What if You're Running Out of Gas?

You knew things would be tough, you planned, and planned some more, but despite your best efforts, you've run out of gas, run out of steam, or just feel like you can't out run the rat race. If you are feeling exhausted despite doing all the "right" things, then know that you're not alone. So let's talk about it.

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Music: One Fine Day by Keep Calm Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I'm not a scene. Woo! Woo! Woo! I am one top cookie. Of course I can handle it.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

A little bit of faded blue. Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

What's up? 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 fact that if your life was a horror movie, you'd probably be one of the first to die. Craving real advice. Tired of feeling like every other small business owner or solopreneur is raking in the dough, well, 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 bids. So let's get it real. Okay, so I don't know about you. I like to think of myself as a tough cookie. Mm-hmm. Now, when it comes to cookies, I don't actually prefer like crunchy cookies. I prefer soft. Straight out of the oven. Ooh, so hot and delicious melts in your mouth. But then you want to let it cool a little bit so you can really taste all the flavors. But yeah, those are cookies I prefer. But when those cookies are, you know, a day or two old, well, I'll still eat them. Three days old, I'll eat them. Basically, I'm going to eat the cookies until the entire batch is gone. And with that being said, when I think about my life in terms of my survivability, right? I like to think that I'm gonna be that cookie that's just sitting around for weeks, the one that's at the bottom of the cookie jar, your hands in the cookie jar, you're trying to like find a cookie, you're like, oh, maybe there's nothing left in that jar. Maybe I should just get more cookies, and you actually dump more cookies on top of that cookie in the bottom of the cookie jar. But yeah, like two months later, I'm still there. I'm still at the bottom of the jar surviving. And no matter what you throw at me, I'm hanging in there. I am not going anywhere. You're gonna have to pry me off the bottom of that jar if you want to consume me. That's me. I'm the last cookie standing. And you too may feel like you are super tough. At times you may even feel like you're almost invincible. Maybe you don't think of yourself as a cookie. Maybe you think of yourself as a superhero. And like, I don't know, Catwoman. You bounce back, you got like more than nine lives. You just keep bouncing back no matter what they throw at you. Who else does that? The Joker? Does he keep bouncing back no matter what they throw at him? Batman! The man thrown off of things, knocked off of things, but he keeps bouncing back. You don't think of yourself as a Superman where you're like, oh, you've got my kryptonite. I don't know if I can survive, and someone has to come and cover the kryptonite so I can get to it. You are Batman. You are able to say, I've got some gadgets somewhere, I'll figure this out. Maybe you're a MacGyver and you like grab some duct tape and you're like, I've got duct tape and a pen. I I can be a millionaire or I can solve that problem, I can make dinner, I can get the raise, turn the company around. Fact is, you feel like you're pretty strong. Chances are if you're watching this video, you don't feel like you're jello. You're not like, right, I'm a jello cub.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

