As the trip to Siargao wraps up...again...this time for real..we reflect on those magical moments and valuable lessons learned from casual and random conversations with other travelers, and people you meet along the way. The clarity of thought from one girl we met just partying and dancing in the rain summed it all up. She had an incredible talent for baking cakes, but refused to expand her business as she did not want to lose herself in chasing money. I refreshed so much on this trip and hope you will find some important nuggets of info as well from my journey to Siargao!

Today we discuss how travel can improve your quality of life from an educational to a holistic standpoint. We also talk about the benefits of group versus solo travel and which one is right for you. Is it better to just plan a trip and your tours (if any), by yourself, or is it better to book a total itinerary through a tour operator like Contiki or G Adventures. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but ultimately it depends on you and what you're looking for!

There's a curse in Siargao where they say that once you travel to Siargao, it sucks you in and you never want to leave. Well, I thought that would never happen to me but...I'M BAAACCKKK!!! Yep, after just a few days I decided to return to Siargao, this time with a buddy of mine named Thailandy who was criss-crossing Thailand and visited Bangkok and Chiang Mai to see the Loy Krathong festival. I was going to go home to help my Dad but even he said to just hang out for longer. So today I introduce you to my buddy Thailandy and we discuss his trip throughout Thailand as well as the benefits of solo versus group travel.

After a week, my stay in Siargao, Philippines is coming to a close. It's been an eventful week, full of great memories, relaxation, and the continued realization that I don't like living in big cities or dealing with people every day. When your biggest concern is whether to order a matcha latte or spanish latte, it's safe to say, that life is going great. Listen in on my closing thoughts before I fly out back to Cebu!

So I just spent a couple of weeks on this amazing island paradise known as Siargao, in the Philippines. You may have heard the term Cloud 9 and believe it or not, it exists and Cloud 9 is actually here in Siargao as it is the name of the famous surfing area. There are plenty of hostels and small boutique villas and hotel along with the normal accoutrement of Bohemian style restaurants. Amazingly, the food at the restaurants is exceptional regardless of whether you're ordering sushi, or even a shawarma. For me, Siargao is an incredible island just to detox from society, rent a motorbike, and enjoy some lazy days. Listen to my podcast today for my incredible experience on this beautiful island!

There's a meme floating around the internet where Keanu Reeves says that he won't argue with people. To be precise (assuming he said it):

"I'm at that stage in my life where I stay out of arguments. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right. Have fun."

It's a great quote because in life it really is true. The biggest waste of time and energy you can engage in is arguing with people. Let people believe whatever they want. Unless it's a family member who needs guidance and their belief will harm their health, let people be themselves and figure out stuff for themselves.

I spent far too many years wasting my time trying to convince people or educate them when I thought they were wrong. I'm sure I myself have been wrong about my position in certain instances and rarely did people try to pressure me into changing my position. Today's podcast discusses letting people just believe whatever they want to so you can focus on yourself!

As empaths we tend to be the target of other people asking us to do stuff for them. I've found myself being asked by everyone to do everything, including things they could do on their own. As empaths, people feel way too comfortable asking us for things and favours. Check out today's episode on how to set boundaries because what you'll find is people won't get mad at you for hot helping them, they'll just do what they should have done to begin with, which is figure it out on their own!

"Friendship" can be a justification for many things. It's important to not let that be an excuse for putting yourself second. I've always had a bad habit of putting everyone else's needs ahead of mine, especially my friends. As life's demands stacked up, it became increasingly harder for me to keep fulfilling my imagined obligations to my friends while managing my own life. This problem would rare its ugly head every time friends would want to visit me in LA. I would have to put my life on hold to play host and drive myself nutty juggling my already overflowing schedule. Today's podcast discusses how to manage your life and friends as things change over time.

As an empath, we have a heightened sense of other people's character and their emotions. As we all have empath power, even if you don't define yourself as an empath, we have to respect that we all have a gut instinct. Unfortunately, as we grow up, we often are trained to disregard our instincts. Instead of accounting for the intangible feelings we have around certain people, we revert to the more objective facets of our interactions with them in order of judging a situation. Perhaps we are afraid of hurting their feelings or offending them, but instead of staying away or denying these people from being within our proximity, we often accept them. Whether it's a business, romantic, or friend relationship, often the result can be disastrous when we ignore our feelings. Check out today's episode to learn how to follow your gut and acknowledge the gifts you've been given.

Once upon a time there was an Indian trader who went to Africa to acquire some local products and animals. In the jungle, he saw many colorful talking parrots. He decided to capture a talking parrot and take him back as a pet.

At home in India, he kept his parrot in a cage, he fed him honey and seeds and treated him very well. When it was time for the man to return to Africa, two years later, he asked his parrot if there was any message he could deliver to his friends in the jungle. The parrot told him to convey to his friends that he was very happy in his cage and to pass on his love.

