What does “Work” mean for Theo?

Theo - traveling movement & mindfulness teacher.

Everything in life growths, so grow. I found purpose in life by helping other people live up to their full potential. This keeps me accountable, as I have to live up to my full potential myself first.

When we use language, we often mean different things because of different life experiences and life stories.

Darryl Lim  00:00

What does WORK mean for you?

Theo  00:02

Work. That's great. Yeah, I just posted about that on Instagram. So the definition for work is to do a purposeful activity that requires mental or physical... things to be need to be done to be able to achieve the result that you want to have. Okay, so it's a... it's a perfect purposeful activity to achieve a result, and it includes mental or physical activity. And most people, I think, these days, because of our society and how the Industrial Revolution helped us to live the lives that we're doing now, think that work is something that you have to do. It doesn't feel enjoyable. It's just changing time against money, and you do what someone else tells you. I think this is the overall programmed idea, or the definition that most people have when they hear the word work. And I would like just to see work more as an enjoyable task, because it is purposeful. It helps you to achieve what you want to have like your result. So don't put the word work into a box where you would put your enemies, it's more, put it on your side and think like whenever I have free time, I actually want to work because I want to improve my life. I want to grow. So whenever I have a chance to work on something that is purposeful to me, I want to do that. Like, whenever I have free time, I want to work. It's just in our society, weird if you say that, because people will be like, yeah, no, you need to take a break. And I work 40 hours a week, that's already enough. It's a different definition of it, and it changes your perspective on it. For me, the switch happened when I started working for myself, before [that] I worked for the government, for the City Council, and there I was really just showing up these 41 hours a week, and I just did whatever they told me, and it felt like work. Now, whenever I talk about work, it's more like play, because it doesn't, it doesn't feel exhausting to me to do what I love, because there's purpose behind it. So, yeah, I think it comes down to how you experienced your work, your life, and the definition, for me is definitely more playful and more enjoyable than being forced to do something that you actually don't want to do. You just do it to get paid for it.

Darryl Lim  02:16

What do you mean by PLAYFUL?

Theo  02:17

Playful? Okay, so when I say I go to work, it could mean that I will host a retreat, or I will run a workshop, or I'm doing a one-on-one class, or I create content. This is all work in my life, right? But it doesn't feel like work. It doesn't feel like what I was feeling when I was working for the city council, showing up and doing boring stuff that I'm not interested in. This is stuff that really fulfills me and where I see purpose in it. So it feels more like play. I look at the watch, and suddenly, like, two hours are over, and I'm like, oh wow. I just run this workshop, and everyone is happy, and I just enjoyed it. I'm actually sad that it's over now, because now I don't know. I have to go home, I have to do grocery shopping. I actually want to work more. It's playful, it's easy. And also, there's a nice quote by Naval Ravikant, I will butcher it right now, but he says something like, it will be impossible for you to outwork me, because work doesn't feel like work to me. It's like play. So I can work 16 hours a day, and you will feel exhausted afterwards, and I'm not, because it's playful for me, it's enjoyable, right? I could run like six workshops in a row, and I would still want to do more, because it's playful and it's enjoyable. So the play aspect is more of it feels easy to do it. It's not a challenge to overcome your procrastination and you have to drag yourself to work. It's more like, oh yeah, it's actually a nice time. And it's like playing with friends.

Darryl Lim  03:51

And how did you arrive at this definition of like work, being like play, being something that you enjoy, and being with friends?

Theo  04:01

How did you get there? Yeah, so follow your inner calling and what you enjoy doing, right? So when I was trapped in the office job, I was acting from a position of scarcity, yeah, it was just, oh, no, I'm here. I need money. I need to survive, so I will just do something to get money. And once you change that, and you act from a position of what's the opposite of scarcity, abundance? Yeah, when you start acting out of abundance, like, hey, I enjoy moving, I enjoy teaching, I enjoy creating content, this is what brings purpose to me, and I can make that a profession. Of course, in the beginning, it takes a bit of time until you actually make money with it, and until you established yourself in the niche. But the moment you start doing something for its purpose, for the meaning of itself, and not doing it for money, I think this is the moment where you understand that work is actually something positive and not something negative. It's not the enemy. It's actually your friend. And this is also the moment where you cannot distinguish work from play anymore, because if you would tell me, Theo, please go on holidays, two weeks of vacation, you can just chill on the beach in the Philippines, I would lay on the beach exactly for one minute, and then I would either do a handstand, because I want to train, I would create content, because I would look at my own footage, how I did my handstand, and what I could change. So even if you give me free time, I would still do what I do for work, because it's just fun and my inner calling. So if you want to switch that, I think it's important for you to understand, what do you genuinely enjoy and what brings happiness or what brings purpose to your life? If you wake up and it wouldn't matter if you get paid or not, what would you actually do?

