The Triple C Project

If It Makes Life Better Is It An Expensive Cost or a Valuable Investment?

• Ryan Spence • Season 2 • Episode 114

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The story of my new chair and why, when it comes to well-being, focusing on the headline cost can mean you miss out on the long-term value.

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Speaker 1:

And if I had focused too much on that initial cost and told myself that's far too much to spend on a chair when I've already ordered one for a similar amount, and if I had then decided to not go ahead and get the chair, then I could still be bitching and moaning about my back a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. From now, two years from now, three years from now, and actually I've saved myself a lot more, and I will have, in a year, two, three years time, saved myself a lot more than the initial outlay for this chair. You're listening to the Triple C Project. The Triple C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live life lit. I'm your host, ryan Spence, the big law dropout, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip-hop and big, hairy, audacious goals 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 we're 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 114 of the Triple C Project. I'm being killed by my allergies right now you can probably hear it in my voice which is highly, highly frustrating, and I did think about skipping into the week of the podcast. But screw it, we're real here. This is all about showing up when it's not perfect, when things aren't going exactly how you would like them to go, and I talk about that, and it's only right that I model that. So here we are, me and my allergy infected voice. Anyway, you can still hear me, you can still understand me. That's all that matters. So, before we get to it, book check. So the Triple C Project Find your Place Peace. And how can I get the title of my own book wrong? Find your Place, purpose and Peace in a World that T to box you in. It's coming along nicely.

Speaker 1:

So this week, the week that I'm recording this episode, I received the final version of the cover, so I'll be revealing the cover and the blurb. That's the text that goes on the back of the book. In the first week of September, over on my social media. Uh, in the first week of September over on my social media. Um. So if you're not already following me on Instagram or on LinkedIn, um, go ahead and do that so you can be one of the first to see that it's all very exciting. Uh, I've also sent the edits back to the formatted designer, um, for what the book's actually going to look like inside. Um, they were relatively minor, so I'm hoping that that's all going to be done and completed by the end of next week and I will then receive the get some order copies ordered so I can actually see what the finished book is going to look like. So things are moving ahead all very, very exciting. So stay tuned to be in the know as to when the book is available for pre-order and any of the pre-order bonuses that um you will get if you uh pre-order. I'll actually be talking to my uh book coach tonight and brainstorming some ideas on that front. So, yeah, stay tuned to the podcast. Um. Also, head to my website, iamryanspencecom and add yourself to the mailing list if you want to get that news and info straight to your email inbox.

Speaker 1:

What else has been happening for me? So, actually, yeah, I'm going to talk to you this week about something new, that which, um which trust me that there is a relevance to this and you're going to want to stick around and hear about it, um, because it's it's related to a broader issue. But I feel I have to tell you the story of the chair to kind of really get across the uh, what the broader issue is. Uh, and the broader question really, um, that I'm going to lead with in this episode is when you look to purchase something. So, for example, I have people sometimes that will be interested in working with me. They go to the strategy session, we'll have the call, it's all great, and sometimes like the thing that they don't proceed with working together, with kind of getting that, that coaching support, because they sometimes may feel that it's a little bit too expensive. They're not used to paying for personal support, um, and the the initial headline cost of that um is, can see, expensive. You know now and I look, I obviously work with a lot of people who in the position that I was in, so I've got a general range of salaries and I know that in the context of the salaries and also in context of coaches that I've worked with and other coaches that I know it's not, but the idea of something being expensive is all is all relative, right. Everyone has different ideas.

Speaker 1:

I remember when I moved back from Singapore to the back to the UK, and one of the things that blew my mind being here in Sheffield is that there were things which, from living in London and from living in Singapore, expat lifestyle that I would just spend money on because I just think that it's worth spending money on. And coming here, people bought the cost of some things. You know whether it's the cost of a coffee in a coffee shop or the cost of a meal in a certain place, you know there are things which I would pay for without batting an eyelid and things which other people would think now, that's way too expensive, I would never pay that. So it's all, it's all relative, it's all about where you see the value, right. But the question I want to ask for this episode is are you too focused on the short term cost, on the initial cost that you are missing the long-term cost of not taking action now? So this is what brings me to the story of my chair, my almost 400 pound chair. Now it's actually 379 pounds, to be exact. Now, as I say that, some of you may be like, yeah, whatever, and some of you will be like what the hell? Why would you pay that much for a chair? So I'm going to explain to you why, and actually I'm going to explain to you why I've paid that twice, almost pretty much. Okay, so selling Now years of being glued to a desk.

