Why Slowing Down Might Be the Key to Living Fully | Tom Cronin on Overwhelm & Fulfillment

What if the real reason you feel overwhelmed isn’t because you’re doing too little—but because you’re doing too much without intention?

In this episode of Inspired Travels with Patti, I sit down with meditation teacher and former finance professional Tom Cronin to unpack the hidden cost of overwhelm and why it blocks the very fulfillment we’re chasing.

Tom shares his powerful story of burnout, anxiety, and recovery, revealing how meditation transformed his life and helped him move from chaos to clarity. Together, they explore practical ways to reduce stress, redefine fulfillment, and even rethink how we approach travel.

If you’ve ever felt “too busy to slow down,” this conversation might just change how you live and how you travel.

Key Points:

• The Hidden Cost of Overwhelm
• What “Frazzled” Really Means
• Meditation Demystified -  Why meditation isn’t about stopping thoughts—and how to actually make it work
• Rethinking Travel – Moving from “extraction” (taking experiences) to “presence” and contribution
• Small Shifts, Big Impact – How local exploration and mindfulness can bring fulfillment without overwhelm

Quote:

“Overwhelm costs us the very thing we’re chasing—fulfillment.”

Guest Links:

• Tom Cronin Website
• Instagram
• Take 3 For The Sea

Call to Action:

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who feels overwhelmed—and start a conversation about slowing down. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review to help more listeners discover the show

