Making Decisions Based On Intentions

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host,

Glenn Ambrose.

Hey,

Everybody.

Welcome to the podcast.

So today we are talking about how to make decisions.

Intentions.

What are your intentions when you make a decision?

Stuff like that.

Is that right,

Ben?

That is correct.

That is correct.

It's not right.

It's not left.

It's correct.

Yeah.

I think I'm a little more awake today than usual.

Oh,

I feel great today.

I do too.

Noda,

I went for a run this morning and I think it made all the difference in the world.

I'm right at concordination now.

So last night I was like,

I'm going to go to.

.

.

Yesterday I said,

I'm going to go to bed really early.

I'm going to get up early.

I made a to-do list last night.

I was like,

I'm going to.

.

.

You set your intentions.

I set my intentions.

I'm like,

I'm going to really do this.

I ended up editing a video until after one o'clock in the morning and then I watched a video for another.

.

.

So I didn't go to sleep until two and then I woke up at like 730 and I still did everything else that I had set for this morning.

So getting back into that morning routine that we've talked about a lot and getting a lot of stuff done that I wanted to really.

.

.

I feel great today.

Nice.

Yeah.

It helps.

It does.

So let's see.

So intentions.

So you kind of came across this idea with another podcast.

So you were cheating on me.

I was.

I was cheating on you.

Let me.

.

.

Yeah,

While you look for it,

It was a podcast that had to do with Jason Mraz and.

.

.

Yeah.

So.

.

.

I love Jason Mraz.

I listen to his music like constantly.

Good man.

Yeah.

And that's saying something.

It's not really a lot of people that I listen to constantly.

It's called Claim It with your Joyologist,

Trisha Huffman.

And Trisha works with Jason.

For lack of a better term,

For our purposes,

Basically a life coach.

We all need one.

Yeah.

And he has.

.

.

To like kick off our podcast,

He has two parts,

Two episodes that are an hour and a half each and they're really fantastic.

They talk a lot about.

.

.

Yeah,

His career and stuff are just great if you're a fan as I am,

But they talk a lot about living intentionally.

Actually,

I didn't even talk about this when we.

.

.

I asked you a simple question,

Which is what spurred this,

But in that show,

They actually do talk a lot about his intentions to make it in the music business and how he was doing everything with a purpose.

And you can tell with his music.

That's why I listen to it.

His thought process is very clear if you pay attention to what he's singing about.

We quit the same musical theater school in New York.

Hey,

Congratulations.

Yeah.

You're in good company.

Anyway,

But yeah,

So he had said something about talking to an advisor about what he should do,

About making decisions where he should live,

When he should go on tour,

And she stopped him about using the word should and wanted him to reframe it as when would he like to go on tour?

Where would he like to live?

When does he want to go on tour?

Where does he want to live?

So I asked you what you thought about that last night.

And then this morning we kind of had a big talk about intentions and we stopped ourselves and said,

This is an episode.

Yeah.

And as soon as you explained to me what you had heard in the podcast,

I was like,

Oh yeah.

Well,

I always say that we all teach the same stuff.

If somebody's doing a good job teaching this type of stuff,

Then they're teaching the same stuff that everybody else is teaching.

Because there's only so many spiritual laws that kind of go around.

Things are pretty simple the closer you get to the truth.

So when you had said that,

I was like,

Yeah,

Well,

The way that I come at that usually is it's about intentions.

When you're making your decision,

We get so caught up in trying to figure out what the right decision is.

And we look at it from all kinds of angles and perspectives and try to figure out what the right thing is.

And there isn't a right thing.

The universe doesn't care.

The universe doesn't care if you live in Maui or Kauai.

Makes no difference.

The universe doesn't care if you take this job over here or if you take that job over there.

Doesn't matter.

Your soul doesn't grow.

The universe doesn't expand.

It doesn't matter.

So what matters is why we're making the decisions that we make.

Because we have to constantly take a step back and look at things from a grander perspective.

And I'm constantly reframing things and saying,

Remember,

The purpose of everything is to expand to become better versions of ourselves.

So if we look at that,

Is one particular job necessarily going to make us from an intellectual perspective?

Well,

This job is better because it pays 0.

