 He's my good boy. Oh, buddy. Huh? So, hold on. Your ear splits back. You weirdo. Okay. Today, I want to talk about something that I don't do enough, I think. And my concern is that when you guys see my content, that it just looks like everything is always rosy, and everything is great, and I'm always optimistic, and positive, and nothing can take me down, and I'm the king of the world. But in reality, the truth is a lot of the times I struggle. It might be different than the way a lot of you struggle, because I think I'm at a place now where, yes, I do incorporate a lot of positivity, and optimism, and gratitude, and focusing on the things that I want in my life, and that I want to attract versus like, you know, focusing so much on the negatives, or the things that are out of my control, stuff like that. Because I've done a lot of inner work. Not perfect. I'm far from it. But I've gotten to a place where my thought processes are usually pretty constructive and helpful to me in the macro. But I am always pushing myself, and I'm always kind of keeping myself just outside of my comfort zone. So just the nature of being out of your comfort zone is going to be a form of struggle, because I'm always going to be just a little bit uncomfortable. And then it throw in bodybuilding and always being sore, and tired, and dieting, and being hungry. That can make the day feel like a struggle. And it is that way for me a lot, especially when I'm prepping for a competition. So I want you guys to know I'm not just like skipping around with butterflies and little singing mice around me and stuff like that. Oh, that would be nice, but that's not reality. And so I just wanted to share with you because I'm having an especially difficult past week or so. So since I got back from world pride, so I thought I'd dive into that a little bit and share that with you. Why not? Yeah, here's some things that I'm just dealing with in my life. So a couple months back I got an accident that was my fault. It was very minor. I was just turning right into a driveway and there was a car parked to my right. And although I was cognizant of the car there, I noticed that there was a person on a scooter right behind me. And I could tell that they were like pushing up right on my bumper and they were like deciding whether they were going to try to like speed by me between me and the parked car as I was about to turn right. So I was like closely watching them to make sure that they didn't try to go because I didn't want to like clip them. And in so doing as I was turning, I ended up clipping the parked car that was right there. So my rear right side door ended up getting dented in because of that. And because of that accident, my car had to be totaled. It sounds ridiculous saying it because it is ridiculous. The cost to repair my door isn't more than the car is worth to the insurance company. So they had to total it out. And therefore I can't really drive the car until I get a salvage title and that's the whole process. I have to forfeit my license plates. And so my car, I've been putting that off. I have anxiety about it. I know it's a big ordeal. I've had a lot going on. I'm like, I need my car. What am I going to do? For the most part, I haven't been driving it, but when I go to the gym in the morning, it's like a few blocks away. And I'm like, I'm going to risk it. It's a risk to drive because if I get pulled over for any reason and they haven't sent me my new registration because of the fact that I need the salvage title now, even though it's paid for and everything, I don't have a new registration. So it's expired. So I could get pulled over and then I'm screwed because I'm driving with a car that I shouldn't be and all that. So I'm going to the DMV. I need to go to the DMV and apply for a salvage title and start that whole process. Meanwhile, my current living situation is no longer feasible. I have to move. And I'm currently living in a rent control department. So I'm paying very, very, very little to live where I'm living in West Hollywood, close proximity to work, close proximity to HF, close proximity to everything that's in my life right now. So and not having a drivable car at the moment, I need to stay in this area. It's important to me. And so I'm quickly looking for an apartment. And I've also decided that I don't want roommates anymore because I want to be able to have my space be a place that's not only for me, but also one that's functional for vlogging and for creating content for you guys. So I want to be able to completely design the space that I'm in the way that I want with lighting and with the way that it looks so that as soon as I want to turn on my camera, things are ready to go. It's the way it's set up the way I want it to. The lighting's right. It feels right. And it's just something that I want to show off. And in realizing that I want to get my own place, the reality is it's going to cost me to get my own place, of course. It's always cheaper to live with roommates. But this is something that's really important to me. And I think it's an important step in getting to the next level. I'm going to be spending so much time at home because home is kind of like my office as well as my living area. So I know I'm going to be in that space a lot and I want to feel good in that space. It's very important to me that I feel good in my home space. It's light. It's bright. It's airy. Just good energy. I'm very sensitive to all that. So I'm looking for a place that's going to fit all those requirements in this area and it's going to cost me. My rent's probably going to double. So I'm just coming to terms with that and organizing my finances and making sure that that's all going to work out for me and that that's going to pay off in the long run. Meanwhile, I've been a little dismayed lately because the YouTube algorithm