Dirty Chai with Chio - Ep 15 - Seasons

The podcast is about the concept of seasons in life and success. The host shares their personal experiences and compares them to farming. They explain that the first stage is like clearing the land, which requires hard work and research. The next stage is like loosening the soil, which requires investing time and resources. Both stages may not yield immediate results, but they are necessary for future success. It's important to manage expectations and understand that the harvest will come later. Hello, hi, welcome to this week's installment of the Dirty Jipot Podcast with me, your host, Chiyo, the podcast where we focus on holistic professional and personal success by growing and developing the common denominator to all your successes, all your failures, and everything in between, you. It's about the mindset, emotional regulation, and the intentional personal development that underpins holistic success. In this week's episode, we're talking about seasons, seasons. This topic is a subject that has helped me get through some of the more difficult times in my life and has also helped me stay grounded during some of the happier times in my life. And I thought I would share this concept of the cycles of life and success with the hope that it helps you see where you are, but also helps you see where you're going. So that whatever space you are in now makes more sense, but also you have a healthy understanding of what the concept, this too shall pass, means. And I mean, when I say this too shall pass, I mean both the good and the bad. And it's important that they both do because life happens in seasons. Even when people speak of seasons, they speak of them as winter, summer, autumn, spring. When I speak of seasons, I speak of them in the sense of farming and planting. The weather analogy, though, brings to mind the opening line of a song called Seasons by Hillsong. I'm not big on going to church, but I am rather big on my own personal spiritual journey with God. And the first line of the song has always struck me and has stayed with me repeatedly over the years. And it goes, Like the frost on a rose, winter comes for us all. Oh, how nature acquaints us with the nature of patience. And I like that because it is a gentle but firm reminder that hard times come to all of us at different times. Summer comes to all of us at different times. Blooming and wilting comes to all of us at different times. I think Rupi Kaur has a poem about it. But it simply is the same concept, that we all grow, bloom, wilt, die and start over again and again and again. Now to Seasons in the way that I mean it. And I'll try to explain as I go along what exactly I mean. So I grew up in farming land, farming territory, farming families. I grew up in a semi-rural area and we routinely visited my grandmother who was living in a rural area, had grown up in a rural area and was a subsistence farmer. And I understood very early how the cycle of farming and farmland works. So when I look at that and I look at how it works, I see a strong parallel between how that happens and how our lives happen. So what you start off with, so think of this as your journey to success or your career journey no matter what stage you're at because the cycle repeats itself. But let's start by explaining the cycle. You have rural land at the very beginning. Let's suppose you need to get a degree to do something that you need to do or you need to get an understanding of what you're trying to do. So suppose you want to start a podcast. You like me a few months ago have no idea how it works. You have no idea who to ask. You have no idea what equipment you even need and you have to start from scratch. That's what it is when you have rural land. The land or the idea is fertile but there are many things that are in the way of you getting to that fertility to begin with. And so you have to do the hard work at that stage of clearing out the trees, the grass, the natural foliage that is already on that fertile land sitting on top of it. So if you think of it, let me use the podcast idea. On top, it's a good idea that I should start a podcast because it's something that I know that I would enjoy. It's something that will allow me to contribute to society in a way that means something to me. It's something that I know I can keep up with because I have a passion for it. It's something that I have time for. But how exactly do I go about starting a podcast? What do I need to do? And for me, that's the stuff that's on top of the idea. That's the stuff that needs clearing away. And so you do the hard work of digging up tree stumps, cutting down trees, clearing that bush away, digging up grass and shaking off the soil and separating the useful from the useless, figuring out what stays as manure, what doesn't. And when you're doing this, this is the equivalent of Googling how podcasting works. It's the equivalent of understanding what, for example, is a hosting platform. It's understanding that you need special software to record a podcast. But not only do you need special software. You can find it for free. But once you found it, you still need to work out the ins and outs of using it because it's complex to some degree. But there's somebody who's done a video, then you watch that video, that's not particularly useful. Then you go find another video. This is the equivalent of digging and moving things out of the way to make space for the idea. The same thing goes for if you decide that you want to get a doctorate, you decide that you want to study further. You have to find the school, you have to find the fees, you have to find the time, you have to clear out all of these things that are in the way of the idea simply breathing. This is before the idea does anything. So now you've cleared the land. That's the first part. And it's important to understand that all this work, all that time I spent reading mountains of information on how to do a podcast, all that time I spent trying to overcome my own anxiety as far as speaking into a microphone in an empty room, all that time that I spent trying to figure out, do I have time for this? Is this something I can do? Do I want it to be something that earns me money or not? Am I just doing this? All of the time I spent confronting myself, but also