Shadowing Practice: STOP Searching For Your Purpose and Do THIS Instead | Rhea Jacobs - Learn English Speaking with Video

biggest misconception is that we're all meant to have just one. So if we as individuals have so many roles in life that we have to do, how can your purpose just be one thing? How can we just be one thing? Today's guest is joining me for a third time on the podcast. She's an entrepreneur, author, founder, and a beautiful friend. Today's guest is Ria Jacobs. Why do we feel so lost when it feels like we've done everything right? We've got the checklist. We've got the goals. We've got the job. But something still feels empty. In life, we're all given a blueprint. 0 to 18 school, 18 to 24 uni, and then after that, you work until you're 60 and then hopefully have like a nice house and a dog and kids to go back to. But I think that model is now obsolete in a way.

For someone listening right now who is anchored in that moment of feeling really unfulfilled, they feel a bit lost. Where do they start to realign or re-anchor themselves? The number one thing is How do you think people can distinguish between the fear that's useful versus fear that's keeping us small? Anything that's stagnant rots. Water, food, anything. It's very important to have momentum. These are things that you might think is not even related to your purpose, but it's the core of who you are. It's literally your foundation. The first step towards identifying or or to get closer to your purpose is to identify. All right, balancers. Today's guest is no stranger. Actually, fun fact, after me, you've been on the podcast the most. This is your third appearance on the podcast. It's one of my very dear friends here in Dubai, Ria Jacobs. Ria, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to be here. I it feels like I'm in your house like we're just chatting. But yeah, I I can't wait. It's going to be a great episode. Me, too. Now, this one is a special one because you've been working on something really amazing. I've been watching you pour in the time, the dedication, hearing you speak about it from ideation through to now it being a live thing in the world that we can all enjoy and embrace.

And what Ria has done has is she's created a a product or a journal around the idea of purpose. Now purpose is such a buzzword. I feel it it creates a painoint for a lot of people.

It creates motivation in others. But there's so many aspects of it. And so today what I want to do is really talk about the practical aspects of purpose, right? Like what does it mean? How do we actually achieve it in our life? What are some of the myths that sit around it? And you're the perfect person to run us through that. So firstly, congratulations for what you've created. And secondly, I'm really excited to have this chat. Me, too. So to kick things off, I think this is going to be a starting point that a lot of people resonate with. Yeah. Why do we feel so lost when it feels like we've done everything right? We've got the checklist, we've got the goals, we've got the job, but something still feels empty. You know, um if you're in that phase in your life where you're lost, you feel like you're doing everything right according to the book. Well, I have great news for you. You're on a verge of a breakthrough. Because, and you might say, Ria, but why? Like, I feel lost. I don't feel happy. I don't feel fulfilled. Well, in life, what happens is there's always a two parts. The first path is you have that feeling and you don't have the emotional intelligence to to process that feeling. So, you just go on with life and you think, "Oh, maybe I'll feel happy after I get that job." It's the happy win. It's the happy win. Exactly. Maybe I'll get um I'll feel more at ease when I get when I make a amount or or b amount. Or you become that person who has the emotional intelligence to tell yourself, I'm not happy. And then you make yourself realize that all this while you don't feel happy. You feel lost because you're trying to chase external validation instead of trying to fulfill who you are inside. And I think that's where your purpose comes in because your purpose comes in in in inside a path of alignment. I think in life we're all given a blueprint, right? Like 0 to 18 school, 18 to 24 uni and then after that you work until you're 60 and then hopefully have like like a nice house and a dog and kids to go back to. But I think that model is now obsolete in a way because because of the access because of the information because of the conversations like this people are creating their own timeline.

You're not comparing your life to another person anymore. Someone's achieved their life goals at 18 but there are some people who are 80 and maybe then they feel like oh you know what I didn't do this and now it's time to do that. So I guess realizing that you don't have to um seek for external validation and look for alignment is way more essential and and will help you to feel less lost. This is really interesting and there's like so many details I want to go into. The first one that's sticking out to me uh you know you said some people achieve their goals at 18, right? You you hear about multi-millionaires that are in their 20s, things like that.

