Podcast about mixing intention with action
At this time a year ago, I was finally deciding to get off the sidelines, drop my excuses and begin doing something I’d previously only thought about for a good long while.
This podcast episode goes over what happened as a result, and the incredible and unpredictable twists, turns and triumphs of the journey so far. It’s my hope that this will be of help to you as you consider your goals for 2017 and beyond, and that it will give you ample evidence that you cannot go wrong if you are acting with the intention to truly follow your heart. In short, I’ve learned that intention + action = magic.
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How it all started
In this episode, you’ll hear about the process that led to beginning the podcast and how it has evolved in its first year. I talk about some of the people I’ve met, what I’ve learned, what some of the “aha” moments were that have shaped the evolution of both the podcast and of my personal and professional journey in the last year.
Some of the key takeaways from this episode and the journey itself:
- Get to know yourself so you can hear, recognize & trust the whispers from the universe (intuition) that resonate with your heart, and put them into action.
- Get (and keep) moving forward but allow yourself to be blown sideways from time-to-time. You may get pushed (or pulled) somewhere better than you originally thought you were going.
- Trust that the way will show itself to you. It will. It can be scary, throwing the road out in front of you as you run, but it’s what you’re already doing anyway for something that is likely far less fulfilling.
- Choose to have persistence in not listening to the negative voices that are trying to hold you back. They’re never going to go away. But you can choose not to let them control you.
- If you don’t get started with something today, you’ll never know how it might affect tomorrow. No action = nothing changing.
- Every second, every moment is a new beginning
A year of transformation
2016 has been the most transformative year of my life, by a long way. It’s not been an accident. I’ve worked hard at it. And yet as much as I am deeply grateful for the learning and trying and failing and the new experiences and friendships that have been the result, I am completely energized over the fact that I realize I’ve barely even begun this journey. But if these initial steps are any indication, the winding, unfamiliar path ahead is going to be far more stimulating and fulfilling than the “comfort” or familiarity of the established ways of doing things ever was.
I am the No Schedule Man. No plan (letting go) is all part of my plan. The other key part of the plan is moving forward with presence and gratitude at every step, acting with intention to follow your heart and choosing to allow those negative voices to fall by the by. If that sounds in any way appealing to you, come on aboard and let’s support each other on the journey. Regardless, I wish you calm seas, sunny skies, and a dream that lights up your heart and moves you into action.
In other words, my new formula for moving forward is: Intention + action = magic.
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Kevin Bulmer is a Strategic Marketing and Mindset Coach and Keynote Speaker and founder of No Schedule Man Brand Media. He is the producer and host of the momondays London inspirational event series, strategic marketing coach for Awesomepreneurs and host of the podcast, “Journeys with the No Schedule Man.”
Day-to-day, Kevin helps heart-centered entrepreneurs find their “REAL” success so they can feel free to live and work happy. His overarching purpose is to uplift through a shared example of continual growth.
For life coaching online and ongoing strategic marketing coaching & support, join Kevin’s online coaching membership service, My REAL Success Pass. To work with Kevin directly, apply for 1-on-1 coaching, hire him to speak (virtually or in person) for your group and/or book a private workshop or group coaching session.
My favourite part of your article is “every moment is a new beginning.” How refreshingly true and comforting that is!
Thank you for a reassuring podcast. I think this comes just in time when people are setting their new years resolutions and it is a great inspiration for all. 🙂
Thanks Andrea. I appreciate the encouragement and the time you took to visit.
Wishing you all the very best,
Kevin
Love the fact you have made 2016 your year! It took me a long time and a lot of courage to leave behind the IT world where I was making a big time success with 3 companies, but hated the hectic and stressful life. Getting ill with cancer finally gave to the push towards letting go to achieve happiness. Now I plan to enjoy the rest of my life and see what it brings!
Good for you for following your heart! I wish you all the best of good health and sincerely hope that the cancer is a thing of your past and remains so. Thank you for visiting.
Best wishes,
Kevin
Very inspiring and motivating article. Have bookmarked it. The couple of sentences from the podcast that I got connected to are “You have to have the persistence and strength to choose not to carry those (negative) voices with you. Choose to go forward in a manner that your heart is telling to you.”. I lost my job a year and a half ago and since then I shifted two jobs which were not very satisfying and these negative voices keep coming at me and I some how managed to get the strength by listening to my heart and kept auto-suggesting myself – “Be patient, the time will come and you’ll get right opportunity”. Now, it’s been over a month and I feel I’ve got the right opportunity by being part of WA in building an online business. My goal is to become an online entrepreneur.
Hi Carthik,
Thank you for your comments and for openly sharing part of your story. I completely understand that it’s difficult at times. Stick with what you’re doing and just try to keep inching toward your goal a little bit every single day. You will get there, or somewhere better. I wish you all the best of health and success!
