This is a transcript from the Business Secrets Podcast With Robert Kanaat. Click here to view and subscribe on iTunes.
Hello you guys, and welcome to another episode of Business Secrets. My name is Robert Kanaat. I am the founder of Wanderlust Worker, and I’m an entrepreneur just like you. Today I wanted to talk to you about something that’s really important.
It’s about the journey. It’s not about the destination. I think so many of us are focused on the destination, and we get so upset when we don’t get there. When something doesn’t go our way, and we kind of fail or falter or we veer off track, or something else bad happens to us. We just get depressed. I know it myself, because I’ve slipped into similar depressions, and it was not until I realized and I learned that it wasn’t about the destination, it’s about the journey and what you learn along the way.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set goals, and set huge, massive, big dreamy goals. I know I certainly do. But it’s not about that. It’s about what you learn along the way to those goals. I just wanted to tell you that it’s okay sometimes to feel frustrated. It’s okay sometimes to feel upset. When we’re toiling and working super, super hard towards our goals – it’s okay sometimes if we have a setback, or like we take a day and we’re just, “Oh, I can’t believe that happened to me.”
That’s quite alright. But it’s about what we learn along the way. Even through things like failure. Failure is totally okay. It doesn’t matter if you’ve failed. It so does not matter. The most successful people in the world have failed the most times. Did you know that Colonel Harland Sanders, the guy who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken, was 62 years old. He only had $105 social security check in his pocket when he set out with his famous chicken recipe, to go head to all these restaurants and try to introduce the franchise model.
$105 social security check. He had failed numerous times in business. Imagine, this guy is 62 years old with grown kids, and numerous failures in business. He had done almost every single occupation. He had a really rough life growing up as a child. He went out to found one of the biggest, most successful chicken franchises in the world, on the planet at that age. 1009 people rejected him, 1009. He drove across the country in that famous white suit with the tie, and he went to every single chicken restaurant and introduced his franchise chicken model. Just said, “Let me just cook this here and see how your customers respond, and I only want a piece of the sales, and that’s it.”
That’s not just one story, tons of stories. Henry Ford, the famous founder of Ford Motor Company. He went bankrupt twice. So many people have failed numerous times in business. It’s not about that. It’s about the journey. When one of my businesses failed and collapsed, I just remember feeling like my life had imploded. If that had not happened to me, I would not have met the most incredible people in my life.
I wouldn’t have met my wife, I wouldn’t have my kids. I wouldn’t have traveled the world. I wouldn’t have gone on this different track that helped me to found Wanderlust worker. Literally a site that has impacted millions of people. From where I get messages from every single month. Hundreds of messages from people like you. Like, thanking me and telling me how grateful they are for the content.
At the time it felt brutal. It felt awful. But it wasn’t about that. It was about the journey. It was about what happened along the way to me. How I grew as a person, as a human being. It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter where you live. It doesn’t matter what your occupation is. It doesn’t matter what your aspirations are. Set your goals and work towards your goals, but focus on the journey. Focus on learning and being in the present, in the here and now. I know it’s so hard for so many of us. We just want to get to where we’re going.
But you know what? Life is so incredibly short. Today could be gone, literally. If you’re struggling with something like a health problem, or you’ve lost somebody very close to you in your life – then you know that everything is temporary. Everything is temporary. What we have in the here and now, it’s here one moment and then it’s gone. If we don’t actually sit and savour it, if we don’t actually enjoy the journey – than what’s the point? It’s gone forever. We are so focused on what we want and where we’re going, that we’re absolutely always stressed out.
We never sit and enjoy the moment. Literally, we never go and smell the roses. We never take a walk in the park. We’re so caught up with our devices and everything else that’s going on – and planning, and doing, and taking action – that we don’t take a step back and enjoy the journey, not the destination. We don’t take a step back and sit and meditate and just have that resolve in ourselves that this moment, this moment is meant for a reason. This is happening to you for a reason. Don’t try to understand it all right now, you can’t.
If you’ve gone through something massive, like a failure that’s been like epic. For me it was things like a divorce and a business failure. It’s totally earth shattering in the moment, and you think like, “That’s it, it’s done. Like I am done. I have nothing. I will be nothing.” But that’s meant to serve you, and that’s the craziest thing. We’re so focused on where we’re going that we forget about the here and now. Then we also forget to pay attention to the people that are close to us.
We neglect a lot of things. We neglect our personal lives, just because we’re so focused on our business goals. Business goals are great to have, but not at the expense of our personal lives. Money is great, money is good. Having money is a great means to doing a lot of things in life and experiencing a lot of things. But focus on the experiences and not on collecting shiny objects. If your goals and your destinations are shiny objects – then when you get there, I’ve got some news for you. There’s going to be more shiny objects that you want right after that.
Because everything in your life right now was once a dream, or once a desire. It doesn’t matter what you have or how little you have. At one point, you wanted those things, and now you have them. It’s this hedonic treadmill that we’re all on. We’re never sated, it’s never enough. We keep running. Just stop for a moment. All you have to do is stop. Take five minutes and breathe. Do a meditation exercise, download an app on your smartphone to meditate. Wake up in the morning and do one thing that is for you. You know what I mean? Write something that’s for you.
For me, when I wake up – the first thing that I do is I write 2000 words. Without fail, every single day. I write 2000 words. It doesn’t matter where it is or what it is, I just write. For me that’s cathartic. That’s a release. That helps me embrace the journey. It might be just going out there and taking a walk. It might be sitting and meditating. It might be something else. You have to do what’s right for you. Focus on the actual journey.
This is about business secrets, yes. But part of the secrets to business is not to be doing business every single moment, every single day. Health is wealth, my friends. Focus on that health. Focus on your mental well-being. Focus on enjoying your family, your friends, or whoever is around you and in your life. Because one day they could absolutely be gone.
I had a business partner about a decade ago. Unfortunately his life was taken to addiction. There were things that I wanted to say to him before he left, that I couldn’t say to him. Because I was so in my mind about other stuff. I didn’t sit down and appreciate the people that were around me. Today I appreciate everything, and I embrace that journey. I assure you, once you embrace your journey, the most incredible things are going to start happening to you. Your business will ultimately explode.
It’s about you. You are the entrepreneur. You are at the core of your business. But so often we’re so outside of our minds, we’re all over the place. We go off on tangents. We start doing one thing and another thing, and like you can’t focus. It’s because we aren’t embracing the journey. But I assure you that once you start to embrace that journey, the most incredible things are going to start happening in your life. You wake up one day and be like a new person. It is absolutely an incredible feeling, and I assure you that if you embrace that, the most extraordinary things are going to happen in your life.
The most incredible people are going to come into your life. You’re going to start gravitating towards your goals automatically. Your habits will improve. There’s just something about just appreciating and embracing who you are, and not trying to live up to some standard of what somebody else expects of you. Just be you. Just be here, and just be now. I assure you that this is going to get you further along than any other strategy or tactic, or little principle type of – minute little detail, anything.
This is going to get you the furthest along, because it’s about you. It’s about the entrepreneur who’s going to strive and go out there every single day. But you can’t go out there every single day if you’re so focused, and so stressed and so in fear and in your mind, and so worried and living with scarcity. It just doesn’t work. Just take a moment, and be here. Focus on the journey, not on the destination. I’ll talk to you guys soon.