Your Unplanted Ground #192

Aaron:
Friends. Welcome back to another episode of work life play. I'm your host, Aaron McHugh. And we are curious explorers. We are people like us do things like this as Seth Godin says. So people like us are curious about what's around the next corner. And we are interested in finding ways to live sustainable rhythms that are life-giving and joy filled and purpose driven, which is no small feat. I agree with you on, so this long extended break of radio silence has been brought to you by my own rest and recovery. Before we launch into today's episode, I want to share a new program that I'm starting. It is for virtual explorers and in person explorers. So I sent out an email a couple weeks ago to my email subscribers and realize that many of you here on the podcast may only be with us here on this single channel.
Aaron:
I wanted to make sure we extended the invitation to you as well. Explorers wanted that quote from Saint Paul, "Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work that you've been given and sink yourself into that. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life."
So I've been reading that quote meditating on that since January of this year, just continually revisiting, what does it mean to actually sink yourself in to that and take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life? Well, for each of us, that's very different. I found myself on the Colorado trail a few weeks ago, finishing a project I'd been working on for five years. Finally, on the last miles, I really realized that these questions I was asking myself while hiking solo for five days specific to the trail are actually great life questions.
Aaron:
And that's really, what's informed this explorers group that we're starting on October 5th. And those three questions were super simple, but hard to answer in real life, much easier to answer when you're out on the trail with a backpack -Where Am I? where am I right now? Where am I going? And who am I? So where am I on the map physically? While using a mapping compass is really important to know where am I going? Where am I headed? What's my destination. Where am I going to bed my head tonight? And who am I? And who am I maybe, maybe that might stand out as a less important question out on the trail, but really imperative question to answer here back in real life. So these are kind of the frames we're going to be using as we start this six week long program runs October 5th through the week of November 13th and there will be a virtual program.
Aaron:
So there'll be weekly 90 minute sessions where we come together as a small group, there'll be 10 to 15 of us fellow explorers together. And we'll be journeying together over the course of the six weeks. It's an application process to be accepted into the program. About half of it is full already, and we have about six, five or six more spots available. So a couple of the dialogue topics that we'll be engaging, the kinds of just framings that we'll be building into our weekly engagement, things like running small life experiments. How do we actually do that? How do you listen deeply to your own life? How do we learn to pace ourself resilience practices that we can build in, especially in this world of COVID that we're literally living in and all the uncertainty,
Aaron:
How do we actually give,
Aaron:
Get more of our attention back by reducing the distractions in our life and how do we begin to build awareness around our own reactive tendencies and habits and things that derail us. So those are the kinds of things we'll be picking at those big overarching questions of who am I, where am I, and where am I going? Those will be important ones that we'll be spending time on as well. And what will all lead all of these interactions each week, but we'll be spending a lot of time in smaller groups also as fellow explorers. So if that's of interest to you, you can find all things www.aaronmchugh.com/explorerswanted.
Now the piece that I'm equally excited about is a part two of this, and that's actual in person adventure. What that will look like is, it will be two nights in late October, October 23rd, through the 25th in Boulder, Colorado.
Aaron:
And we'll actually be spending time I'm staying in Boulder, but then actually out in the mountains during the day full days on our Friday and Saturday. So lots of details there for many people that really moves your stoke meter. And that sounds super fun of like, let's go out and get on the trail together. First other people, whether it's for travel or for COVID, or for expenses that may not be your cup of tea, or maybe not be the right timing, that optional part two for the in-person adventure, isn't required to be able to participate in the first part, part one for the virtual explorers six week program, but you're not able to skip six week program if all you want to do is come play in the mountains. So it's a both. And so check it out. www.aaronmchugh.com/explorerswanted hope to have you join us.
Aaron:
Okay. So onto today's episode was spending some time thinking how to re-engage with you, my friends here and the podcast. And when I realized is that I wanted to just provide a brief, just, I guess, letter from flutter, from my heart to you and want to, just to bring you into my reality of so much of what I've done here in the podcast over almost 200 episodes now is really attempted to be authentic and real is that I'm a fellow journeymen like you, and we're on a trail exploring ways that we can actually find more life and find ways to engage the life that we have and all of the ups and downs of it. And what are some of the narrow road paths where life actually exists. And then there's a culture that we live in that I find perplexing. And so much of what's offered in the culture for where you can receive life happiness, joy contentment.
Aaron:
I find to not be very helpful personally. So as we're exploring, what does it look like to, to discover more life and work life play rhythms that produce joy and intimacy and connection with the people that we love and doing meaningful work that has deep and lasting impact in the world. What I've found is that one of those is actually paying attention to are our rhythms, where are our rhythms of what is it that we actually need? Some people will call that self care. And I'm actually talking about less about in a daily practice right now. And we'd love to just zoom out and think about it in terms more of annually. And if any of you have read my book, fire, your boss, I'm discovering work that you love without quitting your job. There's a chapter in there on this idea of how do you actually learn to pace yourself?