Speaker 1:

So if you're in big law, if you're in corporate, you know there's this idea of presenteeism and spend a lot of time at your desk. And even though, if you're fortunate enough, you might get those nice Herman Miller chairs, expensive chairs, still sitting at a desk for hours at a time, it just isn't good for you. There's that slogan that often comes around that sitting is the new smoking. And we are in this sitting epidemic. We sit as people, as humans. We sit far too much. We're staring at a screen, we're hunched over documents, reviewing them, and particularly in these demanding corporate roles, you can be sat for hours, way into the early hours of the morning, getting up basically only to go to the bathroom sometimes. So that's not helpful.

Speaker 1:

And all of those years 11 years of doing that has literally paid havoc with my back, and I knew that. And yoga would help. You know, as I kind of got back into my yoga practice, I noticed that that kind of helped with sort of strengthening and releasing some of the tension, particularly in my lower back and also particularly, you know, when you get that hunch in the shoulders and in the upper back as you're kind of hunched over your phone or a screen. But yoga is very much of a stick in plaster, because you go to yoga feel a bit better afterwards, but then I'd be back at the office sitting again, so before too long I'd be in the same position I was in before yoga. So yoga on its own wasn't doing anything. It's kind of like when you take medicine for something, then you go ahead and do exactly the same thing that you did to make you sick in the first place. It's kind of like, well, it's almost pointless.

Speaker 1:

Now, when I left Big Law so at the end of February 2020, and I was sort of coming up to the pandemic and I found that my back got better because I wasn't sitting as much for a start, you know, I was up and about, I was moving, and then obviously I went to do my yoga teacher training, which was basically a month of doing a 90 minute yoga practice every day and moving your body in various forms, never sitting in one particular state for too long. So the issues that I had went away and I was in pretty good, pretty good shape. My back was in pretty good shape. But when I moved back to the UK in 2021, after a bit of time, it started to flare up again, and I know why I mean. The good thing about yoga my yoga practice is that you develop a deep awareness of yourself, but also of your physical body. So I know when things aren't right and I generally understand and have a handle as to why they are the way that they are.

Speaker 1:

So my back flared up because, first of all, didn't have anywhere to live, so I didn't have a proper place to work. You know, we were initially in an Airbnb, then moved to another Airbnb, then eventually found a house to rent, so then at least we had one space. But then, even when found that house to rent, it was still another five or six months before furniture would arrive from Singapore. So I was very much working in a makeshift environment. You know, I'd be sat on the floor in the spare room with the laptop on the floor, or maybe up on a kitchen chair sometimes or whatever, and it just wasn't conducive to good posture to good body management. So that was initially what started the flare-up. And then the furniture arrived, which was great. So I got my desk and my office chair from Singapore and was happy to have them. But that chair is a really nice looking chair, but it's not a chair that you want to sit in for long periods of time and also, over time it was just starting to get a little bit. It started to deteriorate a little bit.

