Episode 4 - Vulnerability 1.0

Audience Feedback: Vulnerability


What does it mean to be vulnerable? 

Today's show is just Rob thinking - raw, vulnerable thoughts from the road.



What lessons can be learned from it? (Coming up in Future Episodes)

How might it help others in their journey? (Coming up in Future Episodes)

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:03

Good morning everybody. Today we're gonna talk about being vulnerable. Welcome to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. I am maybe lacking some of the normal enthusiasm that I have in my voice today because this was a topic that was suggested to me the other day by staff from the audience, and on a morning like today, it seems incredibly appropriate, and I feel like this is going to be a topic that is at a very minimum two parts. So today on the commute back home, we will talk about vulnerability 1.0. What does it mean to be vulnerable? Well, seeing as I'm not entirely comfortable right now, that is one thing that it means to me is addressing issues and challenges in your life when it's uncomfortable to do so. Moreover, communicating those issues and challenges when it's uncomfortable to do so to others in the hopes that it may be of benefit to them. So why is it that I'm uncomfortable? I should be feeling you know, I should be feeling uh I should be feeling good. Should be feeling on top of my A game. I'm leaving the farmer's market. Got to visit with my brother and sister, and that was nice, and my niece, while my parents are up at the market running the stand that they've done for quite some time. And I'm feeling uncomfortable and also vulnerable for lack of a better term, because I had an uncomfortable conversation with someone there at the market who I hadn't seen in quite some time. His name's Dave. And like it is with so many other people, it's it's challenging for me because I am not that involved with the farmer's market at this point in time. And I, you know, I keep relatively busy in life at my day job doing some things on the homestead that we are both or all actively working to build and trying to balance a newer relationship in my life, and that's so I'm I'm keeping fairly busy. Now when I spoke with with Dave, we talked about what was going on with our lives and how busy of a season it had been, and if I was still at the day job, and he's been at his day job and he's farming full time, is married and also has a child, or two, I believe. And when I was working full-time, I still am working full-time, I tried farming. I was working full-time on a farm, and I was also farming full-time on the side, or damn near full-time, it felt like it. And after several seasons of growing produce for my parents, I stopped. I that was a difficult decision to make. I had to deal with some stressors in my life, and one of the things that I was doing was it just simply wasn't sustainable. I wasn't making any money. And uh my parents and I really didn't communicate all that well about what it meant and what it would take to work together as a team. And I stopped. I basically burnt out in 2016. And over the past few seasons, three seasons, luckily, only the land in the high tunnel that I built laid fallow for lack of a better term for a season. And then finally we got a tenant farmer in there after some luck posting things online. We've had tenant farmers on site for three seasons now. But when I talked with Dave, you know, I was still going at the day job, you know, uh how are things going? And the reality is I can't speak all that well about the day job. I can't speak all that well about anything that's going on in my life. So for me, what it feels uh what feels vulnerable and what that means to me is opening up in a podcast like this and sharing these experiences with the world because I am struggling, man, and I'm I've got a number of irons in the fire and little proverbial projects that I'm working on to help me identify and find my purpose, my passion, my why. And many of those things I either haven't started, well most of the things I haven't started, most of these little projects, and that's what I'm heading home to do. I'm gonna work on some of these things today, and some I have started and have fallen behind on, and like many things in life, I've fallen behind on so much, and I feel like I frequently do something that I think a lot of us do, which is rather than see a project through to completion, I get a little bit distracted and disappointed with the progress that I've made, and I take on another project, start something else to distract me from the negative feelings and emotions that are taking place on account of one of the current or many unfinished things in my life. And then it compounds and it compounds, and eventually I get to feeling overwhelmed, and that's kind of where I'm at right now. I've been told that I need to cut myself a break because I've been working pretty diligently for the past couple of years as I finally fully embraced Dave Ramsey's tenants of financial peace, and that I should just take the time to regroup a little bit and find myself. And I feel like I've done that. I've had some downtime. I feel like I'm ahead of some savings goals that I've outlined, but on the other hand, since putting some money into my truck to repair my brake lines, and then also realizing that I have some additional expenses coming up in the form of broken leaf springs that I need to deal with. I mean, my truck's 23 years old, I don't know. It's gonna require some work. I've got some things that I need to sort out, and there's a whole lot of uncertainty with my parents and the farm and the homestead and how we're operating as a family or how we're going to and what the plans are for the future. Because the reality is I don't know. I'm hoping that this conversation with my parents will open the door to some increased and more effective communication with one another, because that's something that really hasn't been something that we haven't been all that effective at doing with one another, communicating. And I'm not blaming anyone because I too am at fault. But communication is a two-way street, and there are difficult conversations that need to be had, and some things that