Successful entrepreneur Andrew Morello explains the foundations for filling your life with love, vitality and fulfilment.

Andrew Morello is the winner of the first season of The Apprentice in Australia, Head of Business Development at Yellow Brick Road, a founding member of The Entourage, a shareholder of six companies, and an ambassador for several charities that are very close to his heart.

This is the second part of my face-to-face interview with Morello, where we discussed the four essential paths to nourishment. The first article ‘How To Shift Your Mindset To Turn Challenges Into Victory’, explored the four greatest mindset challenges.

What Is Nourishment?

Nourishment means utilizing internal and external sources to fill our life with love, support and guidance from ourselves and interactions with others. It is all about fulfilling our basic need as humans, to find deep connection and meaning, live purposefully and feel a sense of belonging.

As we mature and go through various life experiences, the type and frequency of the nourishment we seek, inevitably changes and is different for men and women.

1. Physical

Physical nourishment encompasses our relationships, health regime, wealth, and materialistic needs.

Relationships create the foundation for our life. As they offer us an opportunity to share, love, support, learn and grow.

Physical health is our wealth as it provides us with the opportunity to fully live life. Without it, life can be very challenging and take it’s toll on those we love.

Wealth creates more options and opportunities. By creating freedom for ourselves, we can then go on to help others.

We often fall into the trap of becoming addicted to material possessions that create an illusion of success. Unfortunately, people can rely on these possessions to boost their confidence or feel like an ‘important‘ part of society.

Instead of enjoying these possessions they can weigh us down as we constantly worry about the costs involved, or if it is gets damaged or taken from us. Sometimes the cost of having expensive possessions weighs us down and therefore takes away the fulfillment we hoped we would receive. The fulfillment can often be short-lived.

2. Mental

Men and women receive mental nourishment from different sources.

Men grow up witnessing their father’s idea of life and what it means to bring up a family, work as an employee or build a business.

Morello believes men are impacted by their father’s expectations and require acknowledgement for the success they have achieved in their own life. Men have a subconscious yearning of who our father was, how he made a living and the way he conducted himself.

Whereas, the majority of women place significant pressure on themselves. Some women chose to transcend from corporate career to become mothers and some of them feel like they have missed out on the career success and opportunities along the way.

Other women have chosen the career path, traveled the world and have a long list of accomplishments. Irrespective of the choices made, women can feel like a victim and over analyze their decisions. Questioning themselves, uncertain if they have made the right choices. Morello’s advice, become more loving to yourself and own your decisions.

It is about removing the victim mentality and turning life’s challenges into your life story which needs degrees of light, shade, tonality and color. Speaking your truth helps you and others. It essentially gives us exactly what we need – nourishment.

3. Emotional

Emotional nourishment can come from various sources. It is important to be mindful of where we take emotional nourishment from as it can be a dead-end road.

The reality of life is that relationships can be toxic which can lead to self-sabotage. For example: repeating the same patterns by dating the same type of person who breaks your heart rather than searching for a quality life partner.

Avoid placing high expectations on a particular person or thing to provide you with emotional nourishment. We first need to understand how to source emotional nourishment for ourselves internally i.e. yoga, meditation, or reading, before relying on external sources.

Another common source of stress and a drain to your energy is when you refuse to forgive or make peace with your family or friends. Resolve the things that are unresolved in your life not for the other person, do it for yourself.

4. Spiritual

Spiritual nourishment relates to the journey being the destination.

Religion was set up to educate a group of uneducated people. It can be used for controlling or inspiring people to do good.

Morello was brought up in a traditional Catholic Italian family. Fortunately, his parents were open minded about spirituality. They encouraged him to have an open heart and mind and explore other religions.

Although, Morello has participated in Ramadan, visited a Buddhist monastery and studied Christianity, Islamic faith, and Buddhism, he is now focused on his spiritual journey rather than a specific religion.

Morello views spirituality as a connection with the universe. He enjoys listening to the stories of great leaders and religious characters. His recommended reading list for those on a spiritual journey include: The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success – Deepak Chopra, The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho, The Power Of Now – Elkhart Tolle.

The first step to exploring your own foundations is by starting to identify what sources you are utilising for each life area.

Are your filling your life with love, vitality and fulfilment or are your driving down a dead-end street?

To avoid overwhelm, prioritise your own needs and start with incremental changes to help you move gradually towards your end goal.

 

This article was originally published on Inc.com