Come with me on an exploration of self-discovery. On this podcast we

decipher what really matters as we unravel the chaos of day-to-day work to

learn how to build an essential life. Welcome, welcome to the What's

Essential Podcast. I am your host Greg McEwan and I am chuffed to bits to be

with you that you're here, that you're listening, that you are opting to spend

this time with me investing in you and in designing a life that really matters.

How are you today? Take a deep breath. I need to do that too. One of the casualties

of the last couple of years has been the dismantling of whatever boundaries we had left from before,

and with the loss of those boundaries have been many of our routines. Am I exaggerating? I mean,

who hasn't felt some of this? You get caught up in a Zoom, eat, sleep, repeat lifestyle.

You start living out of your inbox. You experience a relentless series of inputs of texts,

notifications, clients tapping on you, children tapping on you. On my worst days, I fall into

the trap of trying to make all decisions by text. It's an exhausting way to live. Can you relate

to that experience? Can you relate to what it is that I'm struggling with recently,

where everything seems to be happening all at once now? There's this pressure to do everything

now. Recently, my wife Anna said she thought that our word for this year should be,

although actually, before I get to that, have you chosen a word for the year for you?

Like, if you could choose one word that's your touchstone word, so you keep coming back to it

again and again and again, all through this journey. Well, if you haven't, now's a good time to

do it. It's a very helpful trick to be able to achieve a greater level of focus, but in an

unforced way. Just keep coming back to that word. Of course, you'll get off track and of course,

you shouldn't spend all of your time on one word, but it's good to have it in a repetitive way.

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