The Triple C Project

Escaping The Corporate Funk: Move Your Body To Shift Your Mind

• Ryan Spence • Season 2 • Episode 95

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Do you ever feel like you're trudging through life, one weary step at a time?

And no matter what you do, you keep falling back into that mental quicksand with a mind clouded by the ever-increasing weight of lethargy?

Corporate life be like that sometimes.

But what do you do if you can't immediately change your environment? How do you lose the funk and clear the mind fog so you can move calmly, easily, and intending towards the life you want?

In this week's episode, I share how. And I offer you a gift so you can do it too.

Discover how the synergy of movement and mindfulness can help you ditch the weight of corporate lethargy so you can stop surviving and start thriving.

And grab your free copy of Flow In Fifteen to get you started on your journey from lethargy to Lit!

What's your one takeway from this episode? Send a text & let me know

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Speaker 1:

The habits that you've built over a lifetime that have got you to this point. They're so deeply rooted that all it takes is one obstacle, one challenge, one person pissing you off that day for you to revert to type, to reassume your default state, that heaviness, that lethargy. You're listening to the Triple C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, use confidence, build courage so you can live life. Next, I'm your host, ryan Spence, the Big Law Dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big, hairy, abacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now, with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hey, hey. Welcome to episode 95 of the Triple C Project. Looks like, finally, here in the UK we are getting spring. Spring has sprung, so they say. I had some warm days this week and the sun always lists my mood. As anybody who knows me can testify, I am definitely a sun worshiper, maybe a sun god in your previous life, who knows. But yeah, that makes me happy or happy, should I say, because when the sun isn't there, it can sometimes make you feel quite heavy, quite down At least it does for me. And today's episode is going to be about that feeling of heaviness, that feeling of what I call lethargy, but not in relation to the weather, but just in relation to life, and I'm going to talk about how you can shift out of that as one way that you can start to make a shift from that lethargy towards living lit. Before I do that, if you're new here, hey, I'm Ryan Spence, your host of the Triple C Project, author of the Triple C Method, the book that's been called a transformational toolkit, and the book that I wish I had when I knew I wanted to leave corporate. It's a book of tools, strategies, as well as my experiences and my life story of getting from big law lawyer to big law dropout, of moving from a life of lethargy to a life that's lit, of conquering my fears, of gaining clarity, building courage and confidence to help me get after the things that I want and the things that I want in life. So, if you are in that situation where you know there's got to be more than what you are currently doing, what you currently have. If you know you want to make changes in your life, you're not quite sure where to start. You need some inspiration and you need some actionable tools and strategies to get you started. This is the book for you, so you can grab it anywhere you get your books from Either go to imrinespencecom slash book by directly from me, or order from your independent bookstore, if possible. Of course, you can get it from the world's biggest bookstore run by the guy who has a rocket shaped or a penis shaped rocket Almost came out wrong. But wherever you can try and support your independent bookshops, your small businesses. We need them because when they're not around we're going to miss them. So yeah, irinespencecom slash book or head to your favorite bookstore.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so lethargy. So the thing about lethargy is, when you're in it, it's going to be very difficult to get out of it if you keep doing the same thing because you can't change your situation with the same habits that got you there. Right, you've got to change things, but you've got to shape things up, switch things up. You've got to do something different to change your physical state, because you change your physical state, your mental state changes. There is no separation of mind and body. They're interconnected. So you can make a shift in one, it's going to shift the other.

Speaker 1:

And the thing about lethargy is that when you're stuck in that funk, things feel heavy and that heaviness can keep you feeling stuck. It's what keeps you stuck. Imagine You've got a huge weight on your back. It's very difficult to move, right you can. You just get tired and you get exhausted and you just Feel like I just want to stay here, I can't move any further. And that's the funk, right. And the longer you stay in that funk, heavier the heaviness gets.