Speaker 1:

So quite early on after the furniture arrived, I was scrolling through Instagram as you do, and you know you get hit with ads and actually this saw an ad that was like you know you get hit with ads and actually this saw an ad that was like that's interesting and it was an advert for a chair. It was a Kickstarter type campaign. I think it was actually Indiegogo, which is a similar thing to Kickstarter, and if you don't know what that is, it's a platform where people, if they have an idea, sometimes they might even create a prototype of something and then they will present it and effectively try to get people to, I guess, crowdfund really to actually then build it properly, to actually then manufacture that product on a wider scale and by being an early adopter, early crowdfunder, you probably get a discount, you get some of the benefits, that kind of thing. So they had this chat which looks amazing because you could sit in all sorts of different positions you could sit cross-legged, you could sit kneeling down, and the idea was that, rather than a traditional chair where you can only sit in one position and that would kind of leave you sitting for hours sort of hunched over, and with this compression in your back, you could be moving around in different positions. Um, and that will be better for your body, better for your posture, better for your wellbeing. So I was like that's amazing, I want that. Um, so I funded it, I, I, I sort of paid my share for for a chair which was I can't remember off the top of my head, but it was, it was, it was over 300 pounds.

Speaker 1:

And then I knew at some point, once it was ready and available, uh, it needs to pay for shipping. And it's funny. I remember, uh, showing it to my, uh, my brother once. He was talking about issues with his back and I was kind of showing him oh, this is a chair that I ordered and he balked at the cost. He's like that much for a chair no chance. So that just kind of shows what I was saying initially at the start. Everybody has a different idea of the value of something to them Anyway.

Speaker 1:

So I ordered the chair and the thing about the Kickstarter, indiegogo campaigns is that obviously they have to reach a certain funding amount and then they start the manufacturing. So it's not like you order something from a shop and it arrives the next couple of days, like you could be waiting quite a while for this and you know that at the outset and I was kind of fine and comfortable with that. But what that meant is that as my existing chair kind of just got more and more uncomfortable and as I got more and more uncomfortable sitting in it and my my back just started to kind of get more and more creaks and more and more stiff, I was resistant to doing anything about it because I was like I've ordered this chair, so I'm not getting another chair. Like when that chair arrives, I will switch it out and I'll just persevere until then. Until that point. Now I ordered that chair in 2021 and it wasn't until October 2023, when they were finally shipping the finished chair in the UK.

Speaker 1:

So one morning an email came in, saw the email, clicked the link and went in to try and order my chair and it wouldn't work and it just turned out that the demand was so high that the stock that they had was gone and they said we'll inform you once more stock is available. Well, now we are in August 2024, right and I haven't had an update since and I've sent numerous requests and stuff for updates as to like what's going on with this chair, because I cannot stick with the chair that I had any longer. I've had a couple of chiropractor visits and it's just been really even now, with practicing, with teaching yoga and practicing daily, I'm really sort of noticing the difference between coming out of class and releasing a bit of that tension and then sitting back in that chair and watching it come back again, and I knew that long-term this just isn't going to work. But I was reluctant to, as I say, get another chair because I'd already paid a considerable amount for this chair back in 2021 that I was still waiting for. Anyway, about a week ago I don't remember exactly what it was, but I just decided that was it. Enough is enough.

Speaker 1:

My back was annoying me, like I was trying to do something I was playing around with my mat, I was trying to do something. I could just really feel the stiffness and the tightness and I was just said to myself like how long are you going to deal with this? For, yes, you've ordered this chair, but it's not here. You have no idea when it's going to get here. Are you going to stick with this chair that isn't serving you, that isn't working, that's making things worse for you indefinitely? And I decided the answer was no, I'm not doing that.

Speaker 1:

So I did a bit of research and I found a kneeling chair that I could order and get in the next couple of days, and that was £379. So probably a similar price to what I'd paid for the original chair that hadn't arrived. But I did the research and read the reviews and I was just like do you know what? If this sorts out my back issue, it's money well spent. So I could focus on the initial outlay and the funds that I'd already paid for the chair that hadn't arrived yet and I could look at it as throwing good money after bad. I could look at it as though this is an outrageously expensive chair. It's a stupid amount to pay for a chair bad. I could look at it as though this is an outrageously expensive chair. It's a stupid amount to pay for a chair. Or I could look at the long-term benefits. If I pay £379 for this chair and I no longer have the back issues that I currently have, then is it an expensive chair or is it a very cheap, cheap solution to sorting out my back. So that's how I looked at it. So I ordered the chair, came a couple of days later. I put it together that day and at the time of recording I'm actually sitting on it now while I'm recording this episode, but at the time of recording.