But it's interesting when you talk to people when you I met a few people in Dubai you know they've achieved extreme wealth at very young ages they still feel unfulfilled in some aspects and so my question to you is purpose this one thing that we need to find or are people really holding themselves back by limiting it to being this one thing they need to define? It's such a beautiful question and it's something that I struggled with for a long time as well. I think the concept of what your purpose is itself needs to be redefined because I think a purpose was marketed and like showcased as this big magnanimous thing like maybe at least for me I thought it would be on on like a trek to the Himalayas or maybe I would go to a nice place and someone would like a really intelligent purpose would say I mean a really intelligent in man would say oh Ria this is your purpose genuine from the from the heavens from the heavens like Ria this is your purpose I'd be like oh my god I've been waiting for you my whole life. But such is the nature of how it was shown to us. But the beauty of purpose is it can be found yes in the magnanimous ways.

So many people have found their purpose doing all these things. But it can be also found in the most simple moments in life in the most pure moments in life. And I think the biggest misconception is that we're all meant to have just one. Because you and I, okay, you Erica, you're not only the wife, you're the mother now. you're the friend, you're the sister. So if we as individuals have so many roles in life that we have to do, how can your purpose just be one thing? How can we just be one thing? And the beauty of purposes, you might start with one goal. But then as time goes by, that same goal because of your growth, because of the things that you've learned will slowly start to evolve. And I think there's magic in that. You know, it's actually quite similar to the way I talk about balance, right? It's this it's this concept that you need to really anchor in. Okay, what does this look like for me in XY Z areas of my life? And so I really like a peacemeal approach to purpose because it takes that pressure off. I have to find this one purpose. Like for me, I'm always like, you know, when I was thinking about personal branding, I'm like, what is my mission statement? Like what's the sentence that defines who I am? And I've really struggled with that because I feel I have all these different aspects of my personality and I've created a life where they all coexist. And so for me it's not this big one bold statement. It's actually just me living the life that feels most aligned for me. But that also in and of itself is very daunting. So even if we accept that we can have multiple purposes and they can coexist and it is a shifting concept and something that grows with us. For someone listening right now who is anchored in that moment of feeling really unfulfilled, they feel a bit lost. And again, this might be maybe it's in one area of their life, not all of them, right? But across the board, they're just feeling lost. Where do they start to realign or re-anchor themselves? The number one thing is awareness of yourself. There's a reason. And it's the first thing that you see as soon as you open the book because in order to build the life you want, you need to know the tools that you already have and the tools that you need in life to create the life that you want. A lot of times it's easier to look outside and say, "Oh, but like like I said before, we need to achieve this goal.

We need to achieve that goal." But a lot of times you need to see where you where you lack or where your strengths are. your internal self-awareness meaning your self-awareness with who you are without the noise of the world and your external self-awareness meaning that's also essential in a way like we say there's no need to look externally there is because you're not always right there's e ego that comes in and so I think a balance of the two identifying who you are within the book in itself like we go internal self-awareness healing we go inner child these are things that you might think is not even related to real purpose but it's the core of who you are. It's literally your foundation. If your foundation and its core it's weak, how do you expect to build a life or to build your purpose based on that? And on that point, if you do pursue some sort of purpose or life based on a shaky foundation misaligned path, right? And I've been there before. You know, you spoke before about the till 18 years old, you're at school, then you go to uni, then you get a job.

And I was on that path and I felt all the feelings of this feels misaligned for me and it's because I hadn't done that base work to be like well who am I and what do I want? Is there like obviously you've put together a whole book so this is not something we can deconstruct and work on today in a single episode but is there an exercise or something from that initial piece question someone can ask themselves just something practical that the listeners can take right now to just have a think about their purpose you know whether you're someone listening who feels very aligned this could be just like a check-in for them or whether you're someone who is looking and and wanting to recalibrate like is there anything like that you can share with us I think I think It's not something that can be answered with just a a a question like you said. I think you have to go way in deeper. But I think the first step towards identifying or or to get closer to your purpose is to identify who am I now? What am I good at? What does the world need? Because you think your purpose is just you. There's a beautiful quote that uh I mentioned in the book. It's by Picasso.

