Are you living your life too small?

Episode #944 November 10, 2023

I hear the most interesting statements from people who are describing their lives.  Recently a 36-yr-old MBA in an executive position in an exciting industry shared this concern in her coaching profile: “I have a vague sense that my life is too small.”

Living large does not necessarily mean a bigger salary, house, cars or retirement fund.  It has nothing to do with fancy vacations or the latest fashions.  Rather, it means having a life that’s full of meaning and purpose.  And that can occur – or be absent – at any place on the continuum of the traditional parameters of “success.”  I’ve seen millionaires who are living life “small” and those with scarce financial resources who are living “large.” 

Let me ask you this: What is your life saying to the world?  Are you living your life too small? Is it so full of meaningless tasks that there’s no room left for the things that make your heart sing? Are you pushing so hard in doing more that you’ve lost the sense of being more?  Does more activity really equal greater accomplishment, or does it at some point tip the scale and begin to diminish the meaning of your life? Are you creating the legacy you want to leave for your loved ones?

Reflect back on last month – yes, just this last month.  What did you do to keep your life from being too small?

How to know if you’re living large

1. 4-5 ideas you had for a better job or starting your own business?
2. 3 things that you did just to help someone out with no expectation of payback?
3. The books you read or listened to that enlightened your spirit, confidence, knowledge and wisdom?
4. The number of hours you spent in quiet contemplation?
5. The 2 or 3 things you did that you had never done before?
6. The concerts, art shows, seminars, workshops or other enriching experiences you had?
7. 2 or 3 specific things you did to strengthen the relationships that mean the most to you?

If you have no responses to these seven questions, chances are strong that you are living your life too small.

Make it a regular practice to embrace living large times in your life. Wisdom, peace, contentment, and insight about investing your life in fulfilling work will grow in those times. Take a walk, give thanks for simple things, take a bath with music playing and candles burning, turn off the telephones, TV, and computer. Carve out those times for restoration and spiritual breathing. Don’t let the busyness of life crowd out your opportunity for living large.  Don’t let your life be too small.

We’ve got some great questions today – from listeners like you who are looking for ways to dream bigger – to live bigger.

And I’ve got an opportunity for you to join me for a conversation about how to put legs on your dream.

Questions:

Would coaching my son through 48 Days to the Work You Love and the application guide help him get clarity on what he wants to do?

Yes. Absolutely. Walk him through that. That will give him information that he’s not going to get in school. In school, they have to superimpose on us so much information. Just memorize multiplication tables, what the capital of every state in the country is, those kind of things.

But that idea of looking inward, which is the focus of 48 Days to the Work You Love — look inward first. 85% of the process of having a confidence in proper direction comes from looking inward, Not just looking outward. The 15% is looking at where the opportunities are, where the trends are.

That’s the smaller part. That 85% we don’t get in school. Look inward. What’s unique about you? What are your personality traits? How do you relate to other people? What kind of environments work best for you? What are your dreams, your passions? Those are the kind of things that you’ll learn in going through 48 Days.

Now, because you say that he wants to own property, I’d also recommend that you get the game, Cash Flow by Robert Kiyosaki. It’s marvelous for teaching kids not only about real estate, but other things too. How to get ahead. How to get out of the rat race. Now when it comes to real estate, I love real estate as an option.

Incidentally, 90% of people who end up as millionaires have used real estate as part of their path to get there.

You can do fix and flip if he’s really good with doing most of the work himself. You can buy and rent. You can have Airbnb property. Or you can get long term renters. I had a a friend who had nothing but commercial property. He didn’t want to have residential property, but he had commercial property and was very, very successful in doing that.

Real estate is expensive and comes with a lot of additional challenges. You could go into things where it’s not residences. Storage units. It just amazes me to see the number of storage units there are. It’s a high return per square foot, and they tend to fill up quickly. You can have a laundromat or a car wash.

You can buy tax liens on properties where there’s abandoned property somebody didn’t pay the taxes on and you can pick up properties like that.