Speaker 1:

I've had this chair for like two days now and literally my back already feels better and it's just due to the position that I'm sat in. I kind of won't go into the science of it all, but I happily share a link to the chair if you're interested. But because you kind of you sit on like a pad, like a seat, but then, rather than having your legs dangling down, your shins are then rested onto other pads so that your heels are kind of underneath your butt and it means that your pelvis is shifted forward. So I don't get that compression that you get when you sort of dump into your lower back. So it's allowing more ease, more freedom, which I think over time is going to release, if not remove, all of that tension that was building up on a daily basis. And it also means that I feel more, more weight, because I'm not getting that feeling you get when you're slumped in a chair because you're sat. I've sat more upright and it also rocks a bit as well, which is a bit of fun, and it kind of swivels. I can go from screen to screen. So it's actually been a very good investment.

Speaker 1:

And if I had focused too much on that initial cost and told myself that's far too much to spend on a chair when I've already ordered one for a similar amount, and if I had then decided to not go ahead and get the chair, then I could still be bitching and moaning about my back a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, and actually I've saved myself a lot more and I will have, in a year, two, three years time, saved myself a lot more than the initial outlay for this chair. So I share this story because I want you to think about a time or something recently for you that you've maybe looked at, wanted, liked, desired, thought might be useful. But when you saw the sticker price you balked at the cost and thought I'm not paying, that it's ridiculous. I'll do it myself or I'll get a cheaper model and ask yourself is it actually cheaper to get another model? Is it actually better for you, better value for you to do it yourself? And I want you to think about it in these terms when it comes to okay for me and my back, it's important for me to have a body that works, particularly as a yoga teacher. Right, I need to be able to teach, I need to be able to demonstrate to my students and I need to be able to teach. I need to be able to demonstrate um to places, to my students, um, and I need to be able to move freely. So waiting for this other chair that may not come, or persevering with this old chair that isn't really working for me, uh, and potentially waiting to buy um a cheap chair, um, to save actually in the long term is going to cost me more, because if my back doesn't work and I can't practice, if I can't practice, I can't teach, it has a whole knock-on effect on my lifestyle and my business. So actually not paying that £379 has not saved me £379. It's cost me multiples of that amount.

Speaker 1:

Similar thing if you need to get something done. So I recently had my garden. I needed the garden clearing out like hedges, chopped back lawn, cut all of that kind of stuff, and I didn't want to do it myself. I mean, okay, I'm not one for manual labor anyway. But also I look at it like when I look at what my day rate is, my hourly rate, like kind of what I, what I actually could do, what that time would cost me to do that, as well as getting in the tools and and what I'd to think about, it made far more sense for me to get in a gardener to do it.

Speaker 1:

Someone who knows what they're doing, has the right tools to do it, can take all of the cuttings and garden waste away with them, so I don't have to figure out where to take it to and to dump it off, and that would free up my time to do the things that I'm good at. I mean the things that I want to do, the things that I'm good at, where my skills and my talents best lie. So I could have saved a few hundred pounds by doing the garden myself. But actually I would have lost multiples of those hundreds of pounds by not doing the things that I could have done with that time, if I wasn't doing the garden. Things that I could have done with that time, if I wasn't doing the garden by researching places where I could actually take the garden waste to, by having to make multiple trips in my car to said site to dump the waste and potentially pay to dump the waste, from having to hire the tools to do the work.

Speaker 1:

So there's so much that it would have cost me if I had decided to do it myself, if I just looked at the initial cost rather than looking at the long-term benefit. So that's what I wanted to leave you with this week is not to go out and blow all your money on expensive things that's not it at all but to just catch yourself when you think, when there's something and not just any random thing, but when you feel that you need something or that something will be helpful to you, would support you, would be life-changing for you, transformational to you, would just make your life a little bit better. And when the cost of that comes up and you look at it and you catch yourself thinking, wow, that's really expensive. I'd just like you to take a moment and catch yourself and just go through the process of asking yourself well, why do I think it's expensive? And ask yourself, if I don't pay for this thing, what is the longer term impact on me? And if I do pay for this thing, what is the potential longer term benefits to me? And compare those figures, because I'm pretty sure that more often than not, you'll find that if you take the initial hit, you're going to gain multiples of that initial hit in the longterm. Okay, yeah, maybe not If you go out and buy a designer handbag or an expensive watch, like I used to do.

