Friday Five #12 – Passion, Relaxation, Success & Habit

Hello!

Here is your Friday 5 roundup of this week’s facts, fun and f’ups…

✨ What to choose: Passion vs Money:

• “The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.” – Unknown
   
• 8 years ago, in a move that I wasn’t sure was so brilliant at the time, I quit my NYC life and full-time interior design career, and extended my vacation in Sub-Saharan Africa from two weeks to TBD (to be determined) so that I could pursue my love of diving and adventure.
   
• I thought I would stay abroad six months, 1 year max, that I’d get it out of my system and then probably return to the US and settle down – get a job doing design again, buy a house, maybe get married and have kids, you name it all the usual stuff. But my unleased spirit had different ideas…
   
• When you answer the call to adventure, you just never know where you’ll end up!
   
• Well, I fell in love with the sea, it went from snorkeling to doing my PADI Dive Master, underwater hockey, then eventually my freediving instructor course, and spending the next years splitting my time between Tanzania, Egypt, Europe and around Africa (for visa runs).
   
• It’s now been 8 years living abroad… And if I think about the opportunity cost of walking away from my interior design career to follow my heart into freediving and adventure, it’s close to half a million dollars.
   
• The reality of living in the modern day, is that money is a necessity for the cost of living – to put a roof over your head, clothes on your back and food on the table. That’s why I promised myself that I’d never ruin myself financially by living unconventionally. Yet now I fear this is exactly what I’ve done and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.
   
• But then just the other day I came across a Forbes article with these words, “Build life worth, not net worth. If you stop chasing money, you will never be short of it”.  
   
• Build life worth, not net worth. There’s instant relief in those words and the fact that my net worth is not my life’s worth. My choices may have “cost” me a half a million dollars, and now my net worth may just be a fraction of that, but the real value of my experiences over the past eight years transcends any amount of physical currency. The incredible sights I’ve seen. The challenges I’ve overcome, the things I’ve learned. The moments I’ve had and the experiences that have transformed me. (More about those on the blog!)
   
• So question: What would YOU do if following your dreams requires you to walk away from a well-paying career, or if you have to forego buying a house so that you can live your dream?
   
• And what would be the cost of not following your dream? How would you feel at the end of your life if you didn’t give your dream a go? Imagine how you would feel living in a big house with lots of money in your bank account but with your neglected dreams fading away in the corner?
   
• I know that when I’m old and near the end of my life, I’ll only regret the moments that I didn’t seize, not the things I never had 💙
   
• So although it may never make you rich or famous, for what it’s worth, I’d recommend following your heart and your dreams and focus on growing your life worth, not just your net worth – and then no matter where your life takes you, you will be truly en-riched!

😊 How to relax for freediving, de-stress and fall asleep fast: 

• Good news, I’m back to making podcasts! In my latest episode I talk about a relaxation breathing technique AKA “The Branko Petrovic Technique” which is used in static apnea and for training relaxation for depth and also just for relaxation in life in general! (One friend of mine said it helped her fall asleep super fast!)
   
• You can find the episode on Youtube, or listen on any podcast app (just search for “The Freediving Podcast”), I also have it on the website with some added tips / info at: 
  
  https://www.reneeblundon.com/relaxation-breathing-technique/

💬 What quote I’ve been thinking about:

Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical think to do is to QUIT. That is exactly what the majority of men do.

It taught me to keep on keeping on, no matter how hard the going may be, a lesson I needed to learn before I could succeed in anything.

– Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich

🐀 What’s “chunking” and how can it help your freediving?

• “40% of the actions people performed every day weren’t actual decisions, but habits” – Power of Habit
   
• In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg writes about “chunking” which is “the process in which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine” (a habit)
   
• For example, imagine a rat learning how to navigate a maze. Every time the route becomes more and more automatic, and rat’s mental activity decreases, and so it thinks less and less.
   
• At some point, when the route becomes so memorized and the rat no longer needs to choose at all which direction to turn, it just recalls the quickest path to the treat, the decision making centers of the brain go completely quiet.
   
• The basal ganglia part of the brain, which is central to recalling patterns and acting on them, stores the habit, while the rest of the brain is asleep 😴
   
• “Habits, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to it’s own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routing into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often. This effort-saving instinct is a huge advantage”
   
• Being that the main goal of a freediver is to maximize his/her oxygen and therefore effort & relaxation, I think “chunking” (aka making habits) is key! And the more you practice freediving (ie. repetitive shallow dives, pool training, EQ training, dive visualization, etc) the more the freediving techniques become habits and then the majority of your brain can sleep while you dive deep! 🙃
   
• Join my new facebook group for weekly LIVE freediving dry trainings!

📖 What ebook did I write yesterday in under 4 hours –

• Yesterday I decided to write an e-book, yip just like that! I got it done in less than 4 hours. It’s called Freediving Dry Training Exercises.
   
• It’s 7 pages (so far) and includes 3 simple at-home breath-hold exercises for freedivers (or anyone interested in freediving). It’s lacking pictures and a graphic design, but overall I’m pretty happy with the first draft!
   
• P.S. 
  • For Friday 5 members, you have access to all of my exclusive content for free! 
  • So click below to download my first draft of Freediving Dry Training Exercises

It’s a pleasure and honor getting to spend some time with you, I hope you have a great weekend!

Renee