Why hasn’t there been a new episode in so long? Great question!

The real, answer is I got a little burned out on putting it all together every week. I got to the last interview of Season 2 and kept telling myself I had to record this last wrap-up episode and then let a whole bunch of other things get in the way.

In Season 1, all the interviews were with very cool women. You got to hear all their vulnerable stories about being stuck in a place where they said everything was fine but it was not even CLOSE to fine.

Then in Season 2, I mixed in some stories from incredible men who were willing to open up and share their stories of living through fine/not fine times. The diverse perspectives were fascinating to me. And proof that yes, men and women are different, but I saw that much more in the choice of hype-song than in the feelings and experiences around living in Finesville.

Humans are humans. Our souls naturally strive for growth and expansion and are designed to live in joy, gratitude, and love. When we’re not allowing ourselves to live that way, it causes all kinds of dis-ease. (More about the topic of allowing further into the show.)

In Season 3, we're going to talk more about the topic of Living the Sabbatical Life. And how to take your own own sabbatical. Or create a sabbatical life, that allows you to live every day like you're on sabbatical. That doesn’t mean not working. It means consciously creating a way of living that supports doing what you need to do and having plenty of time to relax, enjoy life and recharge. So that when you sit down to work tomorrow, you’re not burned out, stressed out, and unable to focus from overworking today.

You end up being more creative, focused, and guess what? More successful – however you choose to define success.

There’s a lot of reprogramming that goes on here. Rewiring of the brain. You’ve heard me talk about that a bit. You’ll hear even more because this is how you go from feeling like life is chaos to feeling calm and grounded and joyful.

To help you with this, I created a short guide called 5 Easy Ways to Start Living the Sabbatical Life. You can get it for free over at ZenRabbit.com

And stay tuned for the new, monthly And That's What Happened live segment with my long-time, most hilarious friend Steve.

Today's episode is sponsored by Blonde Beard's Buffalo Sauce. Checkout their reasonably priced gift packs for all your holiday giving. Use code LORI20 to get 20% off your order at https://blondebeards.com/

Hey my friend, welcome to FINE is a 4-Letter Word. My name is Lori Saitz. I’m an entrepreneur, mentor, founder of Zen Rabbit, and your instigator in saying F*ck Being Fine.

This show is for those of you who are done living with the dumpster fire and are ready to find the tools and courage to transform. To step into more success and fulfillment in both your personal and business life.

You’re in the right place for stories of self-discovery, gratitude, and connection. And to help you strengthen that connection to your own inner guidance, you’ll find many of the past episodes – in Season 1 and the first half of Season 2 – have an accompanying meditation. Now let’s get into it.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Blonde Beard’s Buffalo sauce. Let me tell you a little story about this crazy good sauce. Girls’ weekend in Denver. Checked my bag so I could bring home the 8 oz bottles. Chicken & Waffles and Black Magic. Ordered a few times since, for self and as gifts. Then saw they were inviting people to help them promote their products, so I applied and they accepted me! Now anytime you use the promo code LORI20, you’ll get 20% off your order.

As a thank you, they sent me a bottle of the Holy Hell sauce and the Rooster Rub. Story of the #vid and loss of taste.

Since the holidays are coming up, check out their gift packs. They’re perfect for all those people you don’t know what to get. And they’re very reasonably priced! Just go to BlondeBeards, BLONDE (with an e) BEARDS (with an s on the end) dot com. I’ll put the link in the show notes too.

Ok, enough of my raving about Buffalo sauce and Rooster rub. The focus of today’s show is ease and flow and fun. And how you can bring more of it into your life.

First though, let’s move on to a different animal and address the elephant in the room. And that is, why hasn’t there been a new episode in so long? Great question!

The short answer is – I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer for that. I love my show. I love my guests and I love bringing you their stories.

Maybe the better, more real, answer is, I got a little burned out on putting it all together every week. I got to the last interview of Season 2 and kept telling myself I had to record this last wrap-up episode and then let a whole bunch of other things get in the way.

In Season 1, all the interviews were with very cool women. You got to hear all their vulnerable stories about being stuck in a place where they said everything was fine but it was not even CLOSE to fine.

Then in Season 2, I mixed in some stories from incredible men who were willing to open up and share their stories of living through fine/not fine times. The diverse perspectives were fascinating to me. And proof that yes, men and women are different, but I saw that much more in the choice of hype-song than in the feelings and experiences around living in Finesville.

Humans are humans. Our souls naturally strive for growth and expansion and are designed to live in joy, gratitude, and love. When we’re not allowing ourselves to live that way, it causes all kinds of dis-ease.

More about the topic of allowing in a minute.

As the show moved closer to Season 3, I started stressing about what to do differently for the new season. What can I add or change? How can I make it even better? And when I couldn’t come up with anything, I did what I tend to do, which is avoid.

And then, as happens, weeks went by and no new shows got published.

Finally, I woke up today and said, “No more. Today is the day I’m recording a new episode,” and here we are.

I did come up with something new and exciting for the show. Stay with me to the end to find out what it is. I will say, it involves a new segment and it will make you laugh. Because laughter raises our energetic vibration and we can all use more laughter in life.

Speaking of raising our energetic vibration, that’s what living in ease and flow does for you. When you are feeling joy and laughing and loving what’s happening in your life, you are opening the door for more. Literally opening the door. This is not anecdotal or simply a rose-colored glasses view of life. There are mountains of research behind how this works.