Darryl Lim  04:02

But how did you personally come to this realization that "I need to approach work in this manner."?

Theo  06:03

So I think people only start changing when they are in massive pain. I think, yeah? It might not be true, but at least for my life, I think I observed it that way. If you are very uncomfortable with what you are doing, at one point you will start moving. So I was so frustrated, I was so depressed. I was so unhappy in my situation working for the city council, doing what other people tell me, sitting in a dark room, feeling my back hurting and my eyesight getting worse and worse, staring at a screen, it was just not... I couldn't endure it any longer, and I knew I have to change. If I sit here for the next 10, 20, 30 years, however long my career was going to be, I will just regret it, and I will live a very shitty life. I'm not happy. So I understood I have to do something like that's transformative, right? People, when you when you realize your situation, people either see it as a chance to decide to vote for evolution and change something, or they vote for victimhood and they say, oh, this is happening to me. It's like, they use pain as a shield and not as a catalyst. So I decided this is not what I want to do. I want to change something, and then I just look for what is enjoyable for me, or what am I good at, right? So again, handstands. I'm a movement guy. I've been moving for the last 15 years, over a decade. I like connecting with people. I like teaching. I like traveling. So I just did these things, and naturally, I created a business around it, just because it is what genuinely just drives me and and fills me with purpose. So coming from a pain point and moving into the direction what you would do, anyways, I think that's a good sum up of what I just tried to explain.

Darryl Lim  07:52

I'm also interested in how you saw PAIN. What was the pain that gave you that realization?

Theo  08:00

Yeah, so of course, pain has different definitions. If you think of physical pain, I just had a surgery here on my head. They were just cutting out a few pieces of flesh. This is why I look like an idiot right now, but this is physical pain, right? But there's also emotional pain. If you think of a heartbreak, someone broke up with you, and now you just don't feel good, and your heart hurts. I think the pain that I'm describing in this scenario is that you know you could live up to something better. You have more potential. You just have this one life. You have one spin, this round on Earth. And it was just super painful for me to know, I'm sitting here, I drag myself to work Monday through Friday. On Sunday evening, I'm already looking at the clock, and I'm like, damn, you just sleep one night, and then again, you have to go there. This was painful for me, because I knew I wasted my time. And this cannot be it. It's not the reason why I'm on this planet. I don't want to... I feel like a slave in a cage, and I just do whatever other people tell me, this is not... We live in the 21st Century. There is endless opportunity to do something. Why am I stuck here? I feel like this was the pain that I was feeling, a feeling of wasting my time and not seizing my full potential, like regretting it long run if I look back. I would say that's the pain that I was feeling.

Darryl Lim  09:24

How do you know you were wasting your time?

Theo  09:27

So if you observe yourself, and you sit there and you realize you try to distract yourself with everything possible, instead of doing what you're supposed to do, scrolling on your phone, going to the toilet over and over again, go make yourself a coffee like just everything except what you're supposed to do. I think then you already know, like you're in a position that is not right. Then externally, if I looked at my role models, people on social media, Instagram, or also from my travels before, if I met someone and they were a fitness coach at a hotel, or I saw someone teaching handstands online, or something that caught my interest. I was like, they are doing it. Why am I not doing it, right? Like, there isn't a version of myself that could actually be like them, that could live a similar lifestyle, but I'm just stuck here. So it is comparison with others, it is observation of myself realizing I'm doing something that is not enjoyable, and then a combination of both, I would say, like seeing what's possible and seeing where you are, like comparing your vision or your potential with what is reality just caused massive pain.

Darryl Lim  10:38

It takes a certain way of seeing to be able to see what you saw, right?