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Transcript

0:00

Feeling overwhelmed. What if the solution isn't ways to get more done or working harder but slowing down? Tom, what does overwhelm really cost us that we don't even realize? The one thing that motivates all action, whether it's getting in an RV and traveling across America, or going to the ice cream store, or gonna the gym, we're all seeking fulfillment. We're all looking for joy. We're looking for love. We're looking for happiness. That's why we buy things on Amazon. It's why we scroll through TikTok. It's why we go onto Tinder. Everything that we're doing is in this quest to extract fulfillment from an acquisition or an outcome. Now, however, the dilemma we have is that we've become very good at making devices and being able to buy things online, getting these things very easy. But what we've done in the process is grind ourselves into a state of overwhelm. Of anxiety, of fatigue, of depletion, where even if we get the thing that we're looking for, we don't get the happiness or fulfillment we can because now we have high levels of cortisol, adrenaline, or arine in our blood, and very low levels of oxytocin, serotonin, the biochemicals for happiness and joy. So overwhelm costs us the thing that we're looking for in life, which is fulfillment. For those people who are new to Inspire, travels with Patti. I'm Patti Hunt, and I created this channel to inspire you to live life more fully. My guest today is Tom Croton. He is a globally recognized meditation teacher, transformational coach, keynote speaker, and author who helps people move from stress and overwhelm and burnout into. Calm, clarity and purpose. He spent 26 years in the finance industry and experienced firsthand how chronic stress impacts health and wellbeing. This led him to transforming his life, and now he helps others. Welcome Tom to Inspired Travels with Patti. Yeah, it's great to be looking forward to our convers. Station and thanks for inviting me along today. So to get started, we talked about your high pressure finance world. Can you share more about how that affected your health and wellbeing? Yeah. You know, it was a pretty crazy time. It was back in the late eighties, early nineties, very. Much the same time. Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, was starting his career in in that crazy world, and it was very fast and furious on the trading room. Floors we're turning over millions and billions of dollars of swaps and bonds on international markets. And then in the evening we're out with our clients trying to, you know, win their business by whining and dining them. And so it was late, late nights with lots of drinking and partying and all sorts of crazy shenanigans, and then lots of busy, busy, hectic time in the day. And over time, what was happening is that my body being so filled with adrenaline and cortisol all the time, was slowly, um, deteriorating physiologically, mentally, emotionally. Into a state of overwhelm that eventually led to really what was technically diagnosed as a nervous breakdown in, in my late twenties. Um, you know, to get it in perspective, you know, the day job was pretty intense, but it was what I was doing at nighttime, you know, drinking drugs, partying, um, weekends, weeknights, and just not giving the mind and the body that time to recalibrate, to reset. And putting it under such an immense load that eventually the system, like anything that's put under immense pressure, um, will break down. And that's what started to happen to me. So then we could see, I'm gonna say, what led to the transformation? What led you to the world of coaching and speaking? Obviously you could only go, go, go so much and you were burned out. How? Did that take us a little bit through that process of then not only transforming yourself, but then wanting to help others. Yeah, you know, the first step was that I was in such a deep, dark place. Uh, I was taking mental health leave from work. I couldn't go to work. I was quite incapacitated. I developed what's also called agoraphobia, so I had anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, depression, and then that morphed into agoraphobia, which is this fear of even leaving the. Um, everything becomes so overwhelming because your nervous system is so depleted and shattered that the slightest demand on that nervous system would put it into overwhelm. And there was just so little capacity for me to function and realize my potential. So I'm at home and I'd been seeing doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, I'd been put on suicide watch with the local hospital, put on medication, of course, which was the natural default. And it was in this time that I saw a documentary about a property developer that was using meditation. As a tool for his success. And, uh, he was actually using transcendental meditation. He, he used that term and I got very, I guess, inspired and it was like an epiphany when I heard him talking about this, excuse me, meditation experience. And so that's when I learned the meditation. Now, it really was something that turned my life around very, very quickly. Uh, the addictions anxiety. The panic attacks, depression melted away very, very quickly. And so with that, I was so inspired to bring this to the world that over time I eventually did my teacher training and decided that I'd leave my career in finance and start teaching people to meditate. And then that led to retreats and speaking and coaching as well. You got to the point where it was so bad and so serious, it was make or break, it sounds like. I mean, it was a life or death situation when people are kind of in that sort of in between. I think so many of us, and again, I'll say me included. Are in overwhelm or frazzled. You, you wrote an article that we'll talk about, and you used that word frazzled. Maybe that's a little easier for people to, to, to, uh, an easier word for people to handle. Let's define what that word means so that people can be aware, because obviously doing a podcast like this is to prevent people from getting to the place that you are at. So what exactly does overwhelm or frazzled mean? What, what