How to reward yourself without creating more stress

You did good. In fact, as a little reward, you should celebrate... but does celebration have to lead to more stress? Celebrate with a nice dinner, a vacation, a little shopping, or just taking the kids out for the day, all of these things can lead to stress. The dinner went on a credit card, it rained the whole vacation, the kids fought the entire car ride... so how about developing a reward system that actually reduces the probability for stress? Let's get into it.

Heads Up! This episode was originally released on YouTube December 10th, 2025

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Music: One Fine Day by Keep Calm Podcast

Transcript

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Hello, this is Ray with Get Real Ray, a place and space for life and business tips from this creative soul to hopefully inspire you on your journey or at the very least provide you with some laughs. And so, let's get real. Let's get real about the importance of surrounding yourself with pretty things. Craving real advice. Tired of feeling like every other small business owner or solopreneur is raking in the dough while you just seem to be raking, secretly looking for a reminder that starting your own business is not as glamorous as others make it look. Whether you're looking to change the game in your relationships at home or at the workplace, you've come to the right place. My name is Ray. I went from corporate America to running my own small business to becoming a solopreneur. I'm a professional actor and dare we say a professional busybody. Because this body is about to be busy all up in your biz. So let's get it real. When I say surround yourself with pretty things, I don't mean that it has to be expensive or shiny. I'm not talking about, oh well, Ray said I should go out and surround myself with pretty things, and I do like Louis Vuitton bags, or I just really like that Lambo over there, so I think I need to surround myself with lots of Lamborghinis. Like, no, that is not what I'm talking about at all. So let's roll it back just a little. Okay, so as someone who owns her own business, multiple businesses, I know how it feels to really just get like in the weeds, right? You are constantly doing all the things. Maybe you are a solopreneur and you are handling marketing, you are the tech support with the website, you are handling any kind of billing questions and inquiries, you might be in a service-based business where you are also providing a service. Maybe you are a product-based company and you have to source the product or make the product, arrange for the product to be shipped to you, manage to ship the product up to somebody else. Maybe you are just a solopreneur, but you deal with digital products and you created a digital product or course, and so you feel like up, all I have to do is just tell everybody that my product or course is available, and then all of them are gonna come and run to get my item. Okay, so if you are not new to business, then you know that marketing is just not that easy. Maybe maybe you do have something that is truly unique or very um high quality, and people heard about it from you and they flocked to you, and they want to buy it, they they are buying it, they're investing, and all of that is great. However, with every business, you do reach a point when you have to branch out beyond just your initial consumer base. So uh if you are within the performing arts community, actor community, and musician, then you'll know that you may ask your friends, hey, come on out, come see my show, and they'll come out and see your show. Um, but unless what you are offering is truly a their jam and B something that they are willing to see and enjoy like 50 times, then after a while, they're gonna be like, uh, I'll catch you at the next one, right? Like, and that's okay. That's okay, that's normal. Um, especially if you are an artist where you are doing lots of performances. You may be performing in the same city uh five nights a week, just at different venues. Do you really expect your group of friends to come out and see you at each venue five nights a week? They got lives too. Okay, so however, maybe you're just like, Ray, I don't own my own business. I am not a performing artist. I don't know what you're talking about. How does this apply to me? It applies to you. Okay, so why does it apply to you? Well, you may be in a position where you're going to your job day in, day out, and you've reached a point where you're like, I love my job. And I love my family. But oh no, I want I wanna do something else. I need a little something. Or I love my job, but I just don't feel like going to work. I love my family, but I just don't feel like watching my kids' soccer game. I love my kid, but their soccer team is terrible, and I'm just tired of watching them lose. Like these are things that are normal, they're natural, they're okay, no problem. Alright, so if you do happen to be in that entrepreneur category, solopreneur category, small business owner category, then you know that there are just gonna be times when you just feel burnt out, you just feel tired. Now, as I said, this doesn't just apply to business people. You may be hearing some airplanes and things over me, and there's a reason why I am recording outside right now, and that is because I am surrounding myself with beautiful things, and you're like, Hey, I see a palm tree. Yes, there is a palm tree, but