1% more.

And my commute is like 5.

6 minutes less.

And therefore,

Like,

Oh my god,

It's not about that type of stuff.

You know,

It's about why you're making a decision.

It's about what brings you joy.

It's about what expands your soul,

Makes you a better version of yourself.

And our best guide of that is what brings us joy,

What makes us happy.

So if we're looking at a decision and going,

One way to bring the intellect into it,

Other than just going,

Hey,

Which one will I be happier at?

Because I mean,

If you can do that,

Great,

Decisions easy.

Sometimes you need to go into it a little bit more to figure out what's going to make you happy.

So then,

You know,

If you look at things instead of it's like I said,

It's the exact same stuff she's teaching.

If you look at it and go,

What do I want to do?

So like,

What would bring me joy?

You can ask questions like,

Did I like the atmosphere there?

You know,

We'll just use getting a new job as an example.

Do I like the atmosphere there?

Did my boss seem to have a personality that I can jive with?

Or was he a jerk?

Or she a jerk?

You know,

Like,

It's,

You know,

Ask yourself questions like,

Am I going to enjoy my day to day activities there?

You know,

Like,

Am I going to have if family is important?

Am I going to have more time with my family?

Or the flexibility to go to my children's sporting events or concert recitals or like,

You know,

Make your decision based on enhancing your life in a joyful,

Happy manner.

And if you use those things to make your decision,

You'll find underneath that you're asking your question yourself questions based in love.

And your decision will be based in love at the end.

Usually when we make a bad decision,

We don't look at our intentions in a way that is like,

What's going to enhance my life?

What's going to bring me joy?

We're not asking those types of questions.

We're making a decision based on a whole different set of questions that have nothing to do with our joy.

And if you look underneath them,

After you're all done asking those questions,

Most likely you're going to see those questions are all based in fear.

You know,

With a job situation,

A lot of times it's fear of abundance,

You know,

Fear of lack.

So we go,

Okay,

Well,

This one pays $2,

000 more a year.

So I'm going to go with that one.

And no,

It's funny is I think it was just yesterday.

This thing,

I don't even know where I saw it.

But just like yesterday,

They must have known I was going to be talking about this.

I saw this thing that said that once you try to remember what it said,

Once you get to your basic needs,

Matt,

The amount of money you have in accordance with your level of happiness drops down to zero dramatically.

So what they're saying is like,

If your basic needs are met,

If you have a roof over your head and clothes and food,

And,

You know,

A job and that you just have to at least that.

If you make making $10,

000 a year more than you're making now,

The basically does not increase your level of happiness.

$10,

000 more a year,

They've done studies.

So what and a lot of people are busting their butt for that extra two,

Five,

Seven,

$10,

000 a year.

It doesn't really change your quality of living.

And it doesn't bring happiness in all it does is it detracts,

You know,

From your everyday life because of the overtime or whatever you're doing to make that little extra.

It detracts from your life.

It doesn't actually enhance your happiness.

You know,

So which which plays right into this.

So you know,

Of course we have I'm a spiritual realist,

Man,

We have to pay our bills.

You know,

You can't be the light of the world if you can't pay your light bill.

I heard Michael Bernard Beckwith say that years ago.

I love it.

But so so like if we're if we're making decisions based in fear.

And all I don't have enough or what you know,

What if I can't pay for my daughter's dance class or you'll find a way,

You know,

If it's fear based,

Then we're probably going to make the wrong decision.

If it's love based,

We're going to make the right decision.

So it's all it's all on intentions.

And if if for some reason like this is another thing I explain a lot to try to pull some of that worry out.

If for some reason the universe wants you at a specific type of job because it's going to enhance your personal growth and let's say your intention is to grow.

But your your mind gets confused with specifics.

And even though you try to select the job based in love,

You for some reason,

For lack of a better term,

You make a mistake.

You pick the wrong job.

You just looked at it wrong.

The universe isn't going to punish you for that because the universe is going to see your intentions going to be like,

Oh,

This person was was really trying to make a decision based in love.

This person was really trying to expand their soul,

Grow.

And they just looked at things a little askew and didn't make the correct decision if there is one.