He said the meaning of life is to find your purpose and the purpose of life is to give it away. And I think that is so beautiful you know so who you are right now. So who you are is like your awareness and all all the things I spoke about before and then you ask what are your skills?

What is your contribution to the world? What is your legacy? What is your what is something that you can bring that can help the world which goes into my third thing is how how can that help the world around you. I think finding these three core will start at least the base towards I identifying where your purpose lies. And on that third one about like you know how do you give it to the world? I've I've kind of not struggled but I've been thinking about this one for some time because I always feel like when we talk about purpose this has to be this very grandiose gesture where you're impacting millions of people you know but can that world also be your children your family your colleagues you know can we can we dilute it cuz I feel sometimes when people talk about purpose it's really amped up to be like you have to be doing something that's contributing to wider society and obviously that's amazing if your purpose spills over and impacts more than the immediate people around you. But I guess my question is can it be as simple as your household, you know? Absolutely.

That's what I I I speak about this a lot in in the book as well. I'm like your purpose can be that huge grandiose magnanimous thing that you want it to be. But it also can be having a simple wholesome life with you and your loved ones. Leaving a legacy for your kids to be like, "Wow, mom taught me so much." That in its own is is a purpose in itself. I mean my mom I am who I am today. The reason I can go out there and create the purpose that I want is because of what my mom gave me. Because that was her purpose in life. If if you ask my mom what's your purpose? She said I always want to be a mom. Because not everyone's the same. You know in um in fact there's a really interesting concept that I created. Um it's how to find your your um a personality related to your purpose. And it's sort of in a way where it's it's an exercise where after answering a few questions about who you are and your strengths, your values. We identify how each individual falls under a certain category. We have the innovator. The innovator is someone who is this pioneer.

Their ideas change the world. They're the ones who help to bring the world ahead in life. We have the healers. Healers are the ones who have deep empathy and they want to help people. So either emotionally, spiritually. So they like to bring joy to people. They love to bring a comfort to people and and teach people in a way as well. We have the strategists. They're the they're the people who help to get things in order. So say say you have a problem and and and you give them a problem and they'll find a proper way step-by-step way on on how to achieve or how to solve that problem. And then you have the caregivers. The caregivers are like your teachers, your mentors, your mothers. They value the community in in its whole for them. For them the purpose is about the community and they want everyone to be seen and heard. So you don't have to be the innovator.

Like the purpose is not just one thing. You can be anything you want to be and and you could be both as well which is so interesting to me. So you can be like a combination of Absolutely. Do you think cuz like as you were kind of going through them like I feel like I resonate with three out of the four of them. Do you feel like though you are limiting yourself by like kind of splitting your purpose across each or does it come back to what we were talking about before where it's like in my home I'm the caregiver in work I'm a strategist you know in maybe my podcast environment I'm an innovator does it do you dilute your purpose by splitting it across different areas or is that just the nature of it not at all I don't think you dilute I think you you strategize in a way Meaning at at home you can't be the innovator. You can't be like mommy wants you to be like the president of the United States. You want, you know, why not? Why not? I mean, yeah. Okay. Well, no, but like at home, your role is is to be the natra. Like you want to love your kids. You want to create that environment where they feel safe. You you can definitely inspire them with goals, but and then you go into your workplace and then you're a CEO and and then you want everyone like you're you're you're a leader and you have authority. So you have that as well. Like I said before, how how can we just be one thing and I think it's better to split various areas into your purpose because that not only enables you to categorize them properly and as soon as you know okay so this is the place that I I need to be this is the place that I need to be that it helps you to be the best version in each area. Yeah. This is um reminding me of a concept called like compartmentalizing where you're able to almost just segregate the different parts of your life. So you're not showing up at home as the energy or the person you would at work because often that requires you know it's this classic thing like you've had a stressful day at work and then you bring that into the household into your relationship into your family. No, nobody wants that, right? And there's obviously practical tools that help bridge that gap. And I'm not going to ignore the fact that there are hectic times during life. But I actually think this mental exercise of acknowledging what is my purpose in different aspects of my life is a really nice way to switch in and out of different energies. And I think for us as women who I mean most people listen to this show are highly ambitious driven women. And so I do feel that most of us will have this sometimes inner push and pull between wanting to be like go go go girl go girl go girl go girl go girl go girl go girl go girl go girl go girl go at work and which is quite masculine energy but like it it drives us we are inspired we're motivated by the energy and it's needed as well. Yeah. Yeah. To achieve things but then when you come home you do want to be at least for me anyway that nurturer and being a bit more of a feminine energy. And so taking the pressure off myself and being like actually my purpose is to be a caregiver at home but in work it is to be a strategist and I'm actually not taking my foot off the pedal in either direction. I'm just being present in whatever aspect I'm in.