there's also a really beautiful pool in front of me that is totally inviting. Um, and this space is so magical, I just had to share even just a snippet of it with you. Okay, so with that being said, surrounding yourself with beautiful things is not about flexing or flaunting, it's not about that at all. First of all, you need to make sure that the things you're surrounding yourself with are things that mean something to you. So we're not talking shiny object, okay? You're not a little kitty cat, you're not like, oh, look at that shiny object, wow, it crinkles around. That's not what we're talking about at all. We are talking about the fact that when you are feeling low on energy, when you are feeling like uh this again, even if you love your job, even if you love your business, even if you love your kids or kids, you love your family, it's still normal to feel just drained. And especially if you are in a business that involves lots of stress. Um there are a number of fields, especially within the medical field where or financial field as well, where uh there's just a lot going on all the time. And so feeling stress is a part of the job. It's just you're always on the go and you're always in this kind of urgency state. I feel that as a small business owner, um especially with the way the economy is in the US right now, I have spent the last two years in this stressed state trying to get my um business sales up, try to reposition my business away from the uh clientele that we have from 2020 to 2024, right? So, you know, I had the stress of trying to make my business work during the pandemic, and my business did work, and I was so grateful for it, and it reached a point where things were matching my vision. Holy cow! I had this vision for years, and it was finally coming to fruition. I was so so excited, and then to you know, the market changed, of course, and so to then try to figure out well, how can I keep my vision alive based on the change that has occurred? You know, things are open, a lot of people are feeling burnt out by being online, they just want to get out, they don't care what they're going to, they just want to go somewhere. Also recognizing that I did not want to go back into working in public schools on a regular basis, and I did not want to go back to the hustle and bustle of living in New York City. And prior to 2020, I was in a stressed state of trying to just survive financially in New York and trying to make um trying to make it without being in a nine to five job. And before that, I was in the stress of being in a nine to five job while still also trying to keep my artistic career alive and do performances and um be able to attend those auditions. I just remember being so frustrated because I finally got an audition with one of the top commercial uh casting offices in New York City, and I managed to get my lunch bake push back, I rushed out the door, and I just sat in traffic and I was late and I missed my audition time slot, and I was so so upset and pissed off, and I'm like, I can't do this, I can't be an office manager and be a successful actor at the same time, it's just not working. Um, I did that leave, I did leave that job, but not because of acting for other reasons. Um, I went to another nine to five job and I focused on performing in a different way, but I always knew and I was very open in that new job about um the dance work that I was doing, but I knew at some point it could it could not work out, it could collide. I left that job for completely different reasons. But the point being is that I've just been in these states of stress for so so long, and I feel like the periods in where I felt that things were going smooth, I was doing what I wanted to do, and not worried about either paying the bill or um making the audition, meeting the deadline, doing the next thing, keeping my uh romantic relationship going, which turned into a marriage, so keeping that marriage going, um just all these states of stress, and so you know when I think of my former spouse, uh, he liked to surround himself with pretty things, but they were pretty things he could not afford. And so, remember when I said you're not a cat, you're not like ooh, shiny, I don't care, yay! Okay, you have to think about what is it that you are surrounding yourself with and why does it matter? So, for instance, um if you are okay, so let me be clear. One way to I talked all about all the stress, but I forgot to say that one way to re-energize yourself and to really reward yourself um for when those low periods come, right? Is you want to have a few things in your life that just make you feel relaxed and full of joy, all right? Now, this is a great way to combat that feeling of burnout because it's going to happen, it's gonna happen, even if you know you are in the most stable job, you have the best, most perfect family ever. It's just gonna happen where you're like this is so nice. I'm tired. I'm tired, but this is so nice, it just happens. Sorry, it happens. Um, and now I'm thinking like, did this happen back in the old days? But honestly, people didn't live as long. So maybe it's because we all live longer and there's so much convenience in our lives right now where we are able to stop that running and stress and take a pause and a breather and be like, okay, I need to. I I've been running so fast that I didn't even realize that my shoes now have holes in them because I've been running so much, or I've been running so fast, I didn't even