has changed a bit in the past months. And slowly but surely it's been suggesting my content less and less. And that's just been a downward trend. I've talked to other people on YouTube that I know and are experiencing the exact same thing. And it's very frustrating for them. It's frustrating for me. But I want to keep pushing and obviously I just posted this 10K milestone which is huge. It's amazing. But it was like to get to the last few hundred to 10K it was like inching and it was going slower and slower because my content is just being pushed less and so invariably that makes me question what I'm doing and doubt like if my content is worthwhile, do people really care? Is this something that I should keep doing? Am I just wasting my time and my energy? Is it going to be like a few years from now and I'm going to be like in the same place wondering did I just waste the past five, six years of my life trying to do this? So I've had a lot of self-doubt and I'm doing my best to keep myself focused and not lose heart. And at the same time, I work a bartending job as my survival job. I was able to cut down on hours but now that I'm going to be moving into an apartment that's going to be more expensive I'm going to have to go back to my full-time bartending gig at the same time that all my content that I'm trying to create, that workload excuse the sirens, that workload for all my content is kind of doubling now. It's growing, it's not slowing down. I'm pushing out more and I want to push out on more platforms so I'm expecting more of myself in that regard and with AAHF and also realizing I'm going to have to work more so in the car situation and not knowing where I'm going to live it's a lot at the moment. But with that said victim mentality is not welcome in my life anymore and what that means is that I'm in control I take responsibility I'm the leader of my life, right? I take responsibility for the situation that I'm in. I could have handled this DMV thing a lot sooner had I not procrastinated, I did because it was just something I didn't want to deal with and that's on me and now it's falling in the same timeframe as me having to move. I'm choosing to move into a more expensive living situation more expensive than it has to be to move into another place anyway and I want all these things I want to create more content I want to push all this so that's on me to have to work more to be able to pay for that and all of that stuff so it's at least comforting and assuring to know that it's my decision it's my choice to do this and so that gives me purpose and I know that my purpose and my passion are meaningful and that they make me happy so I at least feel good about what I'm doing even though at the end of the day it might be hard, it might be a struggle I might be extremely tired and extremely grumpy but I know that I'm doing something that I'm passionate about with the faith that it will pay off in the long run and that it will come back to me so with that being said I also ask myself in these situations when I'm feeling down when I'm doubting myself when I'm tired and I'm just like what am I doing? I say, okay, Rafe are there things that you should be doing to reaffirm your mental psyche and make you feel good again that you aren't doing right now? For example, I realized I haven't done my journaling in a bit I haven't done my gratitude journal I haven't done my planner I've kind of let that slide to the wayside because I've been busy and I'm like, I don't have time for that right now I've got a meal prep I've got to do all this other stuff I've got to get the gym in I've got to go to work I've got to go early I've got to look for apartments blah blah blah stuff like that easily falls to the wayside so I've got to remind myself no, take five, ten minutes to sit down write down what you're grateful for plan out your day plan out the week and it's worth it it's going to pay off it's going to be greater than some of its parts to just sit down for a few minutes and handle that every morning also, I talk to some of my friends and they recommend meditating I know meditating works I've done it many many times but have I been meditating at all lately? No, I haven't so that's something I can definitely incorporate and do so it's about yes, I'm in this situation but I'm also I take account of like what can I do to if I can't improve my circumstances improve my perception of my circumstances and stuff like gratitude journaling and planning and meditating and taking time for myself are things that will help me change my outlook because nine times out of ten that's the most difficult part is our perception of things is our outlook on the world right? because we all go through struggles we all have things you know, pop up when it rains it pours and it's just really how we weather that storm so that the lows aren't as low as they have to be that's the goal is to mitigate the lows so that they you're not like crashing every time things go wrong yeah, you're going to sink down a little bit but you've got you know processes and procedures in place that are going to keep you pretty grounded and focused on your goal and then as you come back up then everything's good again and you can kind of like ride that wave until the next dip and it's just a cycle of that over and over anyway, I just wanted to share that with you I'm struggling right now it's difficult I've got a self doubt I'm questioning myself I feel tired I'm hungry my diet's only going to get harder I'm sore all the time I'm working hard at the bar trying to create more and more content for you guys and be consistent I know I'm not on a consistent posting schedule and that's so much a goal of mine I want you guys to know that you're going to get consistent posts from me so just wanted you to know I struggle and I'll see you guys soon in the next video deuces