I actually think is a very aligned way for me to to start looking at purpose. You know I had this whole misconception. It was this one thing like I said a mission statement I needed to find. And so in my head I was like well I'm just going to keep looking for it. You know I have I just haven't found it yet. I'm just exploring all these different things to look for it. But perhaps it's actually I found it in many different ways. You talk about how like growth and authenticity plays a role in finding your purpose. So I was thinking about this the other day. A lot of people listening to this show, both you and I included in that audience, are people who are working on their self-awareness, getting to know themselves better. They're on a path of self-discovery.

How do you kind of reconcile this growing and changing version of yourself with finding your authentic purpose in the moment? Because for me, I'm like, it's like a chicken or an egg situation, right? Like, do you wait to be like, "Okay, now I feel grounded. Now I feel aligned. Let me consider my purpose." Or whilst you're in that unfolding, right? Like maybe someone's listening, they're feeling lost. Can they identify a purpose while still working on themselves? I mean, I hope that question is is clear because I I do want to acknowledge I I do feel like getting to know myself is a lifelong pursuit, right? So, it's not something I do for two years, pack up my feet, and live my best life. You know, I'm I'm the best. I'm growing and changing as a person. But, I guess it's more for people who don't feel anchored right now. Do they start with the grounding and alignment before they run to the purpose or is there a way to recalibrate as we're changing?

See I think growth and change is integral for every phase in your life. You might already have your purpose but sometimes while having or while working towards your purpose there are times where you feel misaligned. You can even go back to your your identity and your awareness of self in that phase as well. It's not there's no stepbystep routine.

It's in the now. There there's no right time. A lot of times we prolong important decisions in life because we say, "Oh, you know, after I heal myself, I will find my purpose." But you're always healing. You're always growing. Healing is a very linear. I I mean, it's not a linear phase, meaning like it's it's a constant cycle. So, I I don't think um you need to do A to achieve B. I I think they coincide with each other. It's just a lot easier to first identify yourself first. In case you're a person, say you're starting today from scratch.

You had no awareness of this until now, then it makes sense. But if you're someone who's already on the path of your purpose and you still want to align better or you want to get closer, then you can go back. Like there's no right or wrong because life is such it's it's a constant journey of learning and relearning and unlearning and it's that's the beauty of it. Yeah. Have you kind of in this pursuit of of you understanding purpose and dedicating like a whole part of your business to it, have you had an experience where you've identified a purpose of yours that is no longer aligned for you or that you've had to part with? Oh, beautiful question. So, um I think with the first podcast that we did together, do you remember the point where I said, um I was working in fashion and I was doing all these amazing things. I would do a shoot one day and then the next as as soon as I would reach the shoot and I would see the shoot like how it would look, I would be like, "Okay, now I need to be on the cover and off after the cover." I was constantly chasing. And I realized at that point in my life, it was just a constant journey of chasing nothing. I love the fashion industry. I love how I feel when I'm on set. But at the same time, the kind of fulfillment that I get from Rey is unmatched. But the truth is, I had to go through that in order to understand the importance and understand the need for Ry.