Here's the problem. Maybe problem isn’t the right word. The challenge to be faced and overcome.

From the day we were born, most of us have been programmed to believe the way to achieve success is to work hard. Fun is optional. Like a nice to have AFTER you’ve done all the work.

Achievement is the goal in life. Your worthiness is based on your productivity. So we keep our head down, nose to the grindstone, working and doing all the things. Until one day – maybe one day, if you’re lucky enough to realize what’s happening – one day you look up and go, hey, I’m not really enjoying my life.

Not like everything is terrible. It’s just fine. Remember the whole reason this show is called Fine is a 4-Letter Word.

And by the way, not only am I not having a lot of fun, I’m not even achieving the level of success I thought I would by this point. All the things I’m doing – that I believe I have to do – aren’t even “working!”

Can you relate? Maybe you’re here right now.

This is where I was back in June and July. And this is why, some of you know, I took a month-long road trip sabbatical in August.

Whole Story

More details in my chapter in the upcoming book Love Warriors: The Conscious Expert’s Guide to Healing, Joy, And Manifestation, which publishes in early January. BTW, want to be on the launch team for that, message me.

Since I did this, a lot of people have been intrigued by the idea of taking their own sabbatical. Or creating a sabbatical life, that allows them to live every day like they’re on sabbatical. That doesn’t mean not working. It means consciously creating a way of living that supports doing what you need to do and having plenty of time to relax, enjoy life and recharge. So that when you sit down to work tomorrow, you’re not burned out, stressed out, and unable to focus from overworking today.

You end up being more creative, focused, and guess what? More successful – however you choose to define success.

This is where you start seeing the truth. That work all the time, gotta be productive, gotta tie my value to my achievements mindset is a lie. A straight up LIE! And even though it’s a lie, it’s still really difficult to shake. Because it’s so deeply ingrained.

Understand, I’m not saying you can have success and not do any work to get it. I’m saying when you learn how to allow ease and flow and incorporate more fun and live in a higher energetic vibration, the work you’re doing becomes easier and more effective. Synchronicities happen. Possibilities show up. Opportunity comes knocking on your door instead of you having to chase it down.

Your actions become more intentional and life doesn’t feel as chaotic. Faith that good things are happening and coming to you replaces fear that they won’t.

There’s a lot of reprogramming that goes on here. Rewiring of the brain. You’ve heard me talk about that a bit. You’ll hear even more because this is how you go from feeling like life is chaos to feeling calm and grounded and joyful.

It’s designed to help you find ease and flow and incorporate it into your business and career and to give yourself the gift of living joyfully and meaningfully.

We are going to be talking more about this topic in the new Season too. The plan is to have guests who have taken sabbaticals come on and share how they did it. I even have someone who can talk about how to get your finances to a place where you can do it because I know a lot of you are sitting there right now saying, there’s no way I can afford to take a sabbatical, much less live a sabbatical life.

I’m here to tell you, you can. It IS possible. Like Martin Luther King said, you don’t have to see the whole staircase. You just need to take the first step.

This is gonna be a fun ride. I promise!

Oh and back to what I teased you with earlier. The new segment that’s going to make you laugh and raise your energetic vibration.

My friend Steve and I have known each other since college. Funniest person I know. He’s got stories

And all this time we’ve talked about doing a radio show together. And never done it. Last year we even came up with a name for a new podcast, but with both our schedules, we couldn’t get it launched.

So I decided to at least incorporate a collaborative effort into THIS show. Once a month to start with, Steve and I are going to record a live show, somewhere in the DMV. If you’re in the area, you can come by and hang out with us as we record. Maybe at some point, we’ll take the show on the road.

But for now, it’ll be like a special bonus episode. I’m not 100% sure where the conversation will go, because you never know with Steve. What I can guarantee is you will laugh your ass off. If for no other reason than you’re laughing at me laughing at him.

Everything in his world becomes a story. He’s got some classics and then new ones come about every week. We were going to call that new podcast And That’s What Happened, kind of like a Seinfeld-esque take on our lives. So that’s the working title of these segments.

The plan is to record the first one this coming Saturday. And we’re just gonna wing it and see where it goes.

If you don’t catch it live on YouTube or Facebook, of course you can listen here, where you normally listen.

Hopefully it will contribute to more joy in your life and in my own. This is the experiment. And I’m excited to have you along on the journey.

Wrapping up this episode, I’m calling you to take action BEFORE the year ends. I’m inviting you to look at what you’re doing that maybe you don’t enjoy. That you feel like you have to keep doing because what else would you do? That you don’t see a way to stop doing even though your heart isn’t in it anymore.

Look at the parts of your life you don’t want to or don’t feel comfortable looking at. I know. I know. It’s not easy and it’s definitely not fun.

On the other side, take inventory of what you do love and what you’d like to do MORE of as well.

This honest assessment is the only way you’re going to get your life to a better place. To move beyond FINE. To get to living a sabbatical life.

To help you with this, I created a short guide called 5 Easy Ways to Start Living the Sabbatical Life. You can get it for free over at ZenRabbit.com

Thanks for being here and following Fine is a 4-Letter Word on your podcast app. If you’re not following, go ahead and hit that plus button at the top, so you get notified whenever a new episode publishes.

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You can join me on social too. These days, I’m spending most of my time on LinkedIn. You can find links to the other platforms at Zen Rabbit dot com.

Before you go, remember to take a moment to think about what you’re grateful for today.

And if no one’s told you this week, I’m proud of you. Take good care!