Speaker 1:

You know, uh, they don't always appreciate you like, like, you think they're going to right, but I'm talking more about things that are for the benefit of your well-being, of yourself, right, of your health. Like, if you just made that initial investment, what are the longer term benefits? What multiples could you derive from that single initial investment? That might seem expensive at the outset, but in the longer term, it's going to be, it's going to look like a steal, right. And this is this is something that I I mean.

Speaker 1:

I often say this, I mean, if people come to me and they do get to that stage and they say it's really expensive, I don't convince them to work with me because that's not the business that I'm in. And I want people to work with me because they see the value. And if they don't see the value, that's fine. It's probably my fault for not painting that picture well enough for them. You know it's a process, it's something that you learn and that you grow at. But it's something that I like to say is that if you made that investment now and in a year's time you were where you said you wanted to be on your initial intake questionnaire would that be a worthwhile investment? Like, would it be worth that amount or probably more? And because that's the question to ask, right we want. I remember one of my coaches was a lot more than I'd ever paid for coaching before and I think back now I think, yeah, it was, it was.

Speaker 1:

I always felt a little bit sick initially making the initial payments, but when I think about where I am now compared to where I maybe would have been if I hadn't done that work, then I'm like, yeah, it was, it was worthwhile. Like, for sure I would not have written my first book and would not be on the verge of releasing a second book if I hadn't done that work. Because I still remember the session where my mind was switched there was a whole reframe around writing and writing a book and what that actually meant, and that I actually had everything that I needed right then and there to do it. I just needed to sit my ass down and do it and you could say, oh yeah, but you could have done that yourself. Of course I could, but the fact is that I hadn't until that point. So who's to know if or when I would have done that? Would it have been two years from then, five years from then, 10 years from then? Never? How much time did I save by just going through that process? So that's what I want to leave you with.

Speaker 1:

Look at the initial investment. If you think it's expensive, catch yourself and ask yourself those questions what's the long-term benefit? Is it going to be multiples of this initial investment? If I don't do it? What's the cost going to be to me if I'm still in the same place where I am six months from now, a year from now, and then make your decision. Don't just make it on a whim by the headline figure. Think about the longer term impact, the longer term benefit. And that's us for this week.

Speaker 1:

Uh, if you want to know more about my chair, if you're intrigued and you're like I really could use that, my back is paying up and I really need a more comfortable chair, uh, then drop me a line and I'll happily shoot you the, shoot you the link. Um, you can actually send me a text. If you go to the show description, you can click the link and just shoot a text over. Um, which is always good, always good to hear, hear from, from listeners to the show. Um, or, obviously, you can DM me on Instagram at.

Speaker 1:

I am, underscore, ryan Spence. Um, uh, I was going to say LinkedIn, but I haven't actually been on LinkedIn that much this summer, that's. That's another story which I might tell at some point. I don't know if it's that interesting, but, um, yeah, I haven't been on there. So, uh, message me on Instagram. Um, or send me an email. Hey, at, I am Ryan Spencecom. Um, and, uh, yeah, I'll give you a, give you the link to the chair. Um, there's no, no affiliate. I get nothing from recommending the chair, but, like, it's just been revolutionary for me in the very short space of time that I've had it. Um, so I'll be telling everybody about it, uh, for sure, um. So that's it until next week. Thank you, as always, for being here, um, and go ahead, have a great week day.

Speaker 1:

Whatever it is that you're doing, um, go forth and stop living a life of lethargy, start living life. 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 rate this podcastcom, 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 this show can help them. Second thing you can do share. Share this episode, share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three, head to IamRyanSpencecom. 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, start living life lit.