realize that my back really hurts, or my calves are super tight, so we can't go through life just always running and not taking a moment to check in with ourselves. Alright, so now that we got that part covered, one way to allow yourself an instant recharge, of course, is to be surrounded by pretty things. You want those things to be meaningful. Um, going out and buying something you cannot afford just because it's a status symbol item is not ideal because it just puts you in another state of stress later on, right? Like, oh I love this expensive car, but I can't afford it. But it makes me feel so good, but I can't afford it, so now I can't sleep at night. Oh, I love this big house, it's the perfect house, it's a dream house, but I can't afford it. This house makes me feel good. I can see my children growing up here, and yet I can't sleep at night because I'm so stressed out about how I'm gonna pay these bills, right? So you don't want to put yourself in that kind of situation, you don't want to surround yourself with beautiful things that are um how should I say this? Providers of a quick fix dopamine. Okay, so maybe you bought something that is so cool, so cute, so whatever, right? You're like, yes, I am so glad that I got this. I love it, it's amazing, but it's just a quick fix. Okay, one example would be um you saw uh article of clothing that looks really nice, it was on sale, it's within your budget, it looks great on you, you buy it, it goes in your closet, you actually never wear it anywhere. But it felt really good buying it. Sure did. You love knowing it's in your closet, you sure do, but you don't use it, it's just there, and then years go by, you're like, uh, there, oh there, I forgot I bought that. That made me feel so happy. And so you're just living off the memory of buying it. Um I remember uh watching a financial there's a financial podcast that I really enjoy. Sometimes I watch the uh video version and sometimes I listen to the just the audio of the podcast. I usually just listen to the audio, so I don't really remember if it was which what it was, but I remember a young lady saying that she had um purchased herself uh a gift and she purchased tickets to Taylor Swift's concert, but she got like the best seats, and she went more than once, okay? So she got the creme de la creme um to two different Taylor Swift concerts, and one of them involved having to fly to another country to in order to see the show. I don't know if both did, but anyway, um it was at least $5,000 she spent. Okay. You this is a musician that you love. Great. Um you're creating memories for yourself, and she didn't go with her spouse, so I don't even think she I don't think she went with a friend. Maybe she just went by herself. I don't know. Okay, so you you've created these memories for yourself, but well, she couldn't really afford it. She made it happen, but she couldn't really afford it. I think it went on credit cards or something. Okay, so you make it happen, you can't really afford it. And what about those memories? How long will those memories nourish you? Will in ten years will the memory be? Oh my gosh. I remember when I totally distreated myself, I hopped on a plane, I went to go see one of my favorite singers in this other country, and here I was in this concert venue surrounded by all these people from all over the world, and it was just great. Or is it gonna be more oh yeah, I went to that concert, it was so much fun, but uh, I'm really tired of paying this credit card bill with these high interest fees. Yeah. So while it is important not to just get something because it'll make you look fabulous to other people, and not just to get something because um you like it, it's got to be meaningful. And yes, um for that young woman, the Taylor Swift concert was meaningful, but how long would that meaningful moment last? It's not gonna really nourish you if you wind up having to file for bankruptcy um because you could can't pay your other bills, okay. In case of my former spouse, um, you know, the timpani lamp that he'd always dreamed of and he finally got, well, it's nourishing him every night when he turns on the lamp to read next to the lamp, but throughout the rest of the day, he's got the stress of man, I can't pay my bills, and I don't want to open that bill because I can't pay it, and why do I have this tax thing that I can't pay? And I don't know what to do about that, so I'm just gonna ignore everything. So, yes, treat yourself, yes, surround yourself with things that make you feel recharged, but be mindful that you don't put yourself in another negative position, create more stress for yourself. Okay, so you might be like, Ray, I don't have the money to take off work, and I really do want to treat myself to something, but I just can't afford it, and so you just told me not to go blowing my money on things. So, what am I supposed to do? There are a lot of options. So, right now I am not in a financial position where I can um live in the type of home that I want to live in, own a home, live in the neighborhood that I want to live in, hop on a plane and go visit other countries like I would love to do. I love talking to people from other countries and learning about different cultures, but I'm not in a position right now where I can just go hop on a plane and make that life happen. So while I know it's important for me to continue to work on my business and um be creative in my marketing strategy, I also know that just