In life we have two choices: experience or exist. Every week each of us make that choice: To seek a way to live or to simply get by. Walk alongside me each week on Strive Seek Find as we continue seeking our own Brilliant Future.
Whitmore. Welcome to Episode 52 of the Strive Seek Find Podcast I’m excited today. Last June I challenged myself to do 52 weekly episodes of what would become this podcast. I’m proud to say. Its been with bonus episodes closer to sixty with the bonus episodes. Now that I’m done patting myself on my back for the simple accomplishment of being consistent, this week I was reminded by a friend of the importance of disconnecting from our communication machine from time to time. This is can be the same as getting into the hills (if you really do it right or a conscious decision.
Before I get started today, I want to ask you a favor as you listen if you like what you hear, please leave a review and share the episode. discuss anything in this episode or any other can reach up to the strive seek find page on Facebook, or to @chancewhitmore5 on Twitter. Thanks. Welcome strive seek fine podcast. I'm chance Whitmore Welcome to Episode 52 of the strive seek fine podcast. I'm excited today. A year ago. And a week, I challenged myself to do 52 weekly episodes of what would become this podcast. I'm proud to say it has been closer to 60 than 52 when you include the bonus content. So now that I'm done patting myself on my back for the simple accomplishment of being consistent. This week, I was reminded by a friend, thanks grift of the importance of disconnecting from our communication machine from time to time. This can be as simple as getting into the hills. If you really do it right, or a simple conscious decision. Now, let's get started. So one thing I've learned about my job is that time off becomes interesting. You can plan but often it gets interrupted. So the point of that is three years ago, I was planning on going and spending some time in Spokane, Washington, so that my wife could visit family. And I could see my sister. What happened was, I ended up buying plane tickets and putting my family on a plane to fly up see the family because well, I was busy as the proverbial one legged man in the rear end kicking contest. And what was going to happen is several days into this trip, I was going to take my truck up and spend some time with them. But I had to finish a few things first. So I had this idea. And the idea was that I was going to go to a place where we traditionally camped before that, just to get off the grid, even for an evening. Now this area is important to my wife's family. Her grandfather had been a hunting guide up there for years, he had own a cabin. Part of the trip was to check on set cabin. Part of it was me getting off the grid. And the final part was there had been a tremendous rock slide up there. And I wanted to check this out. So off I went to Red River. Now if you haven't been up there, this is beautiful country. Basically you go to grangeville, Idaho, you turn east and you drop off the edge of the world. Your cell phone's not working, which is generally speaking, why my family chose to go. My wife had figured out early on, for me to disconnect from work required me to not have access to work. So in this case, I chose to do it. You drop down into a valley and you drive back about an hour and a half out of this little town. And you get to an area where cell phones don't work. And it's like God kissed this place and declared it the most beautiful place on the planet. lush green trees, wide open Meadows beautiful mountains, untouched by man other than other than other trails of the well, ATV cert. So in this case, I dropped down off the mountain went in, took some pictures of the cabin and decided I was going to spend the night on the way up there. So I drove back down this mountain road down the McGruder corridor as far as I could go. Well, to be honest, as far as I could go, without what I felt was the appropriate gear, Chase car chainsaw, more water than I had, etc. Because this is a little unimproved road. Between Idaho and Montana, which is kind of honestly on my bucket list, and the cell phone doesn't work. This all comes down to this. I didn't turn on the radio, it doesn't work back there. I didn't turn on a CD. The phone doesn't work. It's quiet. It is peaceful. It is silent. You roll down your window, and you listen to the world Kobe. On this day, I drove back up into a high mountain campground, encountered bear cub. And because well, I wasn't being stupid. I didn't climb out to encounter the bear. I drove back in further came to a fire tower that had been abandoned. And because I was having a great time, my shoulders relaxed, everything was perfect. I just settled in. And I went up to the top. I wanted pictures, the mountains. But I made a classic error. My phone was my camera. So I took it up to the top of the fire tower, which gave me line of sight with the cell tower, and all the work related pictures and email and everything else came in all at once. And I went from relaxed to stressed. Just with that buzzing of the phone. I'd been planning to camp back there. The result of this is with the world intruding upon my moment of silence. I climbed back in the truck, I drove all the way to Spokane that night, saw my kids because I figured if I was going to be in the world, I might as well be with the important parts of it. Now the point of all this isn't to go in the woods by yourself. But there are times that that's important. And if you're prepared for it feel free. It's about the forced disconnection that was healthy. What this did for me was forced me not only to release from the phone, which seems to be growing out of my hand at this point, but forced me to turn off the external noise, whether it's music, I hesitate to say this next one, but podcasts, the news, any sort of distractions, even those little time suck games like Angry Birds, or Fruit Ninja, or whatever it is this week, the 24 hour news cycle, who needs that much information? And personally, I do feel the need to now do you realize how many hours a day you look at distractions or the over amount, well mean amount of noise that we are generating our society to the point where it's hard to think, for all the distractions. For me, at least, this makes the quiet times the silent types are even more important. I'm not good at planning them. I'm not good at preparing for them. But when I get them, they're critical. Because it allows me to truly be myself and truly let go of all those other stressors. Why is that important? The obvious part is to lower stress, to free up crazy creativity. Because being bored at times is a good thing. And because it forces you to truly know yourself rather than distract yourself. Now, do you think you're addicted? If not, test yourself. Shut off your phone. See how long it takes for you to feel the need to check it. On average, it's two to five minutes. If you can't walk away, you definitely need more quiet time. Because if you're a parent For instance, if you're paying attention to the Infernal Machine that is your phone, you're not paying attention to what's important right now. For me with My family out of town this week, it helped. I'm still overwhelmed by the noise most the time. I sleep with the television on, which is something I didn't do growing up. But I did at time shut off my phone and make sure I had time to think. By Thursday, I felt better than I had months. And I know I need more. So I'm going hunting for the places with quiet, because I can't make the seven hour drive to Red River. What are you doing to get those moments of quiet shoutouts first off to Coleen, who wrote an amazing review for the show on pod chaser. Thank you so much. Next to all of you. I appreciate you sharing this journey with me. We are listened to in 19 countries and 220 cities in just under a year. Whether you've listened to once or to them all. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to look at this podcast worth mentioning. I'm a space nut. I know this is a surprise at this point. So today I'm excited to learn and share that humanity is returning to Venus. Well, if you discount the acidic atmosphere, I mean, Lisa Grossman's article, NASA will be headed back to Venus for the first time in decades, gives a good rundown on NASA's near future dealings with what she terms Earth's evil twin to different missions Da Vinci and Veritas, the probes we'll be exploring Venus in the next decade or so if all goes well. The Vinci will probe the atmosphere. And that Veritas on the other hand, we'll be looking at volcanic and tectonic activity to help plan future missions for research. I'm not sure it's the mission. It's the mission that interests me. We're picturing Venus with a mirror universe Star Trek reference goatee. But either way, it's worth mentioning. I posted the article on the strive seek find pace page on Facebook. Well, this will bring the official season one to a close. There will be a short break while I put together some changes. I'm truly excited to say share the next phase of strive seek find with you. Details will coming soon. But in the meantime, that's it for this week's episode of The strive seek find podcast. Thank you for all for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review that really helps. If you have feedback or ideas, please reach out to the Strive Seek Find page on Facebook or @chancewhitmore5 on Twitter Until next time, keep seeking your own future