Aaron:
And I talk about emotional calories and ways. You can actually build budget practices into your caloric energy intake for mind, body, and spirit, and how you actually plot that against your expenditures. So all of that being true, what I've also learned along the way is paying attention to my annual rhythms. So in the same way that our calendar rolls in seasons, it's snowing outside in Colorado, in September right now and winter isn't here yet. Fall is peak is coming, and then we'll turn around and roll into spring and then summer and repeat we'll the different seasons there. Each of them serve a different purpose. And what I find is that our modern life, we have actually abandoned the idea idea of living in seasons. And so instead we're more always on always connected, always engaged at the same busy or over programmed pace, but for all of mankind's humanity history prior to let's call it the last 200 years, that isn't just, wasn't how we lived, what we, we had to pay attention to the seasons.
Aaron:
So when there's more daylight out, you spend more time out when there's less daylight out here in doors, you go to bed earlier. So what I've discovered is there's a soulful truth to living in seasons. Now that may not be January through March at a literal calendar level, but paying attention to our energy levels and our engagement levels, our passion and our zeal levels. And I find that for most of us in a similar way to circadian rhythms on a 24 hour body clock, it's also true for us weekly paying attention to what's my energy and focus and engagement level on a Monday versus a Friday as well as then annually. So the rhythm for me is I find that summer is a time for me to disengage from the production and creation of work and engage actively into play and to rest. So I want to just read you a phrase.
Aaron:
That's actually an agricultural term that I discovered a few years ago and has this base level idea of how our world works. And it doesn't work so much like this anymore because we've attempted to hijack it. But it did work like this for thousands of years. So I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and he actually used this term it's called fallow ground. So for those of you that are farmers, I have a couple of you in mind right now. I'm sure you know what this is. I didn't intuitively know what it meant. So concept wise, I knew, but I wanted to look it up and read. So what we were talking about was this idea of fallow ground is that you actually leave the land unproductive. So this quote is some farmers and gardeners let their land go fallow, or unplanted. So picture at the end of the season, all of the harvest is taken out and instead of replanting it right away, that part of the land is just left so that the soils natural nutrient balance can be restored. It became more and more unpopular to leave land fallow or unplanted and unproductive in Western societies. The production won out over healthy soil.
Aaron:
Doesn't that sound like us that season after season, after season, we replant, we're so addicted to doing that. We replant in the same fields that we are harvesting out of love, but the idea of actually leaving a plot of land in our life, in our work, just to rest, to just alleviate, leave it so that the natural nutrients and balance can be restored. That it's super unpopular. Of course it is because we're addicted to more. And so what I'm finding is that this unpopular idea how that actually applies to the health and restoration of natural balances and the nutrients to come back is sometimes you just have to leave it alone and you just leave it alone and you allow some weeds to grow. You allow just naturally, you know, sleep until you're done sleeping. So what I found out, it took about three and a half weeks off and was able to just kind of rest and recharge and that my annual engagement, I have this graph, that's sitting next to me that I can drew years ago of what is my actual year look like in terms of my engagement and my focus, what are the months of the year where I really feel like, yeah, taking on the world where I I've got some chutzpah that I want to infuse into something.
Aaron:
And I found that those are really true for me. Like in fall, like October, November, December, I are oftentimes the months that I take on big, juicy, meaty challenges. Whereas like when it comes to June, July, and August, I am massively disinterested in creating and producing anything brand new. Now I struggle to stay engaged even in my daily work because what my, the time of the season for me of my soul, my body, my experience, my annual rhythms is that I'm looking to align the work that I do in the world with where my soul is in that time and season my energy level and my focus. So back to this core idea of, we started with this Explorer's wanted program. Well, you'll note it doesn't start until October. And that's super purposeful for me. September is like I'm beginning to kind of resurface and come back into my engagement, energy, and kind of, you know, interest for new endeavors. Whereas in August spoiler, I'm shutting it down. I want to go fishing with my buddies. I want to be with my family and I don't want to have to deliver, I don't want to have to produce, which is like a field that you allow to rest so that the natural nutrients can be returned. So the question I'm going to leave you with today,
Aaron:
Do you know what your annual rhythms are? Where, what are your sweet spots? Do you actually see dips, peaks and valleys in your engagement, in your focus, in your zeal for life? Well, maybe some of it is just like seasons, so it would be super helpful to just pay attention. And it's really helpful to have somebody that you've journeyed life with friend, family, member, spouse, significant other, and just reflect with you. Yeah. I really see you now kind of see you bottom out a little bit in February every year. Okay, great. It's not good or bad. It's just paying attention to what are those rhythms? And then when are the yahoos, like, do you have an annual Yahoo every year that you get super excited? Like, Oh man, I can't wait for, well then maybe those are the times to actually then pay more attention to some of the things that you're attempting to advance, attempting to create.
Aaron:
So what I'm looking for is optimally, how do I align the energy that's available and how do I manage that as a resource that I invest as an asset in the directions of the things that I actually want to make impact in. And so in doing so that requires me to take breaks, pay attention to my fallow land that I allowed just to pull a harvest out and then let it sit for awhile so that I can maximize the impact of the life that I am entrusted to live. So back to St. Paul, how do we do our creative best with the life that we've been entrusted to live friends, for those of you interested in joining us in this Explorer's wanted program, all , and for all the rest of us, keep going, you can do this. This is good for you. https://www.aaronmchugh.com/explorerswanted/