does it look like? That's a really good question. I love the angle that you're coming at because we don't wanna wait until we're at complete breaking point. You know, this is, it's a long way back from there. Um, and the further down we go, the further up the hill we have to climb. And so the, the universe is always giving us signals. It's giving us cues of how to realign our path. Back into a path of harmony, back into a path of ease, back into a path of abundance and success. But we're very stubborn and resistant, partly because we are deeply coded and conditioned by our social upbringing, by our parents, by our religions, by our politics, by our society. Um, and many of us are carrying wounds and traumas of unworthiness, self-sabotage that see us, you know, consistently. Put ourselves in situations that are leading to deteriorating, you know, states of life. Um, Dr. Bruce Lipton from Stanford University Medical School says that 95% of all sickness is a result of stress. So the frazzle is a stress, and the sickness is what comes from the frazzle. And so for me, I was getting these little cues, so I call 'em red lights on the dashboard of your car. When the red light comes up on the dashboard, it's telling you that there's a problem and you need to stop doing what you're doing and go and have a look under the bottom and see what's causing the red light. The red light's not the problem. So these symptoms, anything that is a disease, anything that is a discomfort. So are you getting insomnia? Are you getting that restless leg, tapping leg syndrome? Do you need to have a coffee to get your day started? Do you need an alcohol alcoholic drink at the end of your day to calm down? Do you find that you're very, um, you know, emotionally triggered and very easily emotionally disturbed? Do you find you're very reactive to life? Do you find that, um, you have addictions? So all of these are just simple cues that there's, there's an imbalance, there's a distortion. And most of us live in our life completely ignorant that these things are there to guide us, to inform us, to support an adaptive capacity in us to change what we're doing. The problem with humans is we're extremely stubborn, we're extremely resistant to change. And for me, that was my dilemma, was that I just kept ignoring those cues. I kept doing the same thing. Even Darwin said the, you know, survival of the species is, was it something about being the strongest and most adaptive? Um, and so we need to have adaptive capacity to listen when we're getting that signal or symptom of being frazzled, overwhelmed, um, anxious that it's not the world, it's the problem. It's our state that we're in. We've, we've got a claim state back, and that means looking at what are we doing that is not. Assisting and supporting us to be in a state of equanimity, of calm, of lightness, of joyfulness, of ease. And so that's where my teachings and practices, and there's many tools that we can integrate on a daily basis that will help us claim our state regardless of the world circumstances. I've learned to meditate over the last probably 15 years. I've learned skills on how to not be reactive. I've done a lot in the last 15 years. Let's just say it that way, and I certainly have a long way to go or still have a ways to go. As you're talking, I could hear me or other people saying. Hey, but I'm busy, so I am a mom and I have three kids and I have a job and I'm going back to school. Or I have a business I'm trying to run and it's not going well. This happened that happened. I could, I know for me, when I would hear things like what you just said, that's what I would think. You don't understand. I'm busy, I've got so much on my plate. How do I not get overwhelmed? How do I not, you know, take care of the kids or whatever it is. So how would you respond to that? Firstly, I understand, uh, I know what it's like. You know, I, uh, was, I, I raised twins, so two very young children when they were born. Uh, I was working as a broker in finance. I was building my own business on the side. Uh, I was also, um, constructing a, building, a very, uh, a new home and I was working full-time as a broker, so it was being stretched the limit really, of your fullest capacity and potential. But my capacity to function in those spaces with greater ease, greater success came down to a portional amount of time allocated. Proportional amount of time allocated to being economous and harmonious during those activities. And that comes down to my meditation practice. I would meditate once in the morning before I left home for 20 minutes, or sometimes I'd do it on the bus on the way to work. I'd meditate in my lunch break. I'd go and, uh, meditate for 20 minutes, then go and get my lunch. And, you know, I could easily fit in an hour. Sometimes I do a gym session, meditate and still get my lunch, and then I meditate on the way home or when I got home. And. It comes down to this that we, we are so deeply conditioned in our world to be in what we call outcome oriented fulfillment. That is, if this thing happens, if I get this thing, then I will feel in response to that, a fulfillment, which is why we buy things on Amazon. It's why we go to work. It's why we have kids. It's why we go to the movies. Everything is in this extraction mode of fulfillment from the activity or the acquisition. What we have to shift in our society's mindset. Which is why monks will give away all of that world to go to a monastery, shave their head, give up their clothes and wear some sandals, is because they're not interested in outcome-oriented fulfillment. They're interested in cultivating the blissful, joyful lovingness that arises from within through their practice. Now, we don't have to go to that extreme. What we can do is have the best of both worlds. We can still have the ice cream in the movies and the kids, but what we wanna do is actually still cultivate what we call self-referred fulfillment. This is an arising of our true nature coming up from within us by quieting the mind, the nervous system, and the physiology. And the physiology, and allowing that arising of our true essence, the essence of being. So we call it the bliss of being to become