This morning I was listening to Joe Polish on his I Love Marketing podcast. He and Dan Sullivan were talking about what it means to “decide.”
I was blown away to hear Dan point out that the Latin word from which we get “decide” is the 
same root word from which we get homicide, suicide, genocide, fungicide, pesticide, and many more. All of these words end in “cide”, from the Latin word “caedere” which means to kill.
It means to kill off – when you decide you are going to stop something.
When you decide on your future, something from the past is not going to come along with you. Think about it. When you decide to get a new car – you’re going to trade, sell or give away your old one. When you decide to go to college – you’re going to stop doing something you’re doing now. When you decide to get a new job or start your own business – you’re going to stop some of the things in your current life.
You have to decide to open the door to the future you want. Dan says one of the reasons immigrants do so well here is that they have to decide on the very few things they can bring with them. They leave most of their past behind.
When you choose a new future some of your past is not going to be valuable to you anymore.
So here’s the process for moving to the future you want:
- Describe the future you want
- Choose what part of the past gets to come along
- Decide what you will do right now to make it happen
You create your future by clarifying what that looks like, selecting the few things from your past you want to bring along, and deciding what steps you need to take right now to make that future a reality.
What will you decide today?
I’ve made some huge decisions in the last few years that have turned out better than expected. Now I have to decide to dream bigger and take bigger actions steps. I can’t settle!
Kimanzi,
Hey you’re the master of “deciding.” Just keep leaving the status quo behind – and move to those bigger things.
Thanks Dan! I learned from the best (you).
Kimanzi,
I like your forward thinking! I look forward to seeing what’s ahead for you.
This is really great stuff. An aspect to this process I’m learning is keeping faith involved. It’s easy for me to run off and do something, but sometimes it hasn’t been the best moment to chase a dream. But with God, nothing is stopping me from making these decisions when I know He’s with me in it! Means the burden isn’t on me!
Justin, that’s so good that you remember to keep God in all your decisions, especially related to work and career. An excellent website for those conversations is http://www.thehighcalling.org/ They talk about how work should be a reflection of our relationship with God and how He helps us do it well. Good stuff. blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.
Oh that’s good! Thanks for pointing to the neat resource!
You’re welcome. 🙂
Man, I love this! I think I’ll use it as a guest post on my site. If I recall correctly, you allow that as long as we credit you, don’t change anything, and include a link to your site. Please confirm or correct. Thanks!
Yes, Michelle, as long as you reference 48Days.com and Dan Miller, feel free to share!
Cool. Thanks! I like your blog, by the way. Just checked it out last week.
I have been the type of person to really play it safe and as a result, I have second guessed so much that my failure to decide to go forward resulted in my decision to stay right where I am! This is not God’s heart for me. I have allowed fear to keep me from taking risks. I am a home school mom & have been asking God to show me what I am genuinely good at that could benefit my family financially and keep me home. I need to print the above and let it be a reminder that in order to go forward, I must decide to not bring my fear with me!
LouAnn,
Accepting responsibility for where we are is the first important step to changing. Now you can assess your talents, identify a focus, create a plan, and act. Six months from now you can still be loving, competent home schooling mom, but also be adding family income.
Thanks Dan. I honestly do not have specific things that I am so good at that could be marketable. I have never been to college, do not have a hobby, much less a talent, and those things stop me from pursuing much of anything. I try to find online jobs but most are scams. How do you identify a focus? That is where I get paralyzed! I even purchased several of your 48 Days packs when you had them discounted and I ended up giving all of them away as gifts. Isn’t that horrible? There are so many incredibly talented people out there. To say I feel intimidated is an understatement!
LouAnn, I am a retired home school mom (almost 20 years, 3 kids all the way through high school). So–I want to encourage you, even while I understand the fear. You, by virtue of what you have been doing, have a wonderful skill set. Including, but not limited to: creatively motivating, teaching, inspiring, administrating, managing and loving a group of unique individuals. The waiting time is valuable too and I trust that God will open doors for you as well as open your eyes to the possibilities. Kick the fear in the pants and do it anyway! I am excited for your next step in life, blessings to you.
Also think about the word decision. Has the same root word, but also related to incise (incision) conscise, and…scissors: in other words, to cut away from.
Taking action and deciding is always better than over-thinking, over-analyzing and waiting for things to be perfect. Ready, FIRE!, Aim. 🙂 This approach has benefited me in more ways than I could have ever imagined. You’ll never know what to fix until you get it out there first.
I have struggled mightily in deciding what the next step to wealth is for me. I have “decided” to move forward but the next step(s) is not clear. I have strong desires to be an entrepreneur.
Musicians have built in musical skills, a janitor has hands-on skills, a church usher has (unpaid) skills, a pastor(paid) another, etc, etc. Built-in intelligence abilities vary and are rewarded unfairly in our biased world. Another example professional athlete or teacher. Who is actually more valuable? This really troubles me! It’s difficult enough to identify how my transferrable skills (from past disc assessments) best fit and provide a better income. And in the past when I did decide to move forward I was unpleasantly surprised by the unfair results. Even though this may be a little off the topic their is a correlation to the end result of making “decisions” which leads me ask,
” What or Who decides the Value of the skills or talents being used?” Thanks Dan for any feedback….