When the man arrived in Africa, he delivered the message to the other parrots in the jungle. Just as he finished his story, a parrot with tears welling in his eyes fell over dead. The man was very alarmed but he thought the parrot must have been very close to the parrot in the cage and this was probably the reason for his sadness and death.

When the man returned home to India, he told his pet parrot what happened. As he finished his story, the pet parrot’s eyes welled up with tears and he kneeled over dead in his cage. The man was astounded but he figured that his pet died from the grief of hearing the death of his close friend in the jungle. He opened up the cage and tossed the dead bird onto the trash heap.

Immediately, the pet parrot flew up to a branch on the tree outside. The trader said to him “So you are not dead after all, why did you do that? You tricked me.” The parrot responded “The bird back in Africa sent me a very important message.” “What was the message?” the man asked. He told me, “If you want to escape from your cage, you must die while you are still alive.”

In life it's easy to be risk averse, especially if you're an empath.  We fear rejection, failure, and loss so much that we often live in a state of analysis-paralysis, and never actually take a step forward to achieving our dreams or bigger goals in life.  If you're happy and you know it, then going with the status quo is totally okay - you don't always have to be reaching for that brass ring.  However, if there are any areas of life in which you feel stagnated, or you're not as happy as you think you could be, then it's time to start taking some risks!

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In life we often don't take time to smell the roses until something negative happens that forces us to actually stop and smell those roses. After the passing of my aunt today I decided it was time to become more introspective and see what lessons I learned from her life and her passing.

The law of attraction states that thoughts become things. What you think about, you bring about in your life.  Once you recognize this, you can take control of your life and attract almost anything you desire.  Sounds too easy, doesn't it?  Today we talk about what the Law of Attraction is, and how it was made popular by the wildly best selling book and DVD, "The Secret", by Rhonda Byrne.  I'll share two incredible stories of my own which are so amazing, the odds of these stories happening defy coincidence and very likely are less likely to happen than winning the Powerball lottery!  Prepare to have your mind blown.

 

Music by @Ikson

 

You can improve your life, achieve all of your goals and your dreams if you stop pushing so hard!  Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn't it?  To achieve your goals, try less?  No of course not!!  Put in the effort at 100%, but work on the 1%.  By accomplishing a one percent change in your life every day, you'll experience 100% in only three months (give or take a few days).  The one percent solution is broken down into two parts:  1. Taking baby steps to achieve a goal, 1% at a time, and 2. Changing your life 1% a day to live your best life.  Listen to today's podcast for examples and how to keep changing your life for the better.

When we try to achieve a goal, we often go as hard and fast as we can at the beginning, then lose hope when the results don't show up overnight. Instead, focus on accomplishing one percent of your goal each day.  That way you gradually build upon the previous day's accomplishment and develop a routine and since you're actually accomplishing something every day, you will be even more motivated to keep going.

The same goes for improving your life one percent at a time.  Make a list of all of the things which are annoyances in your life, or you feel aren't a positive influence on your day in day out.  Then, every day, make it a goal to eliminate just one single annoyance.  You'll find every day, you'll be increasingly happy.

Enjoy and don't forget to Subscribe and sign up for our newsletter.

 

Music credited to @Ikson

 

Do you find it hard to be assertive in life?  Perhaps when you need to speak up the most, you sit in silence, pissed off, only later to wonder why you didn't stand up for yourself when you had the chance. Especially for empaths, we are averse to conflict and avoid it at any cost, and therefore stay silent when we shouldn't.  It might seem better to avoid standing up for yourself, but I've found that it is actually healthier to speak up.  While I also used to afraid of conflict since the negative energy would affect me, over the years I've gradually found my voice and started speaking my mind much more.  Not only did it NOT result in conflict, but instead, I found people who would otherwise be my adversaries, start to respect me, and apologize.

To become successful in life you are going to have to learn to build your confidence and one of the best building blocks means speaking up for yourself.  Today's podcast is about finding your voice and speaking your mind.  Instead of being insulted, and then going home to ruminate over why you didn't defend yourself, start becoming more reactive and fearless.  It takes practice.  Lots of practice!  With a few small adjustments, and a baby steps however, you too can find your voice and become the person on the outside that you already are, on the inside. To become successful in life you are going to have to learn to build your confidence and one of the best building blocks means speaking up for yourself.

