Victoria Petrovsky: 0:01

Welcome to the Startup of Human Potential. We're your co-hosts.

Clifton Smith: 0:05

I'm Clifton.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:06

And I'm Victoria.

Clifton Smith: 0:08

And together we are Faces of the Future. Faces of the Future is a venture studio focused on consciousness, identity expansion and personal well-being, and we are excited to have you join us on our episode on the Startup of Human Potential podcast.

Victoria Petrovsky: 0:27

Yes. So today we'll be talking about what is a vacation and what you're actually vacating when you take a vacation. So, to put that in context, clifton and I just spent all of July in Hawaii and it's summertime and many people we know are on vacations at this time, so we just wanted to kind of talk about some of the downloads and insights we received while we were on this trip with you all.

Clifton Smith: 0:59

Yes, and you know there's been some articles and books about the difference between wealthy individuals and how they spend their vacations versus those who can't seem to get out of the rat race, and really we're diving into the societal programming from a bigger perspective of the idea of vacation.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:22

Yes.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:23

So what we see a lot is many people completely change identities or who they are when they go on vacation.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:30

And if you think about it, all that's really changing is their location, and what travel literally means is to go from one place to another, typically over a distance of some length.

Victoria Petrovsky: 1:43

And the history of vacations is that they were created to give a temporary reprieve to people who were working 50 or 48 hours, 48 weeks out of the 52 weeks a year. You know the whole workforce system was created to create this hoping and longing and waiting for the next one, and what we see is a lot of people deferring their joy to that trip and trying to pack everything all into those two weeks that you get a year and it leaves you feeling really exhausted. Many times we overindulge in eating, spending, staying up late, partying, sleeping in, things like that, and many people use it as a form of disguised escapism or glamorized escapism and to kind of escape what they're going through in life if they're not fully aligned with who they are and not fully living their total life of joy. So almost creating like two different identities of who you are in your everyday life and then who you are when you're on this vacation.

Clifton Smith: 2:44

Yeah, think about it. I mean, look at what vacations offer. They offer all you can eat, all you can drink. They really play off of your gluttony debauchery, nightlife, staying up late, drinking, going on crazy wild adventures, looking for that form of physical excitement. We're not necessarily saying that this is bad. What we're saying is we're bringing light to what it does on a person's identity structure and how it creates a schism within them. You in your job versus you on vacation are two very different things.

Victoria Petrovsky: 3:28

Yeah, and that was me for a very long time, for many years, not fully enjoying or aligned with what I was doing and not feeling my fulfillment and purpose. So I was just traveling whenever I couldn't, exploring different places, creating a form of excitement in that, and you know there's a lot of people out there like that.

Clifton Smith: 3:49

Yeah, and really what we're talking about is how do you feel when you come back from meditation? Most people a dread going back to work or getting back into the old ways of thinking or old ways of being, and that's just a clear example that you're not living life in alignment with your total life of joy.

Victoria Petrovsky: 4:12

Yeah, Same thing goes for weekends. How do you feel on Monday when you come back? Like that song goes everybody's working for the weekend. So weekends also were created to give respite to people. During the work week they're working for somebody else. They're not really focusing on themselves, not really taking care of their own needs. So the weekend is kind of like when we see that whole other side of someone else's personality totally come out.

Clifton Smith: 4:38

Yeah, we've glorified it with the weekend warrior type and I certainly was that and we'd sit at a job for Monday through Friday and then Saturday and Sunday I would go play fly football, go do Tough Mudders, things like that, and just destroy my body because I wasn't getting that physical exercise and outdoor exposure in my corporate job. And so all we're pointing out is the disharmony inside people's lives and in their identity With these ideas and concepts of vacation and weekends.

Victoria Petrovsky: 5:17

You know a lot of these concepts create a lot of dissonance in their identity. Like you're saying, they create that schism and it widens that gap between who you are and who you prefer to be and how you prefer to live, whether it's the work week versus the weekend, or whether it's your everyday life versus going on a vacation. You're shifting into that old way of being many times when you come back and then you have those post-vacation blues.