So so like what all we're going to do is you'll probably stay at that job for a short period of time and it'll just be a stepping stone to someplace else that the universe wants you to be at.

But you're not going to suffer.

The universe isn't going to leave you there and make you suffer for years.

It might just be like,

Oh,

You know,

You might be there for a few months or six months and be like,

I don't really like this.

I don't think this is right.

And if you look around,

The universe has already set up an opportunity for you to get out of that situation into a healthier one.

It's right there because the universe can't punish you for trying to make your soul grow.

Otherwise,

It would throw the whole freaking system off.

You know,

Like how would you ever know what to do if every time you made a little mistake,

The universe was like,

Make them suffer.

So you're not going to suffer even if you make a slight mistake as long as the universe will just give you an opportunity to step out of that choice.

As long as your intentions are pure and it's based on your own happiness,

Peace and love.

And breathe.

Good job,

Man.

I didn't know I was going to go that much into it.

That was about half the podcast right there.

Oh,

Good.

We'll just rest for the next half.

Yeah.

How do you feel about the I mean,

There's way too much that you just said for me to really unpack.

So my question is,

How do you feel about getting tripped up with the language of it?

Like the original question that I had asked?

I have the of the should what should you do versus looking at it a different way?

Like,

Do you think that the language that we use for ourselves matters?

Or do you are you a little looser with that?

I'm loose with the judgment because like I've but I think the words are important.

Because I've like early on,

I've been around people who were so overly critical about every single word every single time that I couldn't finish a frickin sentence.

You know,

I mean,

I was still learning.

I was still growing.

And I was trying to get something out and they kept interrupting me and just correcting every single little word.

And I was like,

Oh,

My God,

Can I just finish a thought so we can go overboard with that stuff?

And I think the basically the solution is relax.

Don't judge.

It's not the end all be all.

It's not you know,

If you say the wrong word once,

You're not going to hell.

It's you know,

It's all right.

You're not going to destroy the building of the rest of your life because you missed use a word.

I'm sorry,

I just remembered like five years ago,

Someone getting really upset with you for using the word hell on Facebook.

No,

I didn't even use hell.

I said heck.

Oh,

Geez.

Seriously?

Yeah,

I was excited about something.

And I said,

Heck yeah.

And they're like,

Please don't use the word heck.

Whatever.

I'm on my God doesn't mind.

But but yeah,

It's it.

So you know,

We're too judgmental on ourselves,

Especially.

So I mean,

But so that being said,

You know,

Take it with a grain of salt.

It's okay.

You know,

Don't.

And if you're working with somebody else,

You can correct them once or twice if you're trying to help them with it.

But you know,

Let them finish sentence.

So with that caveat,

Back to what do I really think about the words?

I think the words are important.

And I learned that very early on.

Somebody showed me that and slapped me upside the head with it.

And I said,

Just semantics.

And he said,

No,

It's not semantics.

What you said was exactly what you meant.

And I went,

Okay,

All right,

Whatever.

Fine.

I just wanted him to shut up so I could actually talk about what I want to talk about and go over why we're having a conversation.

So we finished that.

And then I went home and I sat down.

I was like,

Did I really is that true?

Like,

Did I really mean what I said when I misspoke?

Because I thought I misspoke.

And I really got I was good at honest being honest with myself.

And I was like,

Oh,

My God,

There was a part of me that did mean that.

I was like,

Wow.

And I mean,

That was like,

I don't even know if that was three months into my awakening.

It was probably earlier than that.

And so I just remembered that always.

And words do mean things.

And it's a good thing to shift our language here and there,

You know,

Because because our word,

There's a big difference.

Like I've taught,

You know,

Many people have done this,

Not just my clients.

But I think you did it a little while ago.

We're saying I have to.

Oh,

I have to go to work.

I was just going to I was literally just going to say this.

Yeah.

I the big switch that I tried to implement for myself was if I if you enjoy doing something,

You know,

If it if it's something you enjoy or something that you want to enjoy or whatever,

You know,

Like if it's not a chore to do,

Then don't say that you have to do it.

Say that you get to do it.

You know,

Yeah.

So like I get to film today.

I get to record these podcasts with you today.