Speaker 1:

And before you know it, that funk, that heaviness, that lethargy, that becomes your default state. And you notice it becomes your default state and you know that you don't want to be there. You don't like the way that this feels. And each day you wake up and you think, okay, today's the day, today's the day I'm gonna get out of this funk. Today's the day I'm going to do things differently. Today's the day I'm going to just burst onto the scene with my old, excited, happy, positive self. But here's the thing the habits that you've built over a lifetime that have got you to this point. They're so deeply rooted that all it takes is one obstacle, one challenge, one person pissing you off that day for you to revert to type, to re-assume your default state. That heaviness, that lethargy and I remember this well from my time in big law. Maybe you can relate to this too.

Speaker 1:

So when I was going through this period of I'm not sure this is where I want to be, and I'm not happy, I'm not fulfilled, and this Lethargy was kind of hanging over me. I Get up and I arrive at the office and I'd be emboldened, when I got to the office, by the hip-hop that I've been blasting through my headphones on my commute and also the copious amounts of caffeine in my system. And I would think to myself I would try to think positive thoughts. You know people say use these positive affirmations and I would try to do that and I would say today's going to be different. You know, I would kind of think about the ways that today could be different.

Speaker 1:

I would go in with this positive mindset, even if it was forced. But then I enter the office and the familiarity of the environment would obviously bring me back the memories of all the things that I Didn't like, that, didn't jive with me, that didn't feel right to me, and Just being in the environment would quickly suck the optimism out of me. So by the time I sat down at my desk, the familiar feeling, familiar feelings of lethargy, would cheer. Imagine this crowd of Let the lethargy beings cheering and then just flooding, flooding my body, putting my system and just weighing me down Right. So even though I'd entered with this positive mindset, it very quickly went away, because the environment would shift my mind, stay.

Speaker 1:

I would fall back into that regular habit of sitting staring and thinking to myself I don't want to be here, but I don't really know what else I can do. So now there are many things that you can't change about your environment. Like, I couldn't change the office. It wasn't mine to change, right, the building was the building and the job was the job for as long as I was there. So I couldn't change anything, at least not in the immediate term, about the external environment. But the one thing and I want to share this with you now the one thing that you can change, the one thing that you do have control over and that I had control over, is you can change yourself. And, more specifically, you can change how you see things, how you perceive things, and you can change the the clarity of your mind.

Speaker 1:

You see, lethargy clouds the mind. So again, if you think of this heaviness, it's not just the physical heaviness but it's a mental heaviness too. I sometimes call it being stuck in mental quicksand. It's kind of just sucking you further and further down into it and it makes it hard for you to see beyond what's right in front of you. So, again, using that mental quicksand analogy, when you're in the quicksand all you can think about is trying to get out of the quicksand. All you can see is the quicksand in front of you and how quickly you're sinking into it. You can't see the possibilities beyond the quicksand. You're too rooted and stuck and sinking into that quicksand. That's there. That's the lethargy, and it's hard to see a world, it's hard to see a life beyond the rut that you find yourself in, when that lethargy is creating this, this fog.

Speaker 1:

Ok, so by removing the fog you start to gain the clarity that you need to change things. That clarity brings possibilities and those possibilities can bring a sense of joy, a sense of litness, because when you can envision something different, envision a different life, a different way of being. Just notice how your mood changes. Just notice how your mood changes. Think about something that you enjoy doing right now, wherever you are. Just think of it. It could be that strength of coffee, it could be that friend you like to catch up with, it could be that TV show you like to watch. But just think of it and notice the shift within you. Maybe that smile comes on your face, maybe something changes in your posture, in your body language, and it's very hard to keep thinking about the negativity when you have that positive thought in your mind. You can't think of the two at the same time, and so this is what happens when you gain this clarity and when you start to see these possibilities, it brings that same feeling to you, that sense of litness.