Clifton Smith: 5:48

Same thing, as you have the Monday blues, and while there's good utility to ideas of vacation and weekends, what we're articulating is if you are really living your total life of joy, what would you want to vacate from?

Victoria Petrovsky: 6:05

What would you want to change? Where are you escaping from if you're living and doing what brings you joy every single day, like? Why would it be such an extreme, like such a difference? You know?

Clifton Smith: 6:17

Yeah, maybe you want to take a break from working hard, or what we call it is intentionally shifting focus to another category of your life. You know, maybe you want to cultivate a feeling good state and rejuvenate yourself. Well, you can do that throughout the day. You can create your morning routine, your evening routine or even a mid-afternoon meditation.

Victoria Petrovsky: 6:43

Yeah, and we'll get into some more solutions and things that we think are really conducive forms of you know, kind of channeling that I want that rejuvenation time and you know, like, something else that we see is many people vacate those routines and conducive behaviors that keep them centered and grounded and motivated. Maybe they have those routines normally, but then when you go somewhere else, you travel or change your location, people actually vacate a lot of those practices and tools that have been working for them.

Clifton Smith: 7:15

Yeah, you spend such a long amount of time building those habits and then all of a sudden the vacation comes and it goes out the window.

Victoria Petrovsky: 7:24

Mm-hmm.

Clifton Smith: 7:25

You know that just creates more dissonance and disharmony and that can actually slow down your manifestation potential of what you're building or creating if you go on a vacation or a retreat.

Victoria Petrovsky: 7:37

Yeah, if you're not giving all the categories of life, you're focusing on some airtime while you're away. It's like taking your foot off the gas and eventually the car comes to a stop. You know if you're not going downhill.

Clifton Smith: 7:50

So keep going with those morning routines. You know you built those habits for a reason, and just because you're in a beautiful new place or going somewhere else doesn't mean that we should stop them.

Victoria Petrovsky: 8:04

Yeah, many people stop. You know, as soon as they get results. They stop doing what's working for them, and a vacation is oftentimes an excuse people use to stop those things.

Clifton Smith: 8:15

And I get it. It can be hard to do certain routines in the morning. You have your setup, you have the way you function. That's almost subconscious at this point and you're in a new space. So it can actually be an opportunity to get you to that next level of integrity to your morning routines, to be able to do them anywhere you are.

Victoria Petrovsky: 8:38

Mm-hmm, what about retreats Clifton?

Clifton Smith: 8:42

Yeah, I mean retreats are a good step in the right direction, especially for high performers, because you're infusing greater consciousness in sort of this vacation idea because you're going to work on something. But really, if you look at the etymology of retreat, it really means to withdraw or pull back.

Victoria Petrovsky: 9:04

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it really reinforces this idea of not treating yourself well and not nourishing yourself or investing in your own self-love, denying yourself of your own joy the rest of the time when you're not on the retreat, right? Like, why do you need a retreat if you're treating yourself well, right?

Clifton Smith: 9:21

Throughout your day to day.

Victoria Petrovsky: 9:23

Yeah, so many times like what you're seeking out in the retreat is really just a correction of that malnourishment that you're feeling the rest of the time. It's like an overcorrection, the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction. When you're not taking care of your body and your needs, you go on like a 10-day vipassana or something and then you get really into yourself, really withdrawn.

Clifton Smith: 9:47

Which then you have to come back to your reality and reintegrate, and reintegrate the way shape or form.

Victoria Petrovsky: 9:52

Yeah, or burning man, post-burning man, decompression, reintegration back into everyday life in society, right? So what are? You mentioned a few solutions earlier, clifton. We were talking about cultivating a feel-good state in your morning routine that kind of sets the energetic tone for the day, or doing a mid-afternoon kind of reset meditation. That's kind of like a mini-vacation for the brain before you come back to your day.