Theo  10:45

Yeah, some people don't realize that they are in a shitty position, and they are actually killing themselves with it. But if you do it over and over and over and over again for years, it wasn't a day by day decision like, oh yeah, I should just change something. I'm unhappy. It's something that you realize over weeks, months, years, and also, as I did my yoga teacher training, you understand, you sit in silence, you meditate, you focus on yourself, you observe, you start journaling. Like there are tools that you can use to actually observe yourself and understand. And which situation do I actually find myself, right? And of course, there are people who are not interested in that. They are just happy to sit in the office, 24/7, and then just go pass out on the weekend, just party, and they are happy to live that lifestyle. But there are also people, including me, who question things and who just start, as I said, journaling or meditating and reflecting, and then it leads, at one point, to yeah, question yourself, the important things, the important questions, which might be bitter, but leads to change and leads to the impulse that you need to actually wake up and be like, okay, this is not what I'm supposed to do.

Darryl Lim  12:02

Okay. The word QUESTION also came up where it's probably interesting the way you move from work to kind of like the various ways in which you see things and see the contrast between where you are and where you want to be, as well as the idea of questioning, how do they all connect to for you: so work, play, and then seeing things that could be, could have been, as well as questioning.

Theo  12:42

Yeah, okay, so work and play I've already described how work turns into play. If you find something that is purposeful for you. Questioning, I think probably you just need to be lucky enough that something around you, in your environment, ignites a spark where you start questioning, right? If you... was it Plato? There's this one philosopher who has this, the story about people sitting in a cave in front of the flames, and the flames create shadow play on the wall, and they stare at the shadows, and they always believe that the reality is shadows. And they don't understand they can just stand up, leave the cave and actually experience real life, right? So if you are just focusing on the shadows all of the time, I think it's important that something externally is helping you to snap out of that. It can be a sound, oh, there's actually a deer swimming outside of the cave or something. So you become aware of your situation. And for me, as I said, this was like role models, seeing other opportunities, traveling, like especially other people. It's communication. The moment you realize there is something else to it. This was the moment when I started questioning, right? There needs to be a spark that like, I think you can also have that internally in your own. There is this quote in matrix, the movie, where Morpheus tells Neo, it's like a splinter in your brain. You know something is wrong, but it's so hard when your entire environment is pushing you into one direction, to be internally strong enough and start questioning things and actually move against the the flow of things. So I think it's important to have an external spark for that. How do I connect all of these now? So for me, the overall idea of life is growth. Everything in life: growth. If you look at a tree, a plant, an animal, everything tries just to expand and evolve till the point where you actually start stagnating. Stagnation is actually declining, I think, right? It's deteriorating. So whenever I see myself, I'm not improving anymore, I just question, what could I do to step out of my comfort zone, to actually grow more, to build myself more, to step up my game? So maybe that's the quality of character that you need for that, I'm not sure, but I am always just trying to improve and to grow. And this leads to questioning things, for example, questioning your own work, your purpose, and then leading to play.

Darryl Lim  15:33

Because you talked about the matrix and the Plato's cave. When was the first time in your life, the very first time when you started seeing that those were just shadows, or that there's something out there?

Theo  15:53

I mean there, there are different layers to it, right? You can start questioning how you deal with your finances. At one point you realize, oh, wow, I can actually invest my money. I just don't have to spend it. There are realizations about your health and your body. You understand you don't have to swallow a pill to feel better. You actually just need to change your habits. Do you sleep enough? Do you drink enough? Like there are so many different realizations? Relationships, traveling, worldview, like I wouldn't say it's this one moment where I started realizing, oh, I'm staring at shadows. I would say it's different layers in different, well, realms of life. I think one of my first earliest moments was when I started to take a step back from drinking to socialize with people, and I understood I don't have to fall for the peer pressure. I played football, and after each training, they just sat together and drank beer, and I decided, I want to be a sportsman. I want to be healthy. I want to reach my peak performance, and alcohol is just not good for me. I shouldn't be doing that. I actually don't even like it. I don't like the taste of it. I just spent money on it. It's nothing that helps me achieve my goals. It's not purposeful. So I decided that I don't want to do that anymore. I just do it because other people push me into that direction. So I think that was one of my early realizations where I understood I can do it differently than what my environment is actually expecting me to do.

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