Best wishes,
Kevin
Hello Kevin,
So glad I found you on Twitter and have enjoyed reading your site and listening to your podcast. 2016 was the worst of my life, I had a bad back injury and couldn’t walk and could only cope with the pain by taking morphine for months, then my mum died and I am so heartbroken i can barely function. I feel absolutely devastated and worn out. I have had a dream most of my life to write and paint and live in nature, a simple life and earn from writing and running a rustic well being hideaway for people who feel like i do now at a low cost (i think so many of these well being resorts are vastly overpriced, i don’t want to do that, it will be the basic cost to keep it going) I got as far as buying a cheap old house in Bulgaria to fix up but everyone kept telling me it was a daft idea and then I met a man I now live with and he convinced me it was just a dream and he didn’t want to try to fulfill it with me, so I sold it. I hate myself doing that. I know I need to start again but I am so tired and heartbroken I have no idea how to get from where I am now. I feel I have lost myself and am so unsure of every idea I have to try and move forward out of this destructive relationship and toward my dream. It is so hard. I love travelling so I think I should travel to push myself out of this bad situation and hope gradually I will feel better. I need to earn as i go to save for the property and have been offered a job teaching English in China but I am scared. Please tell me how I can stop being scared (if you can)
I have found comfort from your words. So maybe I am already on the right road. I will keep listening and heading your advice. Sorry for ramble.
Thank you.
Louise
Hi Louise,
Thank you for visiting and for sharing so openly. First of all, I think it will help others, as well as yourself, by sharing so openly. So many of us suffer in silence without really naming and owning our experience. You’re doing that. Good for you. And I am CERTAIN there will be others who will come here and read your words and while they may never comment, they’ll appreciate that they, too, are not alone.
Before I offer any advice, I want to offer you my sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. My mom is my best friend. She’s my lighthouse. I can only just imagine how it will feel when I cannot just go and see her any time I want. That will be a heavy loss, if life unfolds that way. So I am deeply touched by your loss and send you my kindest energies and healing thoughts.
Next, I want to let you know that I understand much of how you’re feeling. My life completely fell apart around 2010/2011. Health, career, marriage – it all collapsed and went away within a couple of months. I was devastated. Fragile. Destroyed. I didn’t even know what I believed any more. And I began asking the universe big questions like “Who am I?” and “What am I really here to do?” The answers did not come quickly, other than this one: “Take care of yourself first so you can be there for your boys” (I have two sons). I remember fighting that. I thought, “No, you don’t understand. Aren’t I supposed to be a CEO or a manager or a musician or a radio announcer or … something!?” And the voice came back, very clearly: “Take care of yourself first so you can be there for your boys.”
So I stopped trying to do anything else and focused only on two things:
1. Taking care of myself
2. Being there for my two boys and putting my time with them absolutely off limits to anything else
Louise, it took a long time. But I started to change. I went from just trying to survive, to wanting to really live. But it took time. I’m still on the journey and have accepted that I always will be.
With all that in mind, here’s my advice:
Take care of yourself. Learn to love yourself. Learn to deeply appreciate yourself. Do whatever you have to do to nurture YOU. Making bold steps like ending a relationship or moving somewhere new while you’re emotionally fragile is a tall order. But the more you get to know, respect and love yourself, the less you will be looking to anything external to fill up the parts that are empty or hurting.
Relationships, things, jobs, experiences … they all come and go. No matter what, you’re left with yourself. So my advice is, do whatever you have to do to get good with yourself, but no matter what else goes on, you’re going to keep seeing that same face in the mirror every day. You want to greet that face with enthusiasm!
I got help. I went to counseling, read books on Learning to Love Yourself (Gay Hendricks is one of my favourites on that subject) and gradually started to change. After a while, new ideas started to come to me, and I felt more and more certain of what I should be pursuing. It’s still scary, but this site wouldn’t be here, and you and I would not be wishing each other well, if I’d not acted in spite of the fear, because I knew it was the right thing to feed my soul and spirit.
When I was at my lowest, I remember my own mother saying to me, “Kev, sometimes treading water is where you are, and what you need to be doing. So for right now, tread water.”
Tread water if you have to, Louise. Even though it may feel as if nothing is happening, that will still make you strong. Tread water. Learn to love and appreciate yourself. Surround yourself with positivity. Turn off anything negative – drop it. Let it go. CHOOSE how you want your experience to feel. Do those kinds of things consistently, the rest will start to sort itself out. I promise.
Sending you warm & loving thoughts. I am very happy to have made your acquaintance.
Best wishes always,
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
I am touched you took the time to read and respond to my note. When you wrote:
‘It all collapsed and went away within a couple of months. I was devastated. Fragile. Destroyed. I didn’t even know what I believed anymore.’