Clifton Smith: 10:21

What else Well, it's about finding a balance right, and whatever's going on in your life, like if something out of the left field comes in and you really need to reset there's the saying recover as intensely as you were and so find something that matches that, and if something does happen in your life where you do need to go on that 10-day vipassana, that's awesome. What we're saying, though, is how can you create more balance in your day-to-day life than the things that you can control?

Victoria Petrovsky: 10:56

And that's where take a conscious breath several times a day. That creates a reset. You can take a bath and do something that's rejuvenating or recharging, and do more of the things that you enjoy, not like the sugary form of joy that's really artificial and can give you cavities. Do the things that really light your heart up, and my favorite is live where you would go on vacation.

Clifton Smith: 11:26

How can you do that?

Victoria Petrovsky: 11:29

But well, with the pandemic it kind of created a big societal shift in more people working from home, people moving away from cities, and that was a big shift that I made during that time period. I always wanted to move to California and be surrounded by nature and kind of get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and yeah.

Clifton Smith: 11:52

Why did you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city?

Victoria Petrovsky: 11:56

Because I wanted a vacation all the time that I was living there, and then, if you live in the space where you would go on vacation, it's just more aligned with what I envisioned for my lifestyle.

Clifton Smith: 12:09

Oh, so your beingness no longer resonated with being in a fast-paced city environment.

Victoria Petrovsky: 12:15

No, exactly.

Clifton Smith: 12:17

So, instead of seeking an escape through a vacation, you're seeking a harmonization with your being by living in a more relaxed retreat area.

Victoria Petrovsky: 12:26

Yeah, kind of going at a different pace. That felt more natural.

Clifton Smith: 12:31

Nice, and if you have a beingness-based business that's a natural byproduct that we help quantum-panoers birth you can have some extra creativity in terms of where you live and how you can actually turn what would previously be a vacation into a business building or revenue-generating activity, such as you can host people for a program, you can create a mastermind where, once or twice a year, you go to one of these beautiful places, you can create new contents while you're there and you're inspired, you can create a course while you're there, or you can even find a unique product that you love and you can sell it online. So there's so much opportunity to create and generate wealth for you in this idea of what you want when a lot of people think of a vacation.

Victoria Petrovsky: 13:30

And what do you think people really want when they're wanting a retreat? What would be better instead?

Clifton Smith: 13:38

Well, I would say it all comes back down to self-love. So infusion of self-love and unique experiences.

Victoria Petrovsky: 13:47

Yeah, like finding you know if you need support with that a transformational program that helps you intentionally shift your identity, not just creating a spa-like experience.

Clifton Smith: 13:58

Well, yeah, the idea is that you know people seek retreats and vacations to get something and you don't have to go somewhere to get that because ultimately you'll have to come back to integrate whatever it is that you get and your habits that you develop on those retreats, or your lifestyle on the vacation usually isn't sustainable and has challenges to integrate into your day-to-day. So the goal is to find something that actually works with your day-to-day life that will get you there.

Victoria Petrovsky: 14:30

Yeah, absolutely.

Clifton Smith: 14:33

And so that's really what we help high performers with our program is to step into that total life of joy as you're living life, integrating it in real time.

Victoria Petrovsky: 14:46

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we have a week-long immersive, which is virtual, or in person if you're in the LA area called the Activator Program. So it helps you really get into that elevated, expansive state that many people often seek out vacations and retreats for and hone in on what their heart is actually communicating to them and following the pulse of what their total life of joy actually looks like. And it activates and unlocks the next layer of your potential and your personal growth and you know that transformation from being a high performer into a quantumpreneur.

Clifton Smith: 15:24

Yes, it infuses and streamlines the process of upgrading yourself with the integration into your day-to-day so that way you can optimize your performance in real time.

Victoria Petrovsky: 15:37

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and if you want more info about that, you can find us at FacesoftheSutureio and Instagram FOTFio.

Clifton Smith: 15:48

Thanks for joining.