realized in our own existence. And this liberates us from the need for the outcomes to eventuate. And ironically, because we're now in a much, much more, I guess, cultivated state of joy and bliss and harmony. Then the external world, interestingly, which we're starting to learn about the laws of attraction, laws of magnetism, are starting to then correlate to your inner state. So if I find people have a lot of chaos and turmoil in their outer life, I tend to find there's a correlation between that and what's going on in their inner life. And so my work is to cultivate a, a state of ease and calm and grace inside of them. And then we see this sort of flow on effect of life around them becoming more easeful. More joyful and less disease ridden, I guess. And I'm gonna. Of break some of this down because I know for some of my listeners, a, you talked about meditating for 20 minutes, then an hour. I know I would've said to you 10 years ago, there's no way I can't sit still, I can't meditate. I've tried. I can't turn my my mind off like I would've given all those answers, which I'm sure a lot of people say. You talk about this inner peace and not. Depending on something else, you know, just like you said, when I get the car, when I get the house, when I get the job, the money, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the the this so that, then I'll be happy. And that took a long time to learn. And again, for my listeners who are hearing this kind of thing, maybe for the first time, the first thing I'm gonna suggest is that they just take it a step at a time. This may be a lot for a lot of people. Meditation. I had to start with the idea of. Five minutes, I was gonna do five minutes of just sitting quietly. So there are ways, and I have now actually, I went to a retreat and I did a five hour meditation. I don't share that with a lot of people, but five hours, uh, I still can't believe it. So, um, so. Take us through little sort of baby steps, I guess is what we might be looking for. Certainly people who are shaking their head saying, yes, he's right. I get this. This is all great. You know, there's more the next steps for them. But for those people who are, wait a minute, I'm not sure if I can meditate. Can we break it down a little bit for those type of people? Yeah, it's a really good question. I think it's. Really important. We understand what meditation is'cause a lot of people are just gonna assume that it's sitting with your eyes closed and not having a thought. And that's not the case at all. It's almost impossible to have that experience of just closing your eyes and emptying the mind. The mind actually isn't there to be empty. The mind is there to find pleasure, to find charm. And so TikTok, Instagram, newsfeeds emails, it's all very pleasurable for the mind. We've gotta sort of. Disconnect or un personify our mind as us, our mind is a functioning vehicle inside our brain or inside our skull. And so the, we've gotta look at the nature of the mind is to look for information, look for data, look for processing, look for an ANA analysis, look for remembering, looking for forecasting. And that's just what the mind's tendency is to do. So to shut that down is almost gonna be impossible. So anyone that just thinks, oh, I tried meditation didn't work. It's like, well. People will go to RAs and monasteries and try those types of practices for many, many hours, many, many weeks, months, years, to try and master the mind through that methodology. I teach in a practice a very integrative method of meditation. It's around 5,000, 6,000 years old, and what we do is we introduce to the mind a mantra or a primordial resonance. It's a vibration. And what happens is the student repeats that ever so faintly inside their head. It's a very gentle idea, and there's a specific set of mantras based upon the, the student when they come to the teacher and they'll get allocated, their specific mantra that's relevant for them. And the repetition of that inside their brain is an incredibly charming and soothing effect on the brain. And what it does is that it moves the brain from beta, excuse me, beta brainwave frequency, which is lots of thoughts into a deep. Meditative experience called Delta. This is an entrainment process where we're gonna synchronize the brain from beta down to Delta by using this primordial resonance that does the work for you. So with this meditation, I was the same. I'm like, there's no way I could meditate. You know, I was, my mind was running a million miles an hour, which is why I had anxiety and medi, and depression and, and, um, insomnia. And so when I introduced the mantra and all of my students have the same experience when I teach them. Is they drop into their meditation states very easily and very quickly without any effort, without trying, without forcing the mind to do something it doesn't want to do. And so I generally recommend that there are so many different meditations. You can go onto Insight Time, or the Calm App or Headspace and find a plethora of different meditations to do. However, one that I've found from my own personal experience, and this is purely subjective, 'cause other people might find other meditations better or more accessible for them. But I found the most accessible one for me that enabled me to close my eyes and my mind to by default through the repetition of that mantra, quiet into deeper states of meditation. The Vedic meditation or transcendental meditation was such a game changer for me, and it really turned my life around so much that I ended up becoming a teacher and giving up my career in finance. so one thing that I'll say that that you've said, it is subjective. A meditation that works for you might not work for me when I get really overwhelmed and really stressed out. For a lot of people that listen to the podcast, the last two years has been. One challenge. I'm gonna say one major life challenge after another for me. There are times when. Certain meditations don't work that maybe worked before or now. There are times, or have always been times where I will journal, so I will sit with my journal and I don't think I just write. So I used to do this with my high school