311. Essential Trade-offs and Saying Yes with Sam Bridgstock (Part 2)

The Greg McKeown Podcast

Greg McKeown

Education, Business, Self-improvement

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

About the Guest: Sam Bridgstock grew up on Mount Pleasant Farm in North Yorkshire, England, where he developed a deep connection with nature and a strong sense of duty and prioritization from his experiences on the farm. Despite facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, Sam's unwavering commitment to his family, including his wife Anna and their five children, has been a guiding force in his life. Known for his honesty, wisdom, and humility, Sam's journey exemplifies the essence of essentialism and the power of authentic relationships. Episode Summary: Greg invites Sam to share his journey of living with terminal cancer while maintaining focus on what truly matters. This heartwarming conversation delves into how Sam balances his diminished physical capacity with his unwavering commitment to his family, work, and personal values. Greg and Sam explore the concept of "reverse pilot," choosing to not do certain things to see their actual impact. Sam shares deeply personal stories about managing time and relationships, fighting guilt, and the profound challenge of living an essentialist lifestyle when time is painfully finite. With beautiful anecdotes and heartfelt wisdom, this episode underscores the importance of prioritizing what matters most, finding joy in the present, and fostering meaningful connections. Key Takeaways: The Power of the Reverse Pilot: Experiment by not doing certain activities to understand their real impact. Managing Guilt: Effective prioritization often means saying no to many well-meant but non-essential requests. Living Essentialism: The importance of maintaining routines and commitments even amidst severe personal challenges. Choosing Joy: Despite the uncertainty and pain, finding and choosing moments of joy and connection with loved ones. Resilience in Routine: Sticking to regular activities can provide stability and courage for family members facing impending loss. Notable Quotes: "I want to just acknowledge it becomes incredibly insanely hard." "If I had held on to them and said, I'm protecting you from pain… I wouldn't have had a child who just finished a four-year intense degree at Oxford." "Life will offer you a chance to be joyful tomorrow if you take it." "The choice of the essentialist is to choose joy with the people that you love most." Join my weekly newsletter. Learn more about my books and courses. Join The Essentialism Academy. Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I particularly like this idea that by leaving them that part of the problem is resolved
0:16.7	automatically and that you wouldn't know that and you didn't know that when you
0:21.5	were out there chasing the leaves.
0:23.5	Yeah. You couldn't you couldn't learn that wisdom about it.
0:27.2	And it was only by prioritizing what you know matters most and seeing what happens to the rest that you discover up that partially takes care of itself.
0:37.1	And I think about that in my own life sometimes.
0:41.6	Well, when I'm working with, when I'm working with
0:44.8	other leaders and other organizations, it's like hypothetical. What happens if they,
0:58.3	if they, how would we say we remember it for second I've described it before as a reverse pilot There so a normal pilot is where you try something new you add something new and you see what happens and you see what happens in your life,
1:05.6	but a reverse pilot is to not do a thing and see what happens.
1:09.3	What is the actual consequence if you haven't done it for a day or for a week or for a month.
1:13.9	And the idea, to me it's like in the end you've conducted this reverse pilot.
1:18.0	Well what happens if I'm not chasing it all the time?
1:21.1	What happens then? And sometimes in our busyness and a reaction to every email
1:27.5	and so on we don't actually learn what the consequences so we're just guessing and we're again coming back to a theme
1:35.3	you started before we're acting out of fear. You said a moment ago you think about
1:40.6	essentialism before cancer and after cancer differently and then I think
1:45.2	you've shared mostly about before cancer.
1:47.2	I actually in one way I don't think it has. I think what has changed as the barrier, the challenges to do it well have got higher.
1:55.3	So the stakes have increased.
1:58.0	Yeah, and I think the opposition to doing things with as many people as I love, friends, family has become harder.
2:05.2	You know, for me, you know, there'll be other people listening who have gone through cancer
	...

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