getting things out of the way. That time doesn't pay you back in that moment or even immediately after. That's just work you put in. And that's the same as clearing the land. The fact that you have cleared the land does not give you a harvest. And yet at the same time, you cannot get to the harvest without first clearing the land. It feels a lot like very hard work because it is. It feels a lot like very hard work with no return because to some degree, it can only give you delayed gratification over time. Understanding that you are in a season of clearing raw land and that you're not going to get the outcome immediately after you are done with this stage allows you to manage your own expectations and to manage your own disappointment and excitement so that you do not get to the end of the clearing and you're like, right, where's my money? Because it's when you do that, that you frustrate yourself, you frustrate those around you, and you frustrate the idea. So you need to understand that when you're going for something, first you put in a whole lot of work for seemingly zero return. Then you go into the next stage. Now you've got this clear land and you've now reached that fertile soil. The idea can breathe, right? Now you know what you need to do. There's still the digging, right? And if you have been around any sort of farmer, you understand that you cannot do light digging and expect your seeds to take decent root. If you're going to give your seeds any sort of chance to survive, to do well, to thrive, to grow, you're going to need to loosen that soil properly. And that's why people have specialized equipment for digging. We didn't have specialized equipment for digging as subsistence farmers. We had hoes, right? You had a hoe that you used, and you used the strength of your arm to dig. And my mom's rule was for every spot that you dug, you had to dig down at least three times for that soil to be usable or plantable in, I don't know what the correct word for that is. So you had to dig down at least three times and then move on to the next spot and then move on to the next spot. It was backbreaking work. No one enjoyed it. No one enjoyed that part of it. So you dig down, you dig down, you loosen the soil, dig down, you loosen the soil, dig down, you loosen the soil, and you dig a big piece of land. This is the part usually where you're putting in money to buy equipment if you're going to be podcasting. You're putting in money for books if you're going to be studying. You're putting in money for courses and learning if you're going to be doing something, starting a particular type of endeavor that you're learning as you go. This is the part where you're doing the physical work required to get to the next stage. So first you had to do the physical work of clearing the land and making space for the idea. And now you have to do the work that enables the idea to take root. You have to do the work that enables the fertile idea to meet with your resources so that something can happen. And that is the digging. Again, you are doing back-breaking work that is seemingly thankless. What keeps you going and what kept us going and what kept my mother saying, dig like this and dig like that, was understanding that when you don't dig like that, was understanding that when you take a shortcut here, you affect the harvest that comes many months later. If you want a decent harvest months from now, you have to dig down three times in the hot sun for no immediate return. Again, understanding this helps you manage your expectations of the return that you will get from the activity that you are investing in. And understanding when you are likely to get what type of return allows you to keep going even when it seems to you and to others like you are getting nothing back. Because you know what you are working towards and you know that it will come later. But for now, there is nothing to be gained in taking the shortcut. If you are job hunting, for example, there is nothing to be gained by taking a shortcut in the screening process for the companies that you would like to work for. There is nothing to be gained by taking a shortcut in doing your CV. There is nothing to be gained by taking a shortcut in sprucing up your LinkedIn profile. This is where you need to be putting in back-breaking work for seemingly zero return. But you, once you understand the concept of your seasons, will understand that that back-breaking work is not for nothing. That that back-breaking work is in fact going to pay you off in great dividends in a few months down the line from a vision that no one but you can see at that point. After the digging comes yet another stage. Now you are putting in the seeds. Now you are actively planting. Now you have started the thing. Now you are figuring out how to make it work. Now you are figuring out the ins and outs. Now you have put in some money. When you put the seeds in, you put them in with a little bit of fertilizer. That's how we did it. Not enough to burn. So this is do not over invest. So you would put your corn, two seeds of corn in one hole and you would put a sprinkling of fertilizer on it. My mother was absolutely pedantic about this. Don't throw in a handful of fertilizer. Other than the fact that fertilizer cost a fortune or cost a fortune for us then, it was also that if you put a full handful of fertilizer on two seeds, those seeds would burn before they ever left the ground. They would never grow because what was intended to fertilize them actually then killed them. This is the equivalent to me of do not over invest too early. The crop needs to be tended as it grows. So when you start, sprinkle just a little bit. For me that looked like not buying overwhelmingly expensive podcast equipment. It looked like not spending a fortune on editing and studio time when I didn't know where this was going. It looked like what is the bare minimum that I need to put together a quality sound that will express what I need to express and put it out into the world at an acceptable level but understanding that I am not the diary of a CEO podcast. I don't have a studio set up for this in my house that is manned by staff. And I'm just using that as an example but all the top podcasts work in that way in one shape or the form or one shape, form or other. I do