Speaker 1:

And so the quickest way to pull yourself out of the funk, out of the lethargy, to clear the fog and to gain clarity, the quickest way that I found to do that, without any substances, without getting drunk, without taking drugs, without doing other things that could be detrimental to your health, is simply to move. You've got to move your body, to shift your mind, and for me, the best form of movement for this has been yoga. Why? I mean I run, like there's other things that I do as well, and they are all fantastic and you get the endorphins. But for me, the thing about yoga is you're not only moving, but you're moving mindfully. The whole practice is about moving mindfully. You're moving your body, you're connecting with your breath and you're bringing a sense of awareness to yourself. You're almost taking yourself inward. There's just you on the mat, nothing else, and this process acts as almost like a spring clean for the mind and for the body and for the soul. It removes the weight of the funk of the lethargy and it allows you to stand tall again, both literally and metaphorically. Right, and I found yoga is a powerful practice and a secret weapon in countering what I call the three S's. If you listen to this podcast, well you know I like the number three and I like having three letters the same as well.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, three S's, what I call the three main ills of corporate life. And they are sitting. So sitting at a desk for hours on end. We all know that rigs havoc with our physical state but also our mental. Staring in a screen for hours, viewing those documents, reading those emails Again bad physically and mentally. And the big one, the stressing. The corporate life comes with a lot of stress. Now, stress in and of itself isn't bad, but the prolonged state of stress that we find ourselves in in a lot of these positions isn't great. You know the stressing about the work, but we're also stressing about the politics of the office, stressing about the toxic bottle, the toxic colleague, stressing about the next promotion, the next bonus, how are you going to get fired this week? All of those stressors keep you in this heightened state and your nervous system is shot. It's not designed to consistently be in this heightened state of alertness, this heightened state of stress. So that's why I call sitting, staring and stressing the three main ills of corporate life and they are the catalyst to this heaviness, to this lethargy. And I know this because I've lived it right. But I also know that yoga is a powerful practice to pull you out of this, to counter these three main ills of corporate life, because I've guided my yoga students and I've also guided clients through practice that's taken them from lethargy to lit, that's made them shift from survival mode to thriving mode, even if only for a short amount of time, or through the practice of yoga.

Speaker 1:

Now, I've heard all the reasons why you can't do yoga you don't have time to attend an hour class every day, you're not flexible, you can't be still, etc. Etc. But I want you to just park all of those misconceptions here right now, and the main one I want to address is the one about time. Now, I know you don't have time to attend a one hour class every day. I know it. I've been in that world and even as someone who was in that world, who practiced yoga, who loved yoga, it was a struggle for me to get to classes daily. It just is. It's the way that the job works. So I know you don't have time for that and I'm not going to tell you to do that.

Speaker 1:

But what I am going to invite you to think about is this 15 minutes Can you take? In fact, not, look, can you? I know you can take 15 minutes a day to commit to your well-being. Dr inden, david, thank you. Your well-being, your very body, your mind, your soul. 15 minutes, 15 minutes to move from lethargy to let, so you can start to move through your day with just a little bit more calm, a little bit more intention, a little bit more ease. You can do that right. Surely that's a worthwhile investment of your time. I know it is. I know that you can, so I want to help you with that.

Speaker 1:

So, whether you're a seasoned yogi or you've never set foot on a yoga mat before, I want to give you a gift. So what about giving here? What about gifts? It's kind of a person that I am right, generous soul, and the gift that I want to give you is I want to give you my 15-minute yoga sequence, flow in 15. And it's a sequence that I designed specifically for time-poor lawyers and corporate professionals like you, people that think that they don't have time to do yoga, they don't have time to practice, that it isn't a useful use of the limited time that they have, that find themselves just sitting in this funk, maybe scrolling the internet in between deals, when they find those 10 minutes, rather than getting up to shift their state.