I was joked on this video because I was hoping that maybe you could just show me what it might be like to just turn into a puddle the minute heat hits me.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Are you a jello cup? Please don't be a jello cub. But you and I have something in common. We do. Whether you're a cookie or a superhero or just like that funky odor that doesn't quite leave that teenage boy's room. You're sticking around. But here's the thing. Sometimes the odor just isn't strong. Sometimes the cookie just is messed up around the edges, and it really is down to like a crumb and a chocolate chip. Um, and sometimes the superhero is just almost a life support, like needs Alfred or whatever, the needs a butler or someone to be like, okay, let me let me uh let me help you out. You think you go go fight somebody right now, but you probably need some medical attention. And so that's been my day. Is I came in today with a plan. I was ready to record four dance videos and edit them. I was ready to do six to seven hours on this English app that I do some part-time uh freelance contractor, need some extra money. Conversations on. I knew that I had to finish doing the laundry for the house set that I'm in. I actually packed most of the car the night before, cleaned most of the stuff, did all the dishes days before, made the bed early, all the things so that my last day could just be relaxing and I can focus on recording those videos so I need to record. I was planning on doing at least two get real rays in this beautiful space, and hoping that I would have some time to record a mini movie. Now, let me back up a second. The space that I am in is beautiful. I've been here before, I really love it, and I was super excited when I was invited to return to this space. In case you're wondering what's going on with my arm, I'm stroking a dog right now. This dog is super sweet, and I think the dog knows that today's my last day, and I'm gonna be leaving soon. So, yeah, I was just vibing. I was feeling good, happy to be here, a couple of weeks, beautiful location with animals that know me and love to snuggle with me, peaceful, all is well. And despite of having all these beautiful plans for what I would do in this space, despite preparing to make my last day both relaxing and productive, I just ran out of steam. I haven't been running around doing a whole bunch of things today. I just haven't. I really haven't. Got up at 5 30 a.m. Did what I normally do, feed the animals, uh, brush my teeth. I had my breakfast later in the day. I just wasn't super hungry, but I did my English lessons, tried to remind myself to be positive, and just to really embrace the fact that I was had a bunch of new students lined up. Sometimes I prefer to just have conversations with people I know. It's like, oh, I'm tired. I just want to talk to someone I know, and I can let them do most of the talking. Yay! And we can just relax instead of me having to figure out what am I teaching right now? Future progressive tense? Is that a thing? I never learned about that in high school or middle school. What is this stuff? Is this are American students supposed to know this stuff? It's just, can't we just be like, here's another way to say a sentence? Wouldn't it that just be easier? What is these what are these rules? These rules make no sense to me. But I was raised here. And for middle school and high school, I went to good schools. So I don't know. Um I think they just make this stuff up just to make it just to make English complicated for non-native English speakers. With that being said, I enjoyed the conversations I had this morning. I actually met some really cool people, had a repeat student who's gorgeous. Oh my gosh, what's her what's her beauty routine? She's so gorgeous. Oh, I've been up since 5:30. How am I looking right now? How am I feeling? Let me be sure to go shower after this lesson and you know, give my face a little extra scrub so that I feel gorgeous. Yay! So I did reach a point in the day where I felt gorgeous. I was checking things off my list, and lo and behold, I went outside to do my recording. Now, for my dance recordings, I know that I have to, I was having to time it around the sun, so I wanted for there to be enough natural light so that I wasn't dancing in shadows, and the outfit that I was wearing in the sun isn't the most breathable. The shirt has holes in it for ventilation, but it's some kind of synthetic fabric, probably a polyester, because just dancing in the sun after like 10 minutes, and I'm not dancing aggressively, I'm not doing some um intricate sama dance and freaking two-step and hip hop explaining moves, and I just felt like I am depleted, I am hot, I'm sweaty, I just want to stop. I made it through maybe 10 minutes before I had to stop, take a little water break, and then I went out back out, recorded for another 10 minutes, stopped, went back out for another 10 minutes, so I got maybe 30 minutes of recording done, and then I just reached a point where I'm like, I just don't care. Now, I should say that I wanted to get these recordings done for three reasons, really. One is that I have an on-demand course that I created, I was really proud of it. I'm messaging past clients to say this on-demand course is available. And then I thought I should really take a look at the first version to see is it is it really that bad? Is it okay? I mean, people are buying