This was never the plan. Never. I mean, if you see my my vision board, I think a few years back, there was no concept of Ry. There was no concept of my brand of of of what I'm doing today. I mean, if you told me I'd be in a podcast speaking about purpose, I'd be like, "Ria, what do you mean?" You know, but that is the beauty of life. And and I think you hold on to parts that you really like because I think the fashion industry and being on on those magazines was a purpose dream of me as a child. So in some ways I do feel like I want to keep that alive because that is a part of me still. But I guess this phase of my life that I'm in now is my purpose now. And who knows in a few years it might change into something else. And I think that's the beauty of it. It's it's really refreshing and actually I don't know for me and I'm not sure if any of the listeners resonate with this but it just feels lighter to talk about purpose in this way. Yeah. Because I think we come from a generation where the models we had aka our parents had careers for like 30, 40, 50 years. And it was this story of go to uni, get a career and then spend time building it. So you can eventually have the top salary and have a comfortable life. And so initially when I was started to explore like all these different avenues potential businesses I could do and you know you start things that don't work you start something else you learn something you take it you grow you do more but it is this kind of slower evolving phase and when you compare yourself which I know is not the right thing to do but when you compare yourself to that linear kind of safer option and trajectory you you sometimes question like have I made the right decision and so this just makes me feel so much lighter because I I've even heard people talking about their life in terms of like 10 year blocks. Yeah. And I I think about some of the most amazing uh podcasters, right? Or or like people in media and this kind of space. You got your Oprah, Mel Robbins, like they're all in their 50s. And I think that's like 20 years from where where I am now. Like imagine if I just continue on this path of openness and growth and and being receptive to wherever my purpose might take me, like what that might look like. And so I think for anyone feeling kind of stuck right now, it's interesting to just observe whether you feel like you're lock and key chained into the idea of a purpose being this one thing that defines you. And I'm really passionate to talk about this in terms of like a job, but I think it goes hand in hand because we often, you know, you meet someone, hi, I'm Erica, I'm a lawyer, right? That's not who I am. That's just something I do. But we so closely tie our identity to what we do that it does become entwined with our purpose and it puts us in this box of like this is your one thing. So I just think it's it's a very refreshing take. No, in fact they say o only only 25% of the world of 8 billion people actually know what their purpose is in life. And the reason this book and this journey was so important to me because I was on the on the journey of identifying my own purpose and I was speaking to my parents and they were like we never had the privilege of discovering our purpose because such was the nature. The idea of purpose was marketed and packaged as this unattainable huge magnanimous thing that only a privileged few got. But I think that's what I'm trying to say. It's time to change that narrative. It is time to take control and say I want my purpose to be such magnanimous or simple and that's okay. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. I wanted to ask you about more from like a cultural take on purpose and I always love talking about like whether it's in nutrition, the way we goal set, the way we're talking about pregnancy, like anything the way ancient cultures did things that we've maybe parted from now as a western society. Is there anything that ancient traditions can teach us about purpose that we're getting completely wrong now? Absolutely. Um, in fact, uh, we actually spoke about this, um, within the book. I feel like I'm I'm saying everything's within the book, but but, uh, we actually dissect how so many traditions and cultures around the world speak about purpose. One thing that I really love is from the Zulu community they speak about Ubuntu and the phrase means I am because we are such a beautiful phrase right so in that community it means they say that your purpose is aligned with your entire a community it's not just you so if you say you want to do something it has to be for the benefit of everybody else because I am because we are and I think that's so magical and I think usually purpose is this concept that's highly individualistic it's highly high high achievementbased so it's very refreshing to get perspectives like this so you see it it doesn't have to be a singular thing that relates to only you and I think that's gorgeous and there's also a concept of arete which is a Greek um it's a Greek philosophy that says your purpose This is not necessarily entirely about a wealth and making a lot of money, but it's it's about improving yourself. It's about um be in constant being a constant journey of improving who you are, your skill. And I think that's magical as well. We have the concept of ikiguai. And I think everybody knows about that. It's a Japanese um it's it's a Japanese um theory where you talk about what you um what you love, what you're good good at, what the world needs, and what can you be paid for. So I guess it's it's very interesting to see different variations of this because after observing this, you can take what you feel what uh works for you. Yeah. And it's interesting to kind of just hear how more ancient kind of wisdom or traditions, they lean more into this holistic view of purpose. Whereas I I do agree with you. I feel the western or more modern, let's say, definition of purpose is extremely individualistic. Um, and it's all about, you know, how can how can I do this, how can I do that, which I think is a natural part of purpose, right? You're impacting yourself. you're doing things.