not yet have those resources. The podcast has not yet taken off. In fact, it is yet to start. So it's understanding that when you are going in, don't over invest. It's understanding that when you are starting with your job hunt, it's going to take a while. Don't spend 24 hours a day burning yourself out doing this thing. Spend a little time every day sprucing up this and sprucing up that. So spruce up your LinkedIn profile today. Spruce up your CV today. Don't try to make contact with every contact you've ever made on the same day. Drop a message to a person once, pick a person to drop a message to daily. So maybe you want to do a little 5-10 minute work on LinkedIn, connecting with people, liking their posts, commenting on what they've said and then move on to your next and move on to your next. And day after day after day, you build. What you don't want is to do a fertilizer dump that kills your seeds before they even have a chance to grow. So now you've done this, you've done this, you've done this. And then after that, you water. Now your seeds are in the ground. Then comes the waiting for them to take root. And what you do here is you make sure that they're not eaten by birds. You make sure that they get the water that they need. And to some degree, and this is important, you also wait for rain. This is what, to my mind, is the equivalent of opportunity meets preparation, right? Luck meets preparation. Hmm. Jesus, what is going on with me today? Let me try this. It's the, yes, it's the equivalent of opportunity meets preparation. I second guessed myself, but I had it right. You know when they say luck is when opportunity meets preparation. What I'm trying to say here is there is an element of luck involved when you set out on a big idea. There's an element of grace. There's an element of God. Because we can't control the world and how it works. We can't control how each opportunity will pan out 100% of the time. But what you do is that you do the very best you can. You put yourself out there in the very best way that you know how. And when the opportunity presents itself, because it will, it will find you prepared. And so you put your seeds out. You give them the little fertilizer that they need. You water them as best as you can. And when the rainy season comes, as it always does, the rain will find your seeds in the ground waiting to grow. And that is the season that you will be in that time where grace meets you at the point where you've done everything that you can do. And then your seeds will start to grow. And remember that in all this time, in all this time, there is little to no return. Perhaps the very first sense of return that you're going to get will be maybe the first comments that you receive back on your podcast. When those green shoots start to show up from the ground. When they start to present themselves and you think, oh my God, I planted something and it's actually growing. Then you start to get some validation. You start to get some feedback. But at this point, especially if it's a career, you are not yet getting something major back from it. But you are starting to understand that it was not in vain. That you put something out there in order to get something back. And then as the plants grow, they require active tending. They require you to monitor the weeds. They require you to continue to water as needed. Rain will continue to come as needed as well. And then quite importantly, they require weeding. So once the plants grow to a certain point, and what happens is when you put fertilizer in soil or you put seeds in soil and you put water, other things will also attempt to take root there. And these are the weeds. And you don't want the weeds there. You could let them grow with the plants. But what will happen is they will choke out the plants. They will suck out nutrients from the soil that your plants actually need. And this is where your mindset is in play. This is where you need to be tending to the things going on in your head. As you continue to work and to put in, you're no longer doing the backbreaking work that is breaking ground and digging so that you can plant soil. But you're now showing up every day. You are now doing the work every day. You're now putting yourself out there every day. It's hard work, but it's a different kind of hard work. And it's hard work that is also always in danger of the threat of your own mind, of the voices between your two ears, of the voices that say, who do you think you are to be doing this? Who do you think you are to be putting yourself out there like this? There are thousands of these things out there. You don't need to be putting out another podcast, right? There are thousands of lawyers out there. Why do you think you're going to get the job? That is where the danger lies. The danger is you. The danger is the stuff that comes into your brain and challenges the fertility of your soil and challenges the hope of your dream and challenges the fact that you don't know when your harvest is coming. That is the danger. And if you do not actively tend to weeding out those thoughts, to doing the work, to journaling, to praying, if that's your thing, to reading and encouraging yourself, to putting yourself around people who are like-minded, who are aggressively hunting for their next like you are. If you do not do that at that point, it is easy for you to say, you know what, ah, man, I tried. This is the best I can do. My apologies. There's a little sound thing that I had to fix there. If you do not pay close, close attention to what's going on between your ears while your plants are growing, and this is what's saddest, you've already done the bulk of the work. You have already done the heavy lifting. You are now just required to repeatedly show up. This is where you're most likely to let yourself down. Then your plants begin to bear fruit. Maybe you start to get recognition at work. You start to get recognition for your idea. Your customer base starts to grow. You're not quite yet turning a profit, but you're doing something. And you can see your harvest approaching. And all you're required to do here is just keep showing up. Don't mess with the recipe. Don't throw unnecessary large amounts of fertilizer on. Just sprinkle as the seasons go. Sprinkle as the seasons go. Water as the