it, right? Some people love it, but one person like super hated on it, and that made me really sad. And when I looked back, I looked at just a few of the videos. There's 16 videos, so I looked at like the ring, and I'm like, this looks good. I mean, this this looks good. I didn't watch them all my dude, just like taking little snippet clips. Okay, this looks good. So I'm I was so proud of this second version. I thought, okay, let me again go back to version one and see what's that look like. And instead of looking at it going, this looks good, I clicked on some different videos and I'm like, oh, that looks kind of fuzzy. And now I have a very critical eye, like, oh, the camera quality is a little fuzzy, and I don't know, it's a little hard to hear me over the music. Okay, and I am playing a popular song, and that song was the jam when I first recorded this, but technically it is an older song because I first recorded this three years ago. So, and legally, I shouldn't even be using this song because I don't have a commercial license, and I would need a sync license as well as some other license. I need I would need like two licenses in order to use this one song, and there's like three songs in the video or four songs. Now, if there's maybe let's say three songs, three songs per video, we've got 16 videos. That's a lot of licenses that I ain't got the money for. Okay, so you know what? It bothers me that somebody truly was frustrated by their experience of hearing slightly older songs and also feeling like the videos were old because the image quality wasn't great. So I've got better camera setup. I and I remember at the time when I recorded things, I was using my webcam. Not the webcam that was for my laptop, but external webcam, and I thought this looks good. And maybe the quality was good for that time, but you know, as technology changes, and technology is changing very fast, faster and faster. Us solopreneurs have to really work hard to keep up with these tech changes. So I said, I'm gonna redo it. I'm just going to re-record the entire course. And I started to get into it, and I re was I've been here for a few weeks, so I recorded a good portion of it. I also decided, let me restructure the way this course is laid out. And I do recall that at one point I had the course structured one way, and I said, maybe I should change the way I'm restructuring it. And I don't know, to be honest. I don't know if I ever made that change, and whether that's why the content felt very different for me. Maybe I never made that change. When I went back to look at my notes in terms of level one, two, and three, I it looked like I had made the change, and that level one was according to whatever that was that I'd been selling, and I like to think that that's what people were happily buying, but all the same, I knew that I just it was going to be my to my advantage to redo it, so I got into it and I was excited at first, and then there were a few dance moves where I was like, oh man, I don't that I like focused on really learning those moves to in order to teach them for this video, but I don't really want to relearn these moves. And some of my new video because I'm recording outside with the sun shanging in terms of when it's high in the sky. Maybe I'm teaching another class, so I can't go out to record. I'm gonna go out and record once my class is done, but now the sun has passed by, and so there's shadow, and I have to figure out how much am I visible in shadow, or do I have to wait till the next day to record? So I felt like the week was slipping by, and now as I'm editing this new video, I'm looking at okay, this video part looks great, this part I'm gonna have shadow. Uh, how can I adjust the image so that I'm not covered in so much shadow? And in terms of music, well, I'm not going to use commercial music anymore. So now I have to find uh public domain, royalty-free music. And if you've ever tried to look up royalty-free music on YouTube, you will know that a lot of things that say royalty-free are not royalty-free. Because when you look at the description, it will say, You have to buy my license. And in some cases, the license for that person is like $2. In some cases, buying their license means signing up for some subscription that's a lot more than $2. And I'm like, I don't, if I need 16 songs, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be spending all this money on songs that I don't even think are great to begin with. And I also might only like the first part of the song. And as I get more into the track, I'm like, oh my gosh, this track is horrible. There's a reason why. There's a reason why this is something that you're trying to sell with a license for a low amount of money is because you couldn't produce no cup no big music company would pay for this song. You don't have it, or maybe you need to work with a better team. I don't know, but I don't want this. So now I've got these great dance moves, but I'm also trying to find songs that match the energy of these great dance moves. And this is feeling hard, and I'm feeling exhausted trying to record. And so here we come to my last day where I've got to get things done, and I realize okay, I want a little bit of extra content for this video. Let's record this, let's record that. I'm almost done, and then I hit a wall, and I'm sweating, and I'm tired, and I'm thinking I'm at the dance moves that I only remember some of them. I'm struggling to find songs that match the moves, and I'm supposed to do this other thing, but I don't even I have my notes, but I just I'm not feeling creative. I don't feel like I'm create right now. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine what if your job, and I don't even know what your job is, oh, are you working? Are you okay? Um, but to be somebody who is maybe uh surgeon. I don't know why surgeons come to mind, but you're a surgeon. And you go into the operating room, you just you've done this procedure hundreds of times, and you just are ready to start working, you scrub in, and then you just go like I gotta do this again. Now you're a surgeon, so you're gonna get it done. You're not gonna walk out of the OR and be like, I need a break, I need a cookie. Um but you you do the procedure, and after the procedure, you just feel like I need a break, I need a vacation, I need something. And that's one of the upsides to working for other people. You do have the ability to plan vacations and really oftentimes, right, really enjoy, relax. I don't know, try not to work or think about work during those vacations. As I'm saying this, I feel like whoever's watching this is like, Ray, I work every vacation. I'm always thinking about work. My boss calls me 24-7. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I did have a boss who would call me on a time off, and I didn't love that. Um, but all that being said, when you work for yourself, there is a lot of strategic planning that has to go into it. Now, I don't just work for myself, I am also um doing this house any thing, and I think for me, it's a cumulative effect, being that I just finished all the editing for level two, and I was so relieved to get that done, and then I immediately had to dive into working on my taxes, and that created all kinds of feelings. Like, what choices have I made in life the past year? Why are my taxes like this? But as much as I want to be like, I'm not gonna do this, I'm just gonna file extension, deal with it later. I didn't. I filed on time, done, got that out of the way. And today's payday, so I got paid, and I'm going back to my financial flow for this month and just reconfirming okay, am I still on track to pay X bills this week? I've got all my little automated payments set up, but you know, sometimes when you are freelance, sometimes you have a little more than you expected, sometimes you have a little less. So I always try to do the budget based on what I think I'm gonna be getting. And with that being said. I then dive into trying to fix level one. Why? Because I have people who've already purchased level one, some people who paid for it, and their course is going to start within the next couple of days. And I really want them to have an amazing experience. I want them to have the new content. And so I'm trying to give them the new content, make it available so as soon as they open their class this week, they'll just have this great experience. I'm reaching out to old clients who've already who are already currently taking level one saying, hey, guess what? I'm so excited to deliver this new video for you. And at the same time, I'm trying to edit the videos quickly because I want to get everybody everything they need as soon as possible. And you might be like, girl, that sounds like a lot. Ooh, I'm tired of listening to it. Well, that's the point. It's a lot, it's a lot of energy being put out. In terms of hours in the day, I've had hours in the day to sit and enjoy my lunch. I've had time to throughout the week, I've had time to take the dog on walks, go to the park. I've even taken some time in the evenings to watch TV, which I don't do that very often. Um, I generally go into house sits, never turning on the TV. And I've been here before. The last time I was here, I never turned on TV, but I thought, you know what? I'm gonna relax a little. I'm gonna try turning on the TV. Oh, look at looking now. And so it's not like I've been on my computer, go, go, go, go, go, but the work I've been working on has been a little intense. Now, huh? How does this affect you? Hmm, hmm, boom, boom. Well, chances are you might be in that go go go state. Maybe you have kids and you've been rushing around to get the kids to their uh sports events and their dance and gymnastics or whatever, and you've been trying to get things done at work because there's a big meeting coming up, or your company is really struggling to get new clients thanks to this stupid war the US is having. Mm-hmm. Or maybe you've been in the process of moving, maybe you just had a new kid, maybe you don't have kids, but you've been working to get your body ready for the summer. You've been a go-go go state, jumping from one thing to the next. Maybe, like me, you were also like, ah, toxins, and so this constant go, go, go, at some point, you're going to run out of steam. Doesn't matter that you were going to bed on time all the time, doesn't matter that you um were took a moment to go to a little spa or have coffee with a friend. Just jumping from one thing to the next, even though you're trying to be strategic and planning these little restful moments, it can still have an impact, and not necessarily the impact that you wanted it to have. I was so happy when I had a little inspiration to write out the next mini movie. I have ideas, but often I'm just like, mm, this location, it's just not gonna work.