focusing on my business 24-7 is no it's not sustainable, and um, like I said, I've been kind of pivoting for I don't know two years now just trying to restructure things. Um okay, so yeah, maybe not a full two years, but almost two years restructuring things, and I finally have managed to get the brands in a in a manner that I like them. I definitely hit a wall where I was just like, okay, I'm so tired of having yet another tech issue. I spent so many hours trying to fix um the web page loading speed. Like the design looks great, but unfortunately the web page loading speed is now down. So now I have to fix that because customers are gonna get pissed off. So now I fix the web page loading speed. Speed, uh loading speed, and I have uh taken new photos to put on the site. So now the photos and the color scheme and all these things match and it looks really good. Now I'm doing the quality assurance to make sure everything works right, and I still have to get back to creating new content for marketing on YouTube, and then I have to figure out well what other ways can I market because YouTube, of course, is the long game, and I need to be able to get some immediate clients because I would love to be able to pay for this other bit of software that the site needs so that I can have um customers log into the site and have all the bells and whistles right up front, or at least the essential ones in terms of their of the user interface. And so there's all these things. I'm like, oh, I'm so tired, and I really want to buy myself a cookie, but I can't. Okay, but what can you do? Well, I can think about other things that bring me joy. So, my friend, make a list. What are some things that bring you joy? If you find that the things on your list are simply things that you have to buy, that's great, that's a start, and now you want to think about what are some things that maybe they have in common, right? If you're just like, Well, shopping brings me joy, well, what is it about shopping that brings you joy? Is it trying on nice garments? Is it finding a good deal? Okay, if you get feel joy off of finding a good deal, then maybe it will be similar joy, equal amounts of joy if you go and um make it a priority to go wander around the nearest farmers market, flea market, antique show, antique shop, and look for a good deal. You know you're not gonna be buying tons of stuff. You might not buy anything because you are focused on not just finding a good deal, but maybe you want to find something that's of good quality as well. Maybe you tell yourself, actually, I want to find something that's really good quality, and then I want to be able to resell it on one of those sites like Poshmark or eBay or whatever. Maybe you're just like, mm-hmm I don't even want the stress of trying to resell something, and I also know I don't need something else in my home. Um, but I really love finding a good deal. Okay, so would it be better for you to look at things that are not clothes? So, what are some other ways where you can participate in a good deal? If you just love clothes, go to a high-end store that you cannot afford, would not afford, leave the credit cards at home. Don't and just walk around and maybe try something on. Imagine yourself being able to walk out with shopping bags from this store. Maybe you walk into the store and you're like, Oh, this outfit feels so good, but it's not a good deal. Right? So maybe it satisfies something else in you. Maybe finding that good deal might be going and seeing a concert, but instead of just paying for a full price for a regular concert, maybe you um look at well, can I find the next big thing? Maybe I should take myself to a free free comedy night somewhere. There's free comedy night everywhere, you guys. Free karaoke. Um, maybe I can go on meetup and look for some free groups. Uh, do you have a weekend where can you do a house swap, right? So I am actually doing this thing where I'm traveling the US currently through trusted house sitters, but that does involve a membership fee, okay? So if you use 81 of the millions of people online that have a promo code, the promo code is the same amount for everybody, right? It gets you like 40 bucks off your trusted house sitter membership. Great. But once you've used that code, if you want to keep doing it, then you're looking at like right now, currently it's like 169 um a year. Okay. If you divide by 12 months, it's not a huge amount of money. However, that just might not be an option for you with or without the discount code. And you might be saying, uh, I'm never gonna use it much. You know, I just have these occasional weekends, there's not really a lot of house sits near where I live. Um, they all seem to be in the US or in the UK, and I don't live in those places. That's fine, that's fine. Maybe you have a friend, and you're just like, dude, you want to change you want me to walk your watch a dog for a day, or you want to just change houses for a day or whatever, right? Because it's your friend, so they're either gonna say yes or no, like it's not a big deal. But the idea is you're putting yourself in a different surrounding, and that in and of itself can make you feel like you are being rejuvenated because you're traveling. Um, I am at this house right now that is in a location that I can't afford. This house I cannot afford, but the weather is so nice, and the house is so nice, and so that's enough for me. That's the rejuvenation for me, is that I'm surrounding myself