And even if it is a chore,

You can say that.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the reason that we think we have to do,

We don't have to do anything if I want,

I can curl up in a ball back there in a corner and just do nothing until I die.

Like I have that right.

Somebody might scoop me up with a shovel and put me into a hospital bed somewhere.

But I can just curl up and die if I really wanted to.

So we don't have to do anything.

We say we have to do things and really what it is,

Is we don't have to do them.

We're choosing to do them because even though we might not like to do the actual activity,

We think that we have decided that the result of doing that activity is worth it.

So if we can understand that,

We then all of a sudden it's not,

You know,

Of course,

It's easier with the things that we enjoy.

But whether we enjoy it or not,

There's a reason why we're choosing to do it.

That started for me with watching my best friend's son because,

You know,

People would say to me or I would say sometimes like,

Oh,

Do you have to babysit today?

And first of all,

I didn't like the because of the situation that it is,

I don't like the term babysitting for it.

And it's like,

No,

I get to watch him today.

I get to hang out with the like the coolest kid in the world today.

I'm excited about that.

I don't have to go.

I was getting annoyed at the thought of like,

Oh,

Your day is ruined.

You have to go watch this kid.

Like no,

Screw that.

Like that's my that's my favorite day of the week.

You know?

Yeah,

And it makes a big difference.

And if you you know,

Even if it's a good example,

Because,

You know,

With children,

It's the same thing happens.

The same thing happens.

I mean,

You know,

I've been a parent for the last 18 years.

And there's been times when all of a sudden I got frustrated a little bit with my son.

And all of a sudden,

I'd be a little irritable.

And if I stop and look at that,

It's because somehow I got busy in life.

I stopped paying attention to the way I was looking at things.

And it was like,

Oh,

I have to do this.

I have to do that.

I have to do this.

I have to do that.

Oh,

What's next?

I have to be I have to go pick up my son.

Oh,

I have to.

And it turned into I have to.

And I didn't even realize they had done that.

And all of a sudden,

I'm,

You know,

Like a little irritable around them a couple of times.

And I'm like,

Whoa,

Whoa,

Whoa.

Like why are you feeling irritable around your son?

Like of all things,

That's like the bright spot of your life.

Why would you?

And I realized that somewhere along the way in my busyness,

I had shifted my perspective on it.

And it does.

It makes it makes a night and day difference about how you look at things and how you experience them.

And getting back to the point of the episode.

When you choose your language like that have to versus get to you're setting your intention to,

You know,

That's that's that's a way that's a way to use language and want instead of should or get to instead of should,

You know,

Is it is a way to set your intention positively towards the thing that you're about to do.

Right.

It's a way to positively reinforce.

I want to do this.

I get to do this.

I I want this job.

I get to go to this job.

I get to pick my kid up from school.

Yeah.

The jobs is such a common one,

Too.

Isn't it interesting that when somebody goes on an interview,

They're nervous.

Like why are they nervous?

It's because they want the job.

They're like,

You know,

They'll go on Facebook and be like,

Oh,

Keep your fingers crossed.

Say a prayer for me.

I'm going on an interview.

They want it so bad.

They're praying for it.

And then they get it.

And a year later,

They're like,

Oh,

My God,

I hate this job.

It's like it's all your perception is your reality.

So when you're looking at things from a perspective that says I get to do this,

This is my choice to do this.

I want to do this.

Now all of a sudden,

You literally experience the exact same thing that you're doing differently.

You know,

I do it with,

You know,

Computer work,

Computer work.

There's just so much to do when you have your own business.

Like you can get sucked into it.

And I know you know this.

Yeah.

So you can get sucked into and that's like my for lack of a better term weak spot.

Like I,

You know,

I love doing podcasts and coaching people,

But all the other stuff I can get in there.

Okay,

I have to get to all this stuff done.

I'll have to do this and then I'll go to the next thing and do it and I'll get sucked right in and I don't even realize I'm doing it because I want to.

I feel like I'm doing it because I have to.

And then all of a sudden I start getting irritable,

You know,

And wonder how I got there.

It's my intention.

But if I hit the brakes and I go,

Wait a minute,

Wait a minute.

Do I want to do this?

And my first reaction is no,

I don't like doing this.