But when you zoom out, and again that doesn't have to be zoom out to the whole world, could be zoom out to the people in your home, your friends, your colleagues, your team, the person you report to, whoever it is, like what what's your impact look like in that environment. And that also helps you frame your purpose. And on the same note, it helps you kind of, for lack of a better phrase, like vibe check your purpose, right? Like if your impact is is something you're not happy with or for people, like if you're if you're in an environment, right, where your purpose is not for people or a community that that you want to be extending or giving your time to, there's also like a bit of a wakeup call for you two, right? It is. It is in a huge way because I feel you're in this world for a long time. So if you if you're just going to come and go like a blip, what's the point? Like I'm I'm not saying leave a big legacy for generations to follow, but leave some kind of impact. Like what's the point? Because everything in this world is like a cycle. You get, you give.

So I think that's just the natural course of how things are meant to be. Yeah, I agree. So if we switch from like culture and ancient wisdom all the way to the other side, which I guess is more science-based. Yes. What does science tell us about visualizing your way to purpose?

Like does that actually work? It does work. Like you know the phrase they say rewire your brain.

So there's a concept of neuroplasticity where if you focus on one thought or or one goal in life, your brain rewires itself to constantly seek that. Have you ever noticed where say it's time to buy a new car and then you start to look at cars and you have this one car that you like. Everywhere you go you start seeing that car. It's not that that car just appears, it's that your brain rewires itself to seek that car in every interaction. So because long ago they used to believe your brain didn't grow. I mean your brain stopped growing as soon as you were a child. I mean that's when it stopped growing. But recent re research shows that your brain has uh an an ability to grow and evolve which I think is so powerful. Meaning you constantly can work on yourself and you constantly can visualize. And when I say visualize is because do you know that we see our nose all the time but our brain just chooses to not see it. Yeah. I can't say that right now. Right. So that's the power of your brain you know. So if you visualize your goals, if you write down your goals, if you see what you want to achieve in your life, your brain teaches you to look for opportunities.

Look for ways to making that happen. Now, it doesn't mean if you have like a like a picture of a billion dollars every day, it it doesn't mean that you'll achieve it. Your your thoughts have to match with your actions as well. But it was really interesting to learn about that. Yeah, I love this topic. It's one I've learned a lot from my therapist. So, she kind of took me through a neurosciency few modules which was kind of like education and then I did my therapy under that which was really interesting because I had a bit of a frame to understand my own thoughts and thinking and patterns with uh within that made logical sense to me. Um, but I think it's really empowering if you truly embrace this concept because just as much as you can have a, you know, you can rewire your brain to move towards your goals or thoughts you want to have, you can also do the opposite, right? And, and we've all seen this, you know, when you have having a really bad day and it feels like everything's going wrong, it's like you're constantly in that energy.

You're thinking, "Oh, this has gone wrong. Like, this is the worst day ever." And because you're thinking that like then you're you're constantly looking for things. Whereas I've been in moments where I feel so abundant and I feel so grateful and something could go wrong but I'm like lucky that happened or like you know whatever that was supposed to happen. Like it's just such a different response to the same event happening. There's this beautiful author, his name is Mo Gdot. He was on Dario. That's where I first came across him. He talks about happiness. He's he's an ex Google engineer and he talks about an equation for happiness and there's this really interesting example he gives which kind of demonstrates what I'm talking about. He says you could have the one event it raining right and it makes the biggest impact on people in different ways which impacts their level of happiness. So the event is it's raining you're someone who wants to go to the beach that day. Your expectation is that it's not going to rain. Does that change the event? No.

but your expectation has not been met. Therefore, you're unhappy. For me, I'm a farmer and I really need my plans to be watered. So, I I'm hoping that it rains. My expectations met and therefore I'm happy. And so, he talks about happiness in terms of it being proportionate to the expectation of things happening or not happening. And so, I just think it's really interesting to always look at your perspective on things because that ultimately will impact your experience in day-to-day life.

You're right. So, we've spoken about the science, the ancient wisdom, some practical tips for people feeling lost. I think one thing that is undeniable in the con in the context of purpose is fear, right? Fear. Fear. Yes. Sorry, it's my Australian accent. Fear. Fear. you know, being fearful of being someone else, of being someone who shows up differently in multiple different areas of your life, especially if you've been wired, right, to to be this one version of yourself. How do you think people can distinguish between the fear that's useful, right? It keeps us safe. It protects us from harm. There's a biological primal need for it versus fear that's keeping us small.