kids where I would have them take a piece of paper, pen or pencil and just write and they couldn't stop. So I would give them like a timer for two minutes. And you just keep writing. And if you can't think of what to write, you just write, this is dumb. Can't think of what I want to write this. And I, and it, I call it brain dump. I don't know if that's specifically what it's called, but that way I could get all this frazzled, just things running through my head out on paper and a lot of times. I'll see, there's something, there's something going on. What maybe is bothering me that I didn't realize? It's easy to point out, you know, when you're in a stressful work environment, it's easy to point out. Well, that's probably part of. The problem, but sometimes you can't pinpoint what that problem is. So I think it's really good to let the listeners know, like you've been saying, meditation is quieting your mind, right? And you can't totally quiet at quiet it. As you just said. You're gonna have thoughts that come in, I think of something, oh, I've gotta remember Thursday. This is what I'm doing. And you just bring yourself back to, Nope, I'm here, I'm meditate. And that could take. Practice on and on and on until you get to two minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes, or like you said, an hour. For me, it takes time and I kept hearing, it's like a muscle, it's like exercising. You have to keep doing it. Um, keep practicing. And some days are what I would say is better than others. I have somebody that I follow that does meditation and he's like, there's no bad meditation. So if you're sitting and you're trying to. Bring yourself, you know, clear your mind. If you keep bringing yourself back, there's no bad meditation, so quieting the mind somehow, because there's so much chatter, it's hard to get passed overwhelm when there's so much going on in your head. Yeah. Look, you know, there's, there's two things we're we're talking about here. One is. Prevention one is cure. So if you've got a frantic mind and you've got, um, a state of overwhelm currently being experienced in your life, you know, there's a number of different things we wanna look at at reducing the current experience that you're having. Um, you know, exercise and vigorous exercise is a really important, um, tool in the holistic approach to reducing overwhelm, anxiety, being frazzled. Um, that bursts of intense exercise, whether it's. You know, skipping, running, surfing, swimming, something that's quite vigorous can burn off that cortisol and adrenaline. It's gotta be very physiological. Um, and then help change our endorphin state. So, um, breathing techniques is really important, so making sure that we're regulating our breath If you wanna look at things like whim hof technique or some pranayama techniques. So really making sure that we're aware and regulating our breathing process. Um, there are things like, you know, supplements, making sure that we're having the right minerals and nutrients. Sometimes our body might be imbalanced from things like that, which can put us into being frazzled and overwhelmed. Our sleep routine is really important, making sure that we're getting a solid eight hour sleep. Meditation to me, is just one of the many tools and devices that I use for partly cure, but predominantly prevention. And so with that being in mind. Uh, it's not about whether I'm getting deep in meditation or not, it's that I'm allocating a portion of my day every day along with many other things, every day to my overall state of health and wellbeing and happiness. And we've gotta take a more preventative approach about the way we live our life. And most of us, no doubt, hopefully have all brushed our teeth today. Now we brush our teeth, not because we have holes in our teeth. We brush brush our teeth to prevent getting holes in our teeth and have good. Oral care. So we wanna take the same approach and none of us are not realizing how important the nature of our mind is, and we're just filling it with predominantly a lot of negative, negative news. A lot of information through social media and emails and newsfeeds. So we've just gotta really be very clear and um, and I guess committed to a daily mind cleansing process. And that's where meditation comes in. you know, we've talked about if you don't have time for getting well then you're gonna have to make time for being sick. And there's, you know, not to sound dramatic in any way, shape or form, but like you said, stress causes. You know, issues, stress reduces our immune system. So if you're getting sick more, which honestly I have found over the last year that I've gotten more colds or whatever, that's stress and that's, you know, my awareness than, Hey, obviously I'm, I'm having more stress of my body's being affected. I did talk about, because this is. I inspire people to travel, and I always say it's not about the big trips because, and again, I wanna bring it to that because when we talk about travel, a lot of times we feel stressed and overwhelmed thinking about traveling. I've got, if it's just myself, if it's. You know a couple. If it's with the kids, whatever it is, you think about the planning, the packing, the this, that, and the other, that has to be done. You go on this trip and it's rush and make sure we do as much as humanely possible and people come back from a quote unquote vacation saying they need a vacation. When I talk about travel, If I want to go. I'd love to come visit you in Australia. I didn't mention that that's where you are from. Um, I, I, I wanna see the world, but I've learned to see travel in a very different way that has helped me calm my mindset, being in nature and going somewhere that doesn't cause stress, but is, you know, an easier, more fun trip being present. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Yeah. You know, I, this, I, I see travel as going from one place to another place. To find more fulfillment. I mean, why would we spend our hard earned money that we worked hard for and our time to get in a little tin can and fly to some other location to spend a week or two weeks to do one thing? And that's to just simply get more fulfillment. There's no other reason why we're doing that is to believe that if I leave this place and if I go to that place and I spend this amount of money. Then I will have a greater degree of fulfillment than this place, which is, there's no other reason why we would do it otherwise. It's insanity to think that we would go through airports and taking off your belt and issues and passport control and finally checking into your hotel if you weren't gonna have a greater level of fulfillment than this place. So the big question is, um, not to be disparaging or put down travel because last week I was in New Zealand and I was hiking through beautiful, stunning mountains. In Queenstown, jumping in almost near frozen lakes and having incredible, joyful experiences to witness something that I hadn't witnessed before. And so the reason why I did that was to experience something unique, fresh, and exciting and, um, fulfilling. And so there was a, there was an exchange made for that experience and that was my money and my time. Um, but we can do that on a more localized way as well, not to. Turn anyone off from foot getting in a tin can and flying around the other side of the world. But, you know, one thing I do whenever I get to, um, you know, we just recently moved and to a more different suburb, and what I do is I get the Google maps out and I look at where are the beautiful aspects of nature in this local area. So I went to a beach just close by, um, which I found a, a small sort of secluded beach, and it was amazing. It was one of the most beautiful locations and there's literally no one there. Um, or I go to a local bush, um, cavern, sort of a, what they call it, a, a canyon. And, um, is uh, you know, just one of those sort of, sort of secluded little canyons that is in, in amongst quite a sort of developed suburban area. But it was some place where people couldn't be houses because it was a, a water sort of channel, but it was this dense, lush bush sort of channel through the suburbs with a nice little pathway walking through this forest. And so I'm in the middle of a. A suburb in Sydney, and yet there's this wonderful natural reserve that very few people probably even go and visit because it's not the shopping mall. Everyone's in the shopping mall. And so we can do this on a localized way, you know, where, where is there beauty around you? Where can you go and visit something unique and special? You know, for me, um, I find there's something special about the solace and the quietness of old churches. So quite often I'll just pop into a beautiful old church and just sit there and be in awe of the stained glass windows and the quietness and the sacredness of being in that sort of sanctuary, regardless of the, the religion or the de the, um, you know, the, the type of, uh, I guess denomination that, of that religion. But, um, there's lots of ways we can integrate travel and, and find the beauty and the joy of life without going through the, to toil and the, the troubles of having to travel overseas. And so that was the purpose of doing this podcast. So I. Traveled, got in the tin can and traveled. I've been to other countries and I would go and again, it was okay, you have to pack, you have to be ready, you go, you get there. You're go, go, go. I'm not sure there was as much enjoyment and really seeing and enjoying where I was. And then when I got in an RV and traveled the country for three years, it took me a couple months to. Be like, wait, I'm living in this rv. I can't keep going to these locations and it be a vacation. What is it when I go into a location? And what I've realized over the years, it's about being present. It is about, it is a way for to slow my mind down. It is a way for me to be present, being in nature, taking that hike. So to me, travel is whether you're going around the world or locally, and I agree with you going local, and I say that to people on this podcast all the time, like, explore your neighborhood if you're talking about traveling and it's just one more thing on your list of things to do. That doesn't sound fun to me. Now some people do it and you pointed out, and I, that was interesting what you said. You're not fulfilled here, so you're going somewhere else to get that fulfillment. That's something to think about for me. There are places, a lot of places I wanna go. I have a huge bucket list. And again, I wanna go and be in nature and be part of the culture and just slow down. I'd love to go to a location and find that waterfall. And to me that's meditative.'cause I could slow my mind and just be present, whether it's five minutes or for an hour or anything in between. So I think we're saying the same thing. And I, I, I think for my listeners, it's an awareness. Of where you're going. Why are you going there? What is it you're looking for? And just maybe sometimes shifting that thinking process. I think you, we, you and I have talked about it a lot. Awareness is huge. If you are thinking about taking that trip for a week or you. To Australia and you're stressed out about it. You know, being aware of that and then kind of changing that thinking process of what it is, why you want to go there, not just to somehow make yourself feel better. one thing that. I think we're gonna see is a shift in the purpose of travel soon. At the moment, travel is very much about extraction. I see this all the time, particularly in a beautiful Sydney city like Sydney, where I see a lot of tourists that'll come here. And I even just the other day, I was on the beach. I went for a swim and I saw some tourists walk onto the beach in their full clothes. Even with their shoes still on, they didn't take their shoes off, so they didn't get to see, feel the sand squishing between their feet. Um, their toes. They didn't get to jump in the water. They didn't go for a swim. They literally came to the beach to take photos. And what I'm seeing is this, this, I guess this extraction model, what can I extract from my travel? I need to get my photo, I need to get this, the food, I need to get this experience. And I think what we might start seeing, hopefully soon, is a bit more of a model of contribution in travel. And we're already starting to see