Ryan McLean : Slightly Unconventional

The Inspiration Episode

iniartworksmallThrough demotivation came inspiration and I’ve decided that I will now only work on things that inspire me, otherwise I won’t work.

I’m going to call this one The Inspiration Episode because Out of Demotivation was the last episode. If you haven’t listened to that go back and listen to the demotivation episode. I actually got some inspiration from talking to my wife after recording that episode.

In the Demotivation episode I spoke about how I spent the whole day in the box which is what my office is now called and just couldn’t think of what I should be working on. And so I basically achieved nothing that day because I didn’t know what to work on.

I make enough money; I’ve got multiple businesses; there’s so much opportunity and things to work on, I just wasn’t motivated to work on anything and nothing seems like a big enough challenge for me. So that was where I was at.

And I spoke to my wife about it and the clarity kind of came. It was like, “Well, do you really think you’re going to find your motivation? Do you really think you’re going to find your inspiration sitting inside a box all day which is your office?” And I was like, “Well, no of course not, that’s not who I am.”

And I also spoke to my friend Ross the same day and we were talking about it and he was like, “Well you’ve got the van.

You’re going travelling in the van in a couple of months. Why don’t you just put that front and center and just go through the mundane writing articles for your niche sites, creating content for On Property and just go through the motions knowing that in a few months’ time you’re going to move in the van and hopefully that’ll change things.” And I said to him, “I can’t do that.

I can’t do mundane. I can’t just go through the motions.” And while that can be a negative sometimes because I don’t do the work I know I should do to achieve the results that I know the work would bring it can be a massive negative. It’s also been a huge positive in my life because I won’t  do something that’s boring.

I’ll seek out the new. I’ll seek out the innovative. I’ll learn. And through learning so much I’ve had so many breakthroughs and achievements in business that I feel like I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I kind of like that about myself and that I can’t just do the mundane thing.

I was actually listening to a podcast and it was a swimming coach talking about mastery. He was talking about the same problem about how we can’t just go through the mundane and do it and the fact that things are boring and aren’t challenging that’s more difficult than the actual work. And I’m exactly in the same place. So I said to him, “I can’t do that.” And he was like, “I can, that’s just what I do to get through things sometimes.” And I was like, “Okay, well I can’t do that.” So to get to my point, the realization I came to was: a) I am not going to find my inspiration in the Box; b) I’m not just going to sit down and do mundane things which would be in the box as well. That left me with c and it’s just that I’m not going to work unless I feel inspired to work.

Therefore my business is at a point where it’s basically on autopilot and making me enough money to get by. In fact once we move into the van our expenses will go down so we’ll be in an even better position than we are now. So if my business is making this much and really my focus and motivation has been that I want to generate some more passive income that’s going to protect us from the future.

That would be great but as we know I don’t work well in mundane things. So instead of doing that, how that I take this time to not work unless I feel absolutely motivated to work. That’s what I’m going to do so there’s no pressure on myself to work. I can take the whole week off if I want but what I found is that’s not going to happen because I always find some motivation of little things that I want to do and achieve during the day so generally I’ll work a bit.

I also spoke to my wife about Melee. I play this game, if you’re not familiar with it it’s called Super Smash Brothers Melee. It’s a game that came out on the Nintendo GameCube but it’s actually got a competitive tournaments scene mainly in the US. That’s something that I feel like I want to pursue.

I’d like to be top 100 in the world. That is like my ultimate goal that I don’t tell many people about but I’d love to do that. But that requires a fair amount of practice and so I spoke to my wife about it and she said to me, “Well, why don’t you just spend some time do a bit more practice on that.” She was like, “Because when you do that you’re happy or you’re a better dad around us when you’re pursuing things that you love.”

That made sense to me and or course I would absolutely love to do that. So I’m at the point now where when I feel inspired to work I’m going to work on what inspires me. And I always know that I’m motivated by challenge. And so if we get to the point where we’re not making enough money anymore then I can just challenge myself and I’ll go back to work because that’s the challenge to try and make some money.

Therefore if we find that we’re not making enough then I can just go back to work and that’s going to find because I’ll be challenged. I’ll have a goal to try and make enough money again and it’ll be fine.

That’s where I’m at, at the moment in terms of inspiration – I’m only going to work when I’m inspired to and otherwise I’m not going to work.

That’s it for me today guys. Until next time if you want instructions go and buy some furniture.


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