Well, you know, like you said, fear is essential in life because for generations, it's helped us to survive. So fear is not necessarily a bad thing. But there's two kinds of fear. One is like the is like a fear that helps you. It's like an inner guide. Meaning, say you want to quit your job. That fear would say, "Okay, so you want to quit your job. That's fine. But it's it's time to build like a pocket. it's it's time to seek for other jobs as well. So So in case we quit this, at least we have somewhere to go. Um at least we have a saving and that's a good kind of fear because that's a fear that's not keeping you from moving ahead in life. Then there's another fear, the fear that stops you and it just freezes you and it keeps you stagnant. So so if you're saying, "Oh, I want to quit my job." It says, "Oh no, but you can't quit your job. Who will give you a job? Where will you go? No, stay." That is the wrong kind of fear.

So the the indication as to what fear to go with is a fear that moves you ahead. The fear that has momentum because momentum is essential in life for growth. Anything that's stagnant rots, water, food, anything. It's very important to have momentum. So have fear. Yes. Because fear is also in intuition in life. A lot of times you might say that doesn't feel right.

Maybe I could do something else. That's a good kind of fear. And maybe your in intuition is trying to tell you, Ria, there's something that's a bit I'm I'm not too sure, but we could do that instead. Movement. So, I guess that's how it's it's a clear way to in to go with. Yeah, that's beautiful advice. The only thing I would add to that is I think sometimes we think that that fear is an indicator that we're not ready. Yeah. We're not capable. we're not worthy of doing something.

But I do just want to really strongly acknowledge that any single person, you, me, Oprah, anyone, J Shady, anyone who's ever done anything in life has experienced fear. Absolutely. Because by nature of you stepping outside of your comfort zone, right? So this how this relates to purpose is you might start exploring what your purpose might look like in different areas and allowing yourself to be more than one thing. M that's going to feel uncomfortable because for the longest time your comfort has been I'm a lawyer, I'm a teacher, I am an influencer. What whatever your thing has been when you start to peel that apart and allow yourself to be something different.

You're stepping out of your comfort zone. And so feeling that is not a sign that you're not worthy. Not at all. It's just a sign for me anyway. This is how I've rewired myself that I'm out of my comfort zone. But it is important to you know distinguish like when is this actually serving me and when is it harmful. Absolutely. And I guess the way you do that is just like what is what is the undertone of this fear? Is it is it rooted in keeping me small or is it rooted in a practical thing you know I need to think about. So to close this off now there are a few things I'm going to add in the show notes. We've we've had two episodes together. One was about you and your life which is an beautiful amazing story. That's actually the first time we met. So if you want to watch our friendship unfold for like the first time um that that episode's there. We did a joint episode with our other friend Nimi where we spoke about friendship, adult friendships, how to manage those. Your book is now live. You've got two books actually, both beautiful journals. I'll put links to both of those as well. From all this work you've done, everything you've learned up until now, what would be the one takeaway you want to give to the listeners today?

What is the one takeaway? It's a very powerful question.

If you had to leave them with just one thing from today's conversation or any of the work you've done, yes, I would say you are the artist to this a canvas called life and it's time you took charge, my friend. Get it. Love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on again. I'm so proud of you and watching your journey and and everything unfold. Honestly, it's very inspiring. I love when I message you and you're like, I can't I'm writing till 2 2 2 a.m.

this morning. She replies like 4:00 a.m. like, "Oh, I just finished writing." Like, honestly, like your drive and hunger, it's beautiful. Your passion, your family's amazing. Like, I'm very grateful our paths have crossed and no doubt you'll be on the podcast again soon. So, for a fourth time, but thank you so much for your time and energy today. I'm so proud of you. I I think what you're doing, this is your purpose, like to share and and inspire so many people.

And it it goes back to the quote where you're not only improving yourself, but you're also inspiring so many other people around the world. And uh I'm just incredibly proud of you as a friend, as an auntie, soon to be auntie. Yeah. I love you. Thank you. Love you, too.