this. Starting to grow where people travel for volunteer work. And you know, when I travel quite often I will go to a homeless shelter or a youth refuge and offer my services as a meditation teacher. Um, and travel isn't and shouldn't be just about what can I extract from this experience isn't, you know, getting an Instagram photo and getting many likes and comments. It's, it's, that's a, it's all extraction, but what can we contribute through our travel? And I think there's a really big shift to, to come to our world where. Travel can be where we move to different locations to bring something of value to that local environment rather than to take something of value from that environment, which is really exciting. So maybe when we're, we're traveling, just for now, those people listening, think about your interaction with that place. The people, the animals, the plants, um, to not just think about what can I take away from this, but how do I contribute to this by my presence being here in some way, shape, or form. And I love that, and that's actually a lot of the conversations I've been having with people. I spoke to a gentleman who is in his eighties and has started a TikTok channel talking about different places a. Not just about the place, but what can you learn and what can you give back? Very interesting gentleman. I just spoke to somebody who's from Greece and she was talking about that same thing. She said one of her pet peeves, I guess I could share this, is the people who come and they're just, you know, taking pictures or videos the entire time. They're not there and present. And I, you know, as somebody, um, a content creator, I. Have learned to put the phone down. Yes, I wanna take a couple pictures and remember the moment, but to your point, I want to put my feet in the sand, get into the water, and be there and be present. And I feel like part of what I hope to give back is to inspire people to go out and travel because. You know, not just to check it off their list, you know, just exactly what you're saying. What is the purpose? And to me, when I say living life fully, I want to see and experience things and that it's hard not to make that sound like overwhelmed. Let me just check everything off my list. But it really is about being present, enjoying where you are. Being part of the culture. What, what can you add in some way? So I love what you said about that. Yeah. I love, there's a movement called Take Three for the Sea. It's an Instagram account and um, it's take TAKE, then the letter, the number three, and then for the sea. And, um, the idea of that is that when you go to the beach, you'll take three pieces of plastic off the beach, a bottle top. It could be a cigarette butt, it could be a straw, and you put it and dispose of it in the bin. And the idea is that, you know, when we're traveling, and I love this, you know, when I was just on some hiking trails just in New Zealand. You know, it, it was incredibly clean. I must admit there's a great deal of respect for the, the hikers and travelers with nature over there, because it was pristine, I must admit. But every now and then, you'd just see, um, maybe it was mistakenly dropped or something like that, out of someone's bag, some rubbish. And you know, there was a general, a cent, a general movement, I guess, with the people there that if you saw rubbish, you just picked it up and kept this in its natural environment as much as possible to try and remove as much of the human footprint as possible. So I think as. Travelers. We wanna be very mindful about the contribution we can make in small ways to preserving the beauty of what it is, what we came here for in the first place. Thank you. Yes, and I think that is something that I'm seeing more of and hopefully we'll see more and more of that, that people are finding ways to give back and contribute instead of just. Taking, I guess is the best way to say it. So before we wrap up, let people know how they could reach out to you. I know you have a lot to offer. You have a film and a book. We didn't even get a chance to talk about that. Um, you are a speaker meditation coach. We spoke about transformational coach. Among other things. How can people reach out and find out more about you and connect with you? Yeah, a couple places. It'd be great for people to come and join me on Instagram at Tom Cronin, or one word, T-O-M-C-R-O-N-I-N, and send me a message. I respond to all my messages, you know, I love to hear from people. So it's one place where you can find me, and then my website is tom cronin.com. So I run, yeah, courses of meditation on Zoom and in person so people can learn from anywhere in the world. Have retreats. We've got retreats coming up in uk, in Australia, in Bali. So, um, hopefully one day in America. I tried to get one happening in America, but it seems your current prime, not prime minister, president, um, didn't seem too keen on Australians coming into America right now. So maybe in the future I'll come into America and run a retreat there. And, um, yeah, reach out anytime. Um, if people need mentoring or support, then there's something I can do with them as well. And I know you've been very supportive to me. We've known each other, I've realized for 10 years and we lost touch, but every time we speak I absolutely learned something new. So I really appreciate it. I appreciate you taking the time out to be here. Thank you so much, Tom. My pleasure. Thanks for such a wonderful conversation. It's such an important conversation. I've been on quite a few podcasts, but never one around travel, and it's a, it's a really beautiful discussion to have, so thanks for inviting me along and for anyone listening, thanks for joining in. Thank you again and anybody who wants to reach out. This conversation is different than some of my others. Let me know if this is more of what you want to hear. If you're listening to the podcast on a podcast platform, you can watch on YouTube and reach out to me on social media at Inspire travels with Patti. I wanna leave people with this one last thought. Travel isn't just about where you go, it's about how you live, and I wanna remind you to live life to the fullest every day.