 

Have you ever witnessed the career or life of a friend, colleague, or stranger and wondered if you should be "trying harder", or "doing more" in life?  Recently, I was thinking about some of my friends.  The ones from undergrad, spent years in their government jobs and have climbed to the highest levels, from being trade commissioners, to ambassadors.  The friends from MBA have stayed in banking and have become VPs, hedge fund managers, and climbed pretty high on the investment banking industry.  Finally, my friends from law school have stayed at their jobs and become partners at fairly significant law firms. Although I feel like I've accomplished a lot, it made me wonder, whether I should have just stayed in one industry, and one job.  The more I thought about it though, the more I know it correctly.  Too often things like titles, look pretty on paper, but we overlook the years of stress, hard work, and unhappiness that goes into these job titles, which at the end of the day, don't mean a hell of a lot because they can be taken away from you.

Titles are nice, but what about your life?  How many adventures have you been on?  Are you waiting to retire to finally pursue your dream business or dream trip?  Well here's some news for you: you may never retire. Pensions aren't what they were. Also, as you get older, you may not be able to do all of those exciting things that you can do when you're younger. Instead of waiting until the end of your life to start living, in today's podcast, we'll talk about living life in reverse - retire along the way, and fulfill your bucket list items today.  You never know, tomorrow may never come.

 

Music by @Ikson

As empaths, we are naturally averse to conflict.  Because of our sensitivities, we find ourselves staying silent when we should speak up, even if it means getting screwed over.  We are so afraid of getting into an argument and having our energies drained, that we let ourselves get ripped off on lots of things like fraudulent billing by big companies, to letting regular customers at our own businesses take advantage of us.  But because we can't stand conflict, we often let ourselves get steamrolled, and then spend our time being frustrated with ourselves for not having had the courage to stand up when we had the chance.  The time to make that change is now. Start fighting for yourself and being your biggest advocate.  In reality if you don't advocate for yourself then no one else will.  Stop putting everyone else's feelings ahead of your own and start taking some risks with pushing back on situations that are unfair to you.  What I've found is that when you start standing up for yourself, the Universe will stand right behind you in moving things around in a way that will work in your favor.  Do you think it's a waste of time to spend half a day fighting that unfair $50 parking ticket?  It may seem like it's not worth the hassle, but what you'll find is that the more stand up for yourself, the less you'll have to in the future as unfair situations will stop being attracted to you.  Listen to the end of the podcast to see a realtime example of how the law of attraction works for you in these situations!

On this podcast, we talk a lot about stress and how it is quietly and slowly, killing you. There's a great book I was reading called "The Stress Solution", by Rangan Chatterjee.  In today's podcast, I'll discuss the book, and how our bodies are experiencing daily micro-stress-doses which are affecting our mental and physical health.  It's not secret that stress is going to send you to an early grave, however it's important to learn why we react the way we do to certain things in life so we can stop ourselves before reacting.  Experience stress was actually a natural response to save yourself from a predator many years ago when we were cavemen/women.  Our adrenaline would pump, our blood would flow faster, so we could take fight or flight - run from a predator, or be prepared to fight it.  Unfortunately, with all of the daily routines we have that stress us out, we are experiencing stress multiple times every day instead of just once a month.  The cumulative effect of constantly reacting as though a predator is chasing you is the equivalent to the predator actually killing you.

Music by @Ikson

In this bizarre time, conspiracy theorists are popping out of the woodwork.  Those whose brains are not geared for conspiracies, are nonetheless being subject to the truly ridiculous stories put forth by such theorists.  It can be exhausting, and stressful dealing with those who can't accept simple events for what they are.  In my life I've learned it is best to stay away from such people, especially as an empath.  The conspiracy theorists will drain your energy because their brain has not yet developed far enough to process certain logic, or basic evidence.  Before you decide to engage in such a debate with a conspiracy theorist, make sure to bite your tongue, and walk away.  Or change the subject.

On today's show we'll discuss why it's useless to argue with people that don't want to accept reality.  Ultimately, unless you're getting paid to do so and you enjoy it, what's the point of trying to convince other people that a cloud is just a cloud and not a government "chem-trail" to influence the weather?  Why bother trying to explain to someone that September 11 was actually a bunch of terrorists and not the work of some inside government or "Deep state".  Ultimately you have nothing to gain as an empath, but everything to lose as you will exhaust yourself by playing a game of whack-a-mole whereby every time you succinctly disprove their points, they just jump to another or change the subject.

Take care out there!

What is Reiki and how can it help you? In the ever-growing sea of self-improvement options, from yoga to meditation, your options to live a better and happier life seem limitless in this day and age. In recent years, you've probably heard more and more about Reiki as a form of healing and overall wellness. In this episode we will talk to Manali Scott, an actual Reiki master, and learn about what is Reiki and how it can help you to heal as well as give you insight into what is holding you back in life.

This podcast is about practical advice you can actual use in the real world and for empaths especially, this is one you have to listen to! I was a skeptic until I met Manali and she helped me get out of a sticky situation.  Visit her website and sign up for  her mailing list and check out her services. You can find her website at Zen for You

Music by @Ikson