unknown 25:38

Right?

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Like, I just I need the right spot. And I think I planned a lot for this location I'm in right now, in terms of this is gonna be so good for some mini movies and some cooking videos, and I'm gonna be doing to do so much podcasting there. Part of it being uh previous locations where cats were meowing a lot, or there were a lot of sirens in the area, dogs barking, and I just felt like oh, I can't get the work done. Or maybe the space is just ugly. I'm like, I can't get the work done. But when I go back to that place that I never been to before, I'm gonna get the work done. And for you, you're probably not house sitting and a solo pedor at the same time, uh, running a YouTube channel and doing podcasts. But how can you relate? Well, maybe you've been go, go, go at work telling yourself things will be great. I just need to make it to the end of this project, and then I can go on vacation. And sometimes that totally works, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you run out of steam before your vacation day hits, and then you find yourself wondering, oh my gosh, can I call out? Can I take a personal day? Because I just can't, I just can't do anymore. So is this okay? It's I mean, I'm looking I'm thinking about like back in the old days, if you wanted to have crops to harvest and to feed yourself or to sell so that way you can get the money to in order to have things for your family, then taking a mental health day, taking a personal day, I don't know, you might be pretty hungry later on. However, whether or not it's okay, whether or not it's acceptable, I think we're gonna have to table that. We're just gonna even not have to focus on that. And instead just accept the reality. The reality is I ran out of steam. The cookie that was at the bottom of the cookie jar isn't a whole cookie right now. It is the chocolate chip with some crumbs around it. Now, that actually tends to get thrown out of the cookie jar. So I don't really want to think about myself being the chocolate chip that gets thrown away. Actually, sometimes, depending on how long the chocolate chip has been there, just you know, eat it, delicious, it served its purpose. The funk in the teenager's bedroom, that smell being a little less strong, that doesn't seem like a bad thing. That seems like, yeah, no one wants to smell sweaty socks anyway, so not so bad. But maybe that teenager found that smell really comforting. So, running out of steam, running out of funk, that's not bad. Okay, so we got the chocolate chip that's gonna be thrown away. That's not so good. The funk, that's not as funky, that's not bad. What else did we say we can compare running out of steam to your tough cookie, your funky smell? I don't remember. But things change. Things change all the time, and fact of the matter is, despite all of the planning I did, despite all of the self-care that I've been putting in and trying to plan out my days in order to be productive and yet have affiliate satisfaction at the end of the day, but not overwork myself for whatever reason, just couldn't make it to the finish line. And that's okay. So I say all this because there's a chance that you might be feeling this right now. You might be feeling like you're running out of gas, and you were trying to get to the nearest exit off the highway and get to the gas station, and you really don't want to have to pull over on the side of the road or have to push your car. You're just praying that you can coast to the exit because you're running on fumes, even though you filled up before you left, for some reason, the nearest gas station just is a little bit further. And you're like, what on earth? I filled up, but the nearest gas station is a little bit further, and I've been stuck in so much traffic that I've even though I had this all planned out, the gas is just not, it's just not enough. It's just not enough. Despite all of my best efforts. And so, with that being said, know that if you have to pull over on the side of the road, it's okay. That's good too. But don't focus on beating yourself up about I should have I should have got off at that last exit, or man, I can't just why has traffic been so bad? Just don't beat yourself up on the f about about the fact that you can't control the events. If you're running out of gas, know that you did the best you could. Hopefully. Hopefully, cello, you did the best you could, and that it's not the end. Worst case scenario, you have to call the tow truck or you have to get out of the car, go walk with the kin, get some gas, go walk back. But honestly, if you can say to yourself, you made plants, you did the best you could, that's enough. That's enough. I made plants, I did the best I could. As long as I try, everything else is under my control. And that in life, sometimes you run out of gas. Sometimes you do. That doesn't mean you stop driving, that doesn't mean you give up, that doesn't mean you stop being a delicious cookie in the cookie jar. That doesn't mean you stop being the smelly socks. Though I hope that someone washes those socks because I'm really worried about that room that just stank. Alright, my friends. Well, I hope you found some of this helpful because I should have fun sharing. I'm gonna go walk this dog right now because this dog is over here like, um, you've stopped stroking me, so I need more attention. And that walk outside will be another way that I'm practicing self-care. Until next time.

unknown 33:40

Peace.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

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 a little ray, or just see me hang out with cute dogs, then feel free to visit me over on YouTube. Get LittleRay 4273.