I want to do it.

I don't like it.

It's a pain in the butt.

I want to do it.

It's like,

Okay,

Then then don't.

If you really don't want to do it,

Then don't.

Then what's going to happen?

Well,

If I don't,

Then all of a sudden I'm not going to be able to have the freedom to be a life coach and do what I love.

Oh,

Okay.

So is it worth doing something like this to be able to be a life coach?

Well yeah.

Oh,

Okay.

So,

It's just a half an hour of doing something that you don't particularly enjoy,

But it allows you to do what you do enjoy doing.

Yeah,

Okay.

And then once I reframe that and I let go of the resistance to the fact that I have to do something,

I start doing it.

I swear to God,

I start enjoying the thing that I thought that I hated.

And I literally am doing it,

This thing that I know 100% that I dislike doing,

And I'm actually having fun doing it.

I'm experiencing joy as I do the thing that I don't like.

I'm like,

How can this be true?

Even after all these years,

It still amazes me how in two minutes I can completely shift from being frustrated,

Overwhelmed,

And feeling like a victim that I don't want to do something,

To actually experiencing joy doing the exact same thing by just shifting my perspective and gaining clarity on it.

Which kind of ties into the whole purpose of this show in a way.

What you've talked about since the very beginning is living consciously.

You fall into the have-tos and the shoulds and the anxiousness and all of that stuff when you're not practicing gratitude,

Practicing,

Setting intentions.

When you're not doing those things,

That's when the dark starts to creep in.

Yeah.

And what better way to keep it out than to start asking yourself questions like,

What do I want to do?

Yeah.

You know,

Just that,

I could feel the empowerment that comes with asking yourself empowering questions like that.

What do I want to do?

What brings me joy?

What would I like?

That's empowering.

This is what I love about spirituality.

Whenever you touch on something spiritual,

It spiderwebs with goodness.

I can feel the empowerment that comes in that.

I can feel the joy.

I can feel the excitement.

I can start feeling that I have control over my own life.

I get to do things that I want.

All that stuff is subliminal in that line of questioning.

What do I want to do?

What brings me joy?

There's so much subliminal good that comes with it.

Somebody pointed this out to me years ago.

I went through a little situation with a vehicle where I bought a vehicle and it had problems that I wasn't aware of.

And then the problem started creeping up and the warranty had just expired,

You know,

That type of thing.

So I was going through all this stuff and I was looking for a new vehicle.

And there was a couple little things that got triggered from my childhood and the whole process and stuff.

And I was talking with somebody and they're like,

Hold on a minute.

Hold on.

Like,

Did you say you're buying a new car?

Now this was after,

You know,

I've gone off for 15 minutes about what I'm going through.

And they're like,

You said you're buying a new car,

Right?

And I'm like,

Yeah.

Like isn't that supposed to be like fun and exciting?

I'm like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I think so.

Like if somebody said,

Hey,

Glenn,

You want to go buy a new car today?

I'd be like,

Yeah,

That sounds great.

You know,

How exciting is that?

Go pick out a new car.

And I had sucked all the joy right out of it by all the other stuff,

You know.

And so that's,

You know,

And it helped me reframe it.

So again,

It's living with intention and living consciously,

Like you just said.

You literally told me that story a month ago because I was buying a new car and dreading every second of it.

Oh,

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember we're talking then,

But I didn't know that I had told you that.

Yeah.

So that's it for this episode.

Time to wrap up.

Nice.

Yeah.

So,

Well,

Thank you,

Jason.

And what was his?

Trisha.

Trisha.

It's the claim it.

It's the claim it podcast.

It's brand new.

There's only three episodes out right now.

I'll have to check that out.

I'll send you the link.

I don't listen to that much,

But yeah,

I'd like to check it out.

So thank you for the topic idea and best wishes.

Best wishes from Life Lessons and Laughter to them launching out on their podcast.

You know,

It's been fun for us for over five years.

So best wishes.

Definitely.

All right.

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Like,

If you have the video version,

You can see the air quotes that I did during this episode,

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You doing anything this summer?

Yeah,

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You know,

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We're going to have enough structure where we touch on every major area of your life.

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Everybody.

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