we've got to navigate through. Like I mentioned in the introductory episode, a lot of this is uncharted waters, and quite frankly, speaking of uncharted waters, I feel like I am in a well-constructed vessel. I feel like I've done the work to get me to a point where I am on uh I've repaired the leaks in the hull of my ship, but I feel like I am moving throughout these seas without a rudder. I'm lacking direction. And having that conversation with Dave this morning brought that to my attention fully again, and it is something that I am not very comfortable with, and it is something that I have been reluctant to share and talk about, but I think at least for me that's part of what the objective is with this podcast to share where I'm at with or on this journey that I'm on because I know that at times um in the past I've felt this way, and I felt alone. And we're not alone. Like I said before, it's alright to have a bad day. I posted something in the Facebook group about perfection and progress, and oftentimes it just feels as though I'm not making any. But I think it's important to look back at those times when we're not feeling as though we've made progress, to acknowledge the progress that we have made, and also take the necessary steps to ensure that we continue making progress rather than get bogged down in our own thoughts because it's really easy to do. And that's something that I uh I have done more of over the past few weeks than I'd have liked to. And luckily, getting this podcast up and off the ground is something that has allowed me to feel some sort of sense of accomplishment, if you will. But as I'm pulling up the driveway, I'm in a better position to look at the primary question about vulnerability that Steph posed to me is what does it mean to be vulnerable? Well, it means being receptive to the having the difficult conversation, either with somebody else, with yourself. It means being receptive to looking in the mirror and identifying your flaws and also understanding one simple thing is that you deserve exactly what you want in life, but you just haven't done the work to get it, and that's where I am. I know that there are things that I want in life, there are places where I want to be in life, but first of all, I still have yet to actually articulate what it is that I want and how I'm going to go about getting these things. And for me at this age in my life, I'm 42 years old. I feel like I should be a little bit more ahead of where I am because I've felt as though I've been on my A game before in the past, and due to what Dave Ramsey would call life on life's terms, I'm not there right now. So I've got to do a little bit of work to regroup and recover, maybe even rebrand my life in a way to better understand my what, my why, and ultimately my how I'm going to go about getting these things. So, you know, sometimes we look to podcasts and books and coaches and things like that in life because we are seeking guidance or counsel in various aspects of our life. And while I very much hope and want this podcast to be that at some point, today's not that day because I've got my own work to do. But I promise you one thing that regardless of where I'm at or what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, I will make a point to share what's up and my current status with you guys because I think it's important to do so when you're not at the top of your game, as well as when you are. And that's what being vulnerable is all about is opening yourself up to a difficult conversation with others and exposing yourself to painful things. And I don't want to just say this, you know, real quickly. I was listening to something I'm going to expand on later, one of the ways in which I'm finding my why. And I think this is a good note to end this now that I'm home and about ready to do some work and work through this before my parents get home and I've got to help them unload from the market. I was at work listening to this yesterday because I find myself consuming a lot of content to assist me with finding a good framework to do this work, to find my why. And as I was listening to the various phone calls and answers to the questions from online inquiries and things like that, somebody called in and mentioned that life got unexpectedly more challenging because they had a child that was born with cerebral palsy, I believe. And it helped put some things in perspective for me. Because I don't have children. I have my own things that I deal with, but it's not always easy to understand and acknowledge that somebody out there generally has it worse than you do, and you know, I don't ever want to say, well, it could always be worse when I'm listening to someone talk about their own problems because like the other day we spoke about empathy, and that's not really the most appropriate way to demonstrate empathy when listening to someone is say, well, it could always be worse. But in this case, I I don't know why, but I just felt that that was something appropriate to share. And for context, it was an episode of uh Chris Hogan's podcast, who is on the uh Dave Ramsay team, part of Ramsay Solutions, and I think I'm just gonna close with that. Um I know I was a little bit all over the map today, but my thoughts are kind of scattered, and that's kind of what it means to be vulnerable to me, is to just be able to share and open yourself up to it, so I don't know. I'm sitting here still recording and debating on whether or not I'm even gonna post this. But I feel it would be not necessarily authentic of me to post it and uh or to record and uh and and and and spend the time doing this and thinking about this and not post it. So that's what I'm gonna do. This will be episode 4.1. Lessons on vulnerability. So the next episode or two will comprise uh or be comprised of questions such as what lessons can be learned from it, and how might it help others on their journey. So stay tuned for the next episode, and we will pick up from where we left off here. I appreciate you listening, and hopefully this wasn't too depressing for you, but I believe that at some point down the road I will look back on this and have some solid takeaways from it. So until next time. Take care, everyone. Thanks. Bye bye.