Episode 267: Reminder to let go of the small stuff
In today's episode, Fiona shares a quick reminder to let go of the small stuff and look at where in your life you are creating time for the things that matter. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Fiona’s dad's death anniversary
Letting go of the small stuff
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 267 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. Today, it is a quick tip episode, and this is an incredibly important one, meaningful, and a little bit different from a lot of the quick tips and tools I share, but I think this is probably one of the most important that you may ever listen to. With that in mind, we'll get started in a second. But of course, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I record this podcast. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
Today, it's a really meaningful one. And it is a tip. Now, I debated whether I would share this one or not, but I thought, "I will.” I think it's really important. I think the more that we talk about this stuff, the easier it gets for people to express themselves when it happens to them. I thought that today I would reiterate lots of things that I say to friends and family and some clients with a wider audience on this here podcast. Today it's just a reminder to let go of the small stuff. If you're listening to this in real-time, it is Tuesday the 27th of December, and this day in 2019, three years ago was the day that my dad passed away, and it was the day that I was privileged enough to get to spend the last eight hours of his life sitting next to him along with my siblings.
That day, I have to say, started totally differently. I had gone down to the beach to have a holiday, a much-needed holiday. I'd gone down on Boxing Day with my husband and our kids and my sister was due to come and meet us a couple of days later. We had a great day. Boxing Day, we slept well and got up the next day. We had gone to the Op Shops near there because I love Op Shops, as well as my eldest son. They had this huge Op shop and we said, "let's go into town." We'll go to that op shop and we'll go out for breakfast and the day's beautiful, and then we'll go to the beach. And we were just coming back from that Op shop and driving into town to have some breakfast.
When I got a call from my sister saying that they had had a call from the nursing home where my dad was and that it was probably best that we get back up to Melbourne. Now, we didn't know if anything else was going on. My dad had had lots of health problems, but I'd just seen him on Christmas day and he had seemed tired, but nothing huge. My sister and I had both thoughts, “we might just get up to Melbourne”, and he'll be fine. Better to be safe than sorry. We had to kind of coordinate this drive-up because she was in a different part of the state and we had to take one car because the kids still needed the car and my husband still needed the car.
We drove up and we didn't know what to expect. When we got there, he was already in a very peaceful state, but he wasn't in a state where he could talk to us anymore. We were communicating through squeezing of hands and things like that. If anyone has ever had the privilege of sitting with a loved one in their final moments, I'm got to try hard not to cry as I talk about this. It is like an immense privilege, but it also hugely puts into perspective what is important. I think I've had both of my parents pass away, both unexpected, my mother far more suddenly than my dad. But my dad I started that day having no idea that he wouldn't be around at the end of that day.
You sit there with somebody and you hear their last breath and you go, "this is what matters." The things that matter most in life are that you are surrounded by love at the end of your life and that you have lived a life that has left some sort of legacy for other people. I know that that can sound incredibly cheesy and I think if you haven't experienced that, maybe it feels very far away or it feels even taboo or something we shouldn't talk about. But the certainty is that we will all die at some point. What I have learned and been fortunate enough to experience is that the thing that matters is that you have friends that come to see you when you are in your worst place when you are dying, or whether you are very sick, or if you're old and living in a nursing home, that you have people that you have touched that will come and spend time with you.
That you have family that will sit there for days, and months, and be with you in those final hours. You can have all the money in the world. It doesn't mean that you'll have those things at the end of your life. I guess today's tip is just a reminder of this, what will be the third anniversary of my father's passing, to just let go of the stuff that doesn't matter. I mean, does it matter that you had fewer likes on your Instagram post today? Doesn't matter that you felt like an idiot when you posted your TikTok video. Those things in the grand scheme of things may not even matter to you next week, let alone next year. But knowing that you took the time to spend with family that will remember it, that you took the time to make memories, that you took the time to have the conversations that needed to be had with your children, with your friends, with your cousins, with somebody in your life who needed that friend at that moment, and you were able to drop things to go and be with them, that is the stuff that matters.
I know at this time of year, things can feel incredibly chaotic, particularly for those people in retail and product-based businesses, and for people in service based it can feel like, I've got to work harder and harder to get jobs. What if this year the recession and all the things we can stress about all those things? But if you are in a position right now where you have time to spend with family or you have time to go and see a friend where you can reply yes to a text message, or we can better yet pick up the phone and call somebody, then do it because our lives are incredibly short and you want to look back and have no regrets. And that you spent your time on this planet doing important things that touched other people's lives so that when you do pass on, which we will, all of us will, that legacy is left behind and that love is left behind.
Thanks for listening to this. I managed to just get through it without crying. As always, every time I've put out anything about any hardship that I'm going through, I've had just wonderful responses from people. And just know that if you are going through this, I know this time of year can also be incredibly tough for people who don't have family that is living or don't have a great relationship with their family. We are bombarded by images of the perfect family at this time of year. It doesn't always happen, but maybe it's your really good friends that you need to reach out to. Maybe it's a staff member even who's been going through a lot and a couple of text messages or a heartfelt email from you got to mean something to them right now. That is it for today. The quick tip is to let go of the small stuff and look at where in your life you are creating time for the things that matter. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
