not even a full size. Like I thought it was really small, but I accidentally got a massive one. And I was like, what am I gonna do with this? And then it fit perfectly onto this deck. And I, it's so big that I could sleep out there on it with two more people. So I've had days where I wake up on this bed that somehow showed up way bigger because I think it was meant to. That was an easy thing to surrender to, but a part of me first was like, oh my God, how am I gonna build this? It's so heavy. Is it gonna work? It all worked. That bed was seeking me. This view was seeking me. This view has saved my life. And when I sit there on that bed, no matter how sad I've been feeling, and I've been sad and scared and confused and disappointed, it is still very, very clear. And I'm so present to the fact that this was the dream that I looked probably at this freaking balcony 14 years ago and thought, I want to live there. And after quitting 30 jobs and never really making a lot of money and not really investing it, and choosing to travel around the world and spend my money and do what I love, it didn't make any sense that I would end up here. And I somehow did. Why? Because I persevered, okay. I did all kinds of things, I tried to follow my heart. I I definitely pushed more than I would like to keep pushing because it was stressful, but I kept focused, but I paid attention to the detours. Pay attention to the detours. Saw Solito actually, funny enough, was a detour. I didn't think I was ready to move here. I didn't think I could afford it. And a few years ago during COVID, a friend said, you know, maybe it's time for Sausolito because I left San Francisco. I was in San Rafael, I was kind of lost. I wasn't making a lot. It didn't make sense that I should pay even more for rent when things were uncertain. And he said, You gotta do it. You can do it. You'll you'll like jump and the wings will grow, kind of thing. And I did. And then I suddenly had to move out of that place. And I was like, what am I gonna do? I have to move. And I'd also accidentally messed up my credit with a TJ Maxx credit card. Mm-hmm. Yeah, never open up those storecards and forget about them. So my 800 credit score was suddenly a 595. Uh yeah. So I'm like, I have to move. I'm not working a lot, and I have a credit score that is bad. Who will rent me a place in Sausalito? Well, someone did. You know why? Because I kind of imagined, okay, I gotta meet a landlord. Everyone was a property manager, it's just another gatekeeper. But in this one listing, I actually got on the phone with the landlord and I said right away, hey, I am an awesome fit for this place. I know you don't want a dog, but like you gotta meet Rad because Rad's not a normal dog. And I have a bit of a credit snafu, but do me a favor. Can you just meet me? I want to come meet you. I'm gonna bring all my documents, and when you meet me, you'll get a feel for me. And we met, and I literally signed the lease at her house. That is perseverance. And the surrender was me embracing that I suddenly had to move before I thought I was ready. My rent went up again. I wasn't ready for that, but I surrendered to okay. Well, if it's worked before, it'll work now. And it's working and it's been really rough. I still haven't fully unpacked and I moved in September. Mm-hmm. Because life has been so chaotic. But you know what? I'm surrendering to that too. I am tired of fighting with life, and I'm tired of fighting with myself. Are you? If you're tired of fighting with yourself, just stop. Accept that you are where you are, you've done your best. Yeah, it has been your best. And if you think you could do better, how great. You get to try that. That's what keeps me going. I think, okay, if I want to do better, I get to do better. What does doing better look like? So for me, doing better means A, just accepting that I am where I am and that I feel how I feel, but looking at what I do have. And as much as I've lost this past year, and as much loss and grief as I felt even in the last couple of weeks with Rad uh getting diagnosed with his brain tumor, I see that bed and I see this view. And I am so aware of how this was a dream, and that I was right, because this view isn't just so beautiful and healing, it is a reminder that in time, not in the time that we think and not in the way that we think, but in time, I I think dreams do come true. I think that goals are dreams with deadlines, and I think that when we go after what we want with an open heart, with passion, with curiosity, and we don't fight, but we surrender to the path that opens up. Like if you're driving through the desert at night, you don't need to see a hundred feet ahead, you just need to see three feet ahead where your headlights keep opening up the path. Keep going. Surrender to what is unless you want to spend the rest of your life fighting, fighting for stuff that might not even make you feel good when you get there. I don't want that for you. I don't want that for me. So your homework, but I want you to again reflect on a creative dream and make a plan. And embrace putting on your surrender outfit, your surrender outlook, your surrender glasses by just starting to pay attention to the signs around that dream. You know, when I wanted to move to Costa Rica, suddenly I kept hearing Costa Rica come up in conversations, right? You learn a new word, you start seeing it everywhere. Start paying attention, start masterfully listening to the world and not just to the thoughts in your head. Thoughts in our head are they're not usually supportive. And if you want to retrain your mind a bit, come up with a mantra. Borrow mine if you want. This is it. A no is a yes to something better. And I am exactly perfectly on time, and so are you.