It was like reading my own thoughts. Your honesty and truth is hugely appreciated, too many people hide their true feelings, what you are doing now is helping so many people.
As you said; you are certain others will read what I wrote and it might help them to see my feelings laid bare, they will also see your response and take great comfort from your advice as I have done.
I will heed your advice because I know it is right, firstly I must take care of myself. Nothing is going to bring my mum back, beating myself up cannot change anything. I can’t fix what has passed because it was out of my control but I can try to fix myself. I will appreciate what I do have, my back is healed and that is a huge blessing! I would look at people walking in the street as I struggled to take a few steps on crutches and think “Wow, how do they do that?” I forgot how to walk, as if I had never done it, it seemed impossible such a fundamental skill most of us are blessed with had gone so quickly. But I have it back and as I was not blessed with children I will think of that.
From now on every day I will tell myself get up and go for a walk Louise! Because I can. So …. tomorrow I may wash my hair (baby steps…) How I will make it to China I have no idea! Truthfully it is improbable I will but I need to leave where I am so I will go somewhere closer, away from the negativity right?
To a place I love, the Bulgarian mountains because nature heals. I won’t give up my dream either.
Thank you Kevin. For listening and for your words of kindness and wisdom. Sometimes all we need is simply to know we are heard.
I am honored to make your acquaintace and I wish you every joy and success in life.
Best wishes
Louise.
Hi Louise,
I can so completely relate to your back woes, too. In 2010, I could not stand up or walk without a cane, with 3 herniated discs, a pinched sciatic nerve and constant pain. I ended up in the hospital because my immune system crashed due to total lack of sleep (I suspect), which didn’t come to me because of the constant pain.
It’s a long story as to how, but I got better. And like you, I cherish every moment I’m not in pain.
I reflect on that process often to remind me of other roads ahead that seem overwhelming. It was one little tiny step at a time, with LOTS of rest stops at first. But gradually the steps got bigger and stronger, and the stops became less frequent.
If it helps, there are all kinds of great stories from people who have lived through enormous loss and challenge in various episodes of the podcast. Perhaps you may find some comfort in relating to them? The episodes featuring Winnie Anderson, Sheila Stevenson & Bruce Van Horn (who lost a daughter and survived cancer) all come immediately to mind.
Sending you my best wishes, Louise. Please keep in touch. We’re all in this journey together.
Love & light,
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Great post and podcast! You are very much speaking my language. My mantra in life is Push Grind Grow. Keep pushing out of your comfort zone, grind away at what it is you love doing and the growth will come. It kind of sums up your podcast to me.
No point dwelling on our past. There is only ever the ‘now’ this moment. And yes just start today where ever you are.
Will follow your site and podcast. Love what you are doing.
Keep up the great work,
Kev
Hey Kev,
Thanks for the kind words! I LOVE your mantra! I’m glad you saw some similarities in what each of us is doing
I look forward to learning more by following your site as well. I’m happy to report I put some turmeric on my eggs this morning, for the first time. It’s a baby step, but I’ll take it. Keep up your great work.
Best wishes,
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Oh I feel for you with 3 herniated discs! I had two, one torn and like you there was hardly any sleep for months, no reprieve from the pain, every two hours popping pills and swigging oromorph from the bottle.
Only time got hour or two sleep was on side on floor but only because I was so exhausted and doped up. Hideous experience that left me like a zombie. I lost most of 2016 and that is why hurts so much about my mum, I couldn’t send as much time as I wanted, I had to take trains, it took hours and I couldn’t sit down, on crutches off my head on ‘legal’ drugs. Sounds really stupid now but i had no clue morphine was so addictive. The doctor handed it to me like lemonde! That is a whole other subject I know but it makes me so angry.
Anyway I am so sorry for your back and hideois pain and empathise completely, I think unless you have experienced the agony of a herniated disc/s there is no way to really understand how it destroys your life. My last MRI was almost clear, the tear is gone, which was the worst. I still get slight sciatica but hey that is like stubbing my toe compared to the agony I was in!
I k ow what you mean about other people’s pain and how they xooe, i follow Bruce, can’ imagine how he xopes and is so positive. Special powers! Really special people.
Oh golly ramble, ramble, again, sorry I am swamping your comments box!
Note to self: Comment not write a short story.
Loving all the podcasts and I am getting the book you recomeneded. Thank you again for your help Kevin!
Best wishes
Louise
Hi Louise!
You’re welcome to write here as much as you like, whenever you like! I can so TOTALLY relate to what you’ve just said. I recall a family member telling me she thought I had been “overly dramatic” at describing what it was like when my back and body were in such constant pain. I thought, “I love you but you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Anyway, it sounds like you’ve made great progress, as have I. Here’s to good health. May it find you and follow you!
Best wishes,
Kevin