Speaker 1:

And this flow, this sequence, it's look, it's quick, it's simple and, as I say, it's designed to be a straightforward, no-nonsense practice that you can do daily and whenever you do it, it's highly up to you. Maybe you do it first thing in the morning to kickstart your day. Maybe you do it before bed to just unwind. You need to do it a little bit slower, a little bit gentler. Or maybe you just roll out your mat in the middle of the workday after a challenging meeting or before your next call and flow through, just to break up the monotony, just kind of pull you out of the funk that you've found yourself in. You know what I mean that midday slump, that time when you reach for as much coffee as you can take just to get you to the end of the day. That's what this flow is here for and, as I say, I want to gift it to you.

Speaker 1:

To get that, I'm going to leave the link in the show notes, but you can head to ironspencecom. Slash yoga and just complete your dates and you will send the ebook which sets out the sequence, explains exactly what you need to do for each pose, and within that ebook there's also a link to the video so you can watch me demo the sequence for you and follow along until you get used to doing the practice yourself, completely unassisted. It's completely free. So you go ahead ironspencecom. Slash yoga, pulling your dates and get it. The dates will get you onto my email list, but you can unsubscribe at any time. So you need to just go get the sequence and unsubscribe, and that's entirely up to you.

Speaker 1:

I want this to help you. I want to help you start to build this practice, to have this tool that can just shift your state, that can pull you out of that lethargy and look, it's not a magic pill, Like it's not like you're going to do this and all your troubles will go away forever, but it is going to shift your state in that moment. And then, from that new, energized state that you find yourself in following the practice, maybe you can start to make different decisions. Maybe you can see things a little bit more clearly. Maybe the email that you were trying to write before that you were struggling to get the wording right. Maybe now that becomes a little bit clearer in your mind. Maybe the document that you were reviewing, where you kept going back and reading the same words over and over again and your, your, your eyes were getting blurry. Maybe now you can go and see it with a lot more clarity and pick out the things you need to pick out and mark it up in the way you need to mark it up. Maybe the meeting with your boss that you have this afternoon that you were stressing about that. You really didn't know how to approach it, how to say the things that you wanted to say. Maybe now you just see things a little bit more clearly and you can create an action plan, a structure, in a way that works, that serves you.

Speaker 1:

Whatever it is, I really hope this practice works for you. I'd love you to drop me a line and tell me about it. Hit me up at hey at irionspencecom if you want the emails, or shoot me a message over on social media Instagram at I am underscore Ryan Spence or over on LinkedIn, just find me, ryan Spence. All of those links are in the description to the show, so please drop me a line, let me know. Did you do the practice? How did it go for you? What did you get out of it? Someone who I've shared this practice with and this is a practice that I share with my one to one clients as well Everyone who's done it has found benefit in it and continued doing it for a number of days, and through that it's helped them to either build a consistent practice They've gone on to do other practices as well or it's just something that they felt that they can come back to when they kind of need that shift, that boost, and they're not quite sure how to make that happen, how to do that so this works.

Speaker 1:

I'd like you to try it and see if it works for you. So that's flowing 15. Head to. I am Ryan Spencecom. Slash yoga and putting your dates and a copy will wing its way over to you. So move your body, shift your mind, pull yourself out of that lethargy so you can get to a life that's lit. That's it for me for today. Thank you, as always, for being here.

Speaker 1:

I love if you could drop me a line or leave a review and let me know what's one thing that you take away from this episode or other episodes of the show. The reviews help me know what works for you, it helps other people find the show and know the shows for them and it just helps to kind of start to build this conversation between us, other than me just talking to Mike and you listening, thinking that's great, but not really saying anything. So I'd love to hear from you. All the links are in the description to the show, as I said, or go back and listen to where I mentioned them in this episode and, until next week. Stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life lit.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C project. In the spirit of the Triple C, there's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcastcom. Slash triple C or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how the show can help them. Second thing you can do share this episode. Share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel would benefit from what I'm throwing down on this show. And number three, head to imryanspencecom. Get on the mailing list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to my new book start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here and until next week, stop living a life of lethargy. Stop living life lethargy.