seasons come. Do not flood the field. Don't do too much. Don't do too little. Just do enough. And show up. And show up. And show up. And show up in your excellence. And show up as the person with the work ethic that dug that ground and waited for the rain. Show up as that person repeatedly. And for some reason, this repeated showing up is the hardest part always. Hardest part always. Because we just want to get to the part where the corn is ready. I remember because we loved eating corn in our home. I remember saying to my mom, is it ready yet? Is it ready yet? Especially once you start seeing the corn on the cob, but you don't yet get something back from it. Like you can't eat it yet. It's too soft. And I always wanted my mom to just open an ear. Let's see. Let's see. Is there something? Is there something? And she would say, once you open the ear, it's ruined. Once you open the ear, it's ruined. You just need to wait for it. Once it's ready, we will know. Once it's ready, we will know. So it's understanding that you're not meant to escalate the idea unreasonably. You're meant to tend it and grow it as organically, as naturally as possible to get it to where it needs to be without quitting, without undue impatience, but while also maintaining a healthy balance of urgency, urgency without impatience, but also tending it with the urgency that accompanies a person that knows that they're going somewhere, but that somewhere is not immediately around the corner, if that makes sense. You're running a marathon and not a sprint, so don't waste all your energy on the first hundred meters when you have a hundred kilometers to come. Thereafter comes the harvest. Whether that comes in the form of a salary or in a contract or in brand sponsorship or in changing lives, the harvest always comes. And when the harvest comes, you get rewarded for all the work that you have put in. And it is a favorite season for many. It is also the most visible season for many. But before that harvest came were all these other moments of working and praying and waiting and showing up. And if you are looking at other people while you are doing this thing, it is very important to pay attention to the fact that you shouldn't compare your backbreaking season with someone else's harvest season. The seasons are not running on the same cycle for each one of us. We are all in a different season. I cannot compare my podcast to Diary of a CEO because we are in a different season. I cannot compare my podcast to someone who started today because we are in a different season. I cannot compare my podcast to someone who is still thinking about starting a podcast because we are in a different season. And the same thing goes with parenting, with working, with general career, with seasons within the career. You cannot compare yourself to a person who started working today for the very first time. But you can also be in a season at that particular level that you are at. Understand that the seasons are cyclical. That the circle of life, the circle of seasons is always running. So after your harvest will come another season of backbreaking work and starting over. Whether that means you are elevating to the next level or that you are growing to the next stage of your business or you are growing to the next stage of your career or you are going into the next part of your parenting journey. The season always comes back around. And so when you are in your harvest, in your season of plenty, remember to fill, refuel, remember to save, put aside something. If your season of harvest looks like a large bonus or it looks like a large promotion, remember to save. Remember to put aside a little bit of money. And this, the use of money as an example is the easiest one. But there are many ways in which to save for the next winter. That could be the mindset, understanding clearly and being present in your harvest and understanding how you got there. It means that when you step into a difficult part of the cycle again, you are not shocked. You are not starting from a point of, I really need to believe hard because I've never seen this thing before. You are now starting from a place of, I've experienced this cycle and I know how this cycle works and I know where I am going and I know that this part, this part is going to be hard or this part is going to be boring, but I know that I am going to make it. And so I go there with the difference, with the approach of a person who has experience, but who also understands that the seasons are inevitable. So understanding the seasons means you know better than to compare. Understanding the seasons means that you know better than to try and escalate, resolve in a way that doesn't align with the part of the season that you're in. It also means you understand what you need to put in to the soil. You understand what you need to put in. You understand what you need to get. You understand the seeds you need to be buying. You understand the water that you need to be putting on the seeds that you've planted. You understand what you need to be putting in so that you can get what you desire to get out. That is what the power of understanding the concept of seasons is. And I hope that this concept is helpful to you as you embark on your personal journey and on your personal success and on your personal search for meaning in this life. And I wish you a beautiful week. Go out there and execute on your idea and understand which part of your seasons you are in and adjust your mind, your body, your soul, and your heart to the right setting so that you run the marathon in the right way. And when your harvest comes, because it will, remember to save for the winter because the winter will return. So be present in every portion of the journey. Enjoy every portion of the journey, but understand it. Understand that each part too shall pass. And so enjoy what it has to give you, learn what it has to teach you, grow in the way that it requires you to grow, and expand, harvest, and enjoy the bounty that it brings you. Have a great week. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, please like, share, subscribe, leave a comment, send me a DM, send me an email, send me a message. I appreciate every single one of them, always. Thank you very much. Have a beautiful week. Go create something.