by someone else's really beautiful things, and the memory of being at this location is going to stick with me, um, as well as incentivize me to keep going at my business so that I can someday be say, oh yeah, uh this these beautiful things, these beautiful things are mine, yeah. So um maybe maybe you like me enjoy really good weather and you want to feel like you are in Hawaii, but you can't because you're like, I ain't got that money. Okay, so what about Hawaii? Do you like? Do you like the idea of eating tropical fruit? Do you like the idea of being on the beach in the sun, in the water? How can you kind of recreate some of this for yourself? So maybe you decide you are going to have Hawaii Day, and maybe you get your family to join in with you. I remember when I was dating my ex, um, I did like indoor beach picnic day or something. I don't really know what I was doing, but um I I put like a blanket on the floor and got some food and put it in like to go containers and put that on the floor. There was no hanky panky, you guys. Um, and I had cold beers and I I think I had shorts on. It was December, and I'm like, we're gonna pretend we're at the beach, yay! He's like, what? And I'm like, get on the beach time. Woohoo! I love the beach, don't you love the beach? Come on in, welcome to the beach. And he was like, Oh, I'm okay, you know. He was like, Oh, I'll be I'll sure you seem excited, so I'm excited too. So your family might be like that, oh okay. You can tell your family it's road trip time, let's go to the forest. And literally, you all get in the car and you're just driving to the same park down the street that you always go to. But because you've said it's a forest and you are wearing like your hiking boots and uh like crazy hat, and maybe you have binoculars and a map, your whole family's like, Okay, I guess it's a forest, and so get those friends and family members to buy in on this unique experience. So if you are just like, uh, money, no, because remember, you don't have to spend money in order to surround yourself by pretty things, you can simply use your imagination. It's like improv. Have you ever played improv acting? Use your imagination to convince other people to say yes, and they will add on to the adventure, and you guys just really make a fantastic trip out of it, and you're gonna create memories, and maybe you'll take some photos and then you'll be able to laugh about it later. Don't have family members to go on the adventure with. Call up one of your friends and be like, yo, I need to get out of here. I am broke as a joke. Let's, you know what I want to do? I want to pretend that I'm a rock star for the day. Cause I just I just love the idea of getting like all this attention or whatever, and just having people be like, Who's that? So let's just do it. You want to do it? Like, let's just let's just do it. And put on some shades or whatever, and like a hat, and just try to like every place you go, just try to be anonymous and to see how people look at you. That in and of itself might just be enough to recharge you, rejuvenate you, and make you be like, yo, that was crazy stupid fun. Um I love how you just totally came up and pretended to like, you know, like you you recognized me out of my celebrity mode, and you took a picture with me, and like people were like staring and just like, oh yo, can I get a picture? Like, did you see how that dude asked me for a picture? And like he doesn't even know who I am, right? It can be an amazing, amazing time and create some really fun dialogue with your friends later. Or, like I said, maybe you do like a house swap and just be like, dude, you need to come chill out my place, I need to come chill out your place, and it's gonna be it's gonna be awesome. And you're gonna be like, What? Like, it's gonna be awesome! And you do it, and you just try it, and maybe maybe you FaceTime each other, maybe you go to your friend's place, you're like, My friend lives in a really dirty place, this is really weird, and so now you know, like, yeah, I've hung out at my friend's house so many times, but now they've actually lived in my friend's house for 24 hours. I'm thinking, yo, my friend's a pig. My friend needs to like be a little cleaner, and that's okay too. It gives you and your friends something else to laugh over, talk about, and it might make you look at your own space in a little bit of a different way. So, my friends, yes, it is important to find ways to recharge yourself, surround yourself with things that mean something to you, whether it's physical things or just memories, because long gone are the days where you just had to worry about keeping a saber-tooth tiger away from you and finding some berries to eat. Today, you've got a lot of battles to fight every single day, including battles with technology, OMG, and so we live longer and we want to spend more time not stressed, and when we do get stressed, because it's gonna happen, figure out ways of how to snap back. So, for me right now, I was walking outside and sitting next to this pool. But the memory is gonna stay with me for a very long time. So, I'm curious what are some ways that you recharge yourself? Let me know in the comments below. And until next time. Thanks for listening. If you think this podcast would help a friend, then please feel free to share it with them. If you want to check out some more Real Ray or just see me hang out with cute dogs, then feel free to visit me over on YouTube. Get RealRay4273.