21. Why I spent $200 on an uber (and why it was worth it)

This is a story about opportunity cost: what is choosing the cheapest option costing you? Successful people just think differently. Tune in to find out!

Transcript

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Welcome to Success Through Scars, the podcast where we turn our most painful struggles into our greatest success stories. I'm Annie Esso, a multi-passionate entrepreneur, business mentor, and professional singer who's overcome anorexia C-P-T-S-D, depression and anxiety. Each week, you'll hear powerful stories of resilience from people who have transformed their deepest pains into testimonies of strength. If you are feeling lost or broken, but have big goals, you are in the right place. Whether your scar comes from a traumatic past, a breakup, a near death experience, or a mental health struggle, remember this, your scars are proof that you survived and scar tissue rebuilds and repairs itself, and you come out stronger on the other side. I hope this podcast can bring you the hope you need to keep going. Let's walk this journey of finding success through scars together. Hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Success through Scars. Today I am recording this from my beautiful Airbnb in Toia, Italy. It's in the Viterbo. Region, in the Lazo region. Actually, it's right outside Rome, and I am here to sing and I'm so excited about it. But as the NamUs episode suggests, today's episode is all about me having to spend$200. On Uber to get here. So I had a travel day that went completely off the rails. I had my train get canceled and then the only other option was to take like three different trains to get to a bus, to then take five hours and then get here at like. Between like seven and 9:00 PM I don't even know what the times were, but anyway, I would've missed my client call that I had scheduled at 5:00 PM here. And after kind of looking through the options, it's like I could have rescheduled my client call. I could have. Done all this travel and waited for delays. And I would've literally been traveling for 12 hours. But instead I chose to book a cab that actually ended up, I tipped the guy like 20 euros. Um,'cause he was so sweet. But it ended up costing me like$200, for this cab. So let's talk about it. I think for most people on paper, the logical thing would be to wait for the train. I think that's what the old me would've done too. I would've been super stressed out. I would've been probably hungry all day, lugging bags around, just waiting for the train all day. But then I thought about the opportunity cost opportunity cost, basically what it is, is not just thinking about the money, thinking about the energy, the time, all of that, and what actually is going to lead to a higher ROI if I kept waiting, I would've shown up really frazzled and disorganized for my client call, I probably would've had to take it in the train station somewhere if I could even get service, or I would've had to reschedule it. I could have also just stayed in Rome where my train was delayed and gotten a hotel probably for free with Delta points and then just come to Scania the next day. I could have done that, but that would've been even more time. And I would've shown up here with no groceries and super frazzled and spending more money eating out at restaurants, and my energy would be totally wrecked and I'd be really frustrated. So I did something that felt very uncomfortable for me, but also very powerful. I booked a$200 Uber. And here's the thing, the ride for me was not. About the car or the money. It was about buying back my energy and my time and my ability to show up for my clients with presence because I really value the way that I show up for my clients and I don't wanna show up for them either having to reschedule or being just super frazzled and stressed out. So I got here early and I got to my call really calmly and. My clients actually said to me that they noticed that my energy was so calm. And honestly it was because I booked that Uber and I got here in a calm way instead of having to be all frazzled. So that's the thing about success. It's not just about pushing through and doing the hardest thing sometimes it's actually about. Stretching yourself and knowing when the convenience of something is actually a wiser investment for you. So basically today I chose to see the canceled train Instead of seeing it as a disaster, I saw it as a moment to step into a different way of thinking and thinking about what would my next level self do, because I didn't like the feeling I had. I didn't like the feeling of being frazzled all day, waiting for trains and stressing out. I really value my energy and my time and my commitments that I have made and my alignment, and I value all of that more than I value$200. And that energy is why I will continue to grow in my business because that had a ripple effect. After that client call, I ended up making a bunch of posts that I'm sure will end up resulting in clients. None of that would've happened if I would have been stressed all day, and the value of clients signing on to work with me is more than$200 anyway. So here's my question for you. Where in your life are you choosing stress because it feels cheaper? And what is that actually costing you? Where are you gambling with your time and your peace or your energy or your professionalism? And what would it look like to invest. In those things instead, because sometimes the most successful thing that you can do is not save money, but to save yourself your time, your energy, your presence. So I hope that this was helpful today. I hope it reframes some things for you. As always, I would love to hear your takeaways. Feel free to message me on Instagram and let me know, or on Facebook, and I look forward to talking to you soon. Bye.