48 Days To the Work and Life You Love will help you and your son identify his strongest skills and talents. Does he have the people skills to deal well with renters? Would it be a good idea for him to work with somebody who already has multiple properties to essentially learn on their nickel for a couple years? That’s a great way to learn a business. Go to work for somebody who’s already doing what you think you want to do. Getting a mentor can be invaluable in opening doors for him. So get around people who are already doing what he’s doing.

How do I tell the difference between a true mastermind and a group where they’re just going to try to sell me something?

The term mastermind has been so abused in the last 10, 15 years. Everybody has a mastermind. Let’s get together for lunch and they call it a mastermind. Or we’re going to get together for a weekend. It’s a mastermind. Well, that’s not really. There are a whole lot of things out there that are being called masterminds that are certainly something else. Now here’s some things to look for.

• If the only qualification for entrance is paying a fee, it’s probably not a mastermind. It’s just somebody selling something. 
• If the organizer invites you to join, you know, 15 minutes after meeting you,it’s probably not a mastermind. It’s just something he has to sell. 
• If the organizer has multiple masterminds, it’s not really a mastermind. It’s something else. 
• If there’s no application process, it’s not a mastermind.
• I think if the only focus is growing your business, it’s probably not a mastermind.
• If the organizer leads every single meeting, it’s probably not a mastermind.
• If it’s a free mastermind it’s probably just a lead generator for some big offer they’re going to give you once you’re in.

Now there’s a there’s a lot of wonderful group coaching organizations in existence today, groups where you can connect with others on a similar path. There are brainstorming groups where you can get together and experience that synergy of thinking together and coming up with solutions that would not be available to you as an individual. And there are business networking groups where you can make connections to other people in positions of influence. And there are executive coaching programs where you’ll be challenged to raise your sights, be given tools to stretch your thinking.

Check out my Mastermind here.

I believe so much the power of Masterminds, I learned originally about them when I was a teenager reading Think and Grow Rich, the old Napoleon Hill book where he describes that every single person he interviewed who had extraordinary success, like Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller, all those guys, They were all part of a mastermind. That’s pretty good clue that there’s some value there.

Find out more about Masterminds in my course, Mastermind Principles Masterclass.

Do you think I could sell a book with only one sentence in it?

I love the idea. I love pretty much any idea that’s creative, that’s unusual, that’s different than the way most people think.

Years ago, I knew a lady who was and still is, I believe, listed as the most successful self published author there ever was. Now here’s the interesting thing. Cindy was diagnosed as illiterate when she was 23 years old. She really couldn’t read. So her first book was titled Everything Men Know About Women. She published it herself, sold more than 1,300,000 copies right out of the gate at $3.95 each. It was a 128 blank pages.

David Hancock, who is in my mastermind as well, is the the founder of, Morgan James Publishing. So a couple years, he did a little book. It’s titled Yes Dear. It’s got a real beautiful cover. And the subtitle is, Man’s Definitive Guide to the Understanding of What We Know About the Women We Love. It’s totally blank. He’s sold a whole bunch of those for $9.95.

I reached out to David for his insights on this since he he did that. He said it’s hard to have those now. That was that was something that was done. And now it’s hard to take those seriously because it’s not really a surprise anymore. Also, Amazon is probably not going to allow it. And Lightning Source, the printing source for most books that come out through Amazon. They won’t print those.

But what David said is encourage Nathan to flesh it out a bit, which I really, really like. It may be 1 sentence on every page, so you have a 100 tips about how to do exactly what you’re talking about.

I’m a software developer but I’ve never felt that I’m very good – should I consider a new career?

I commend you on looking at some new options. When you’ve had repeated pushback in a particular area, even if that’s what you got your degree in, even if that’s what you’ve been working in for 20 years, it’s time to consider things that could be more fulfilling, meaningful, and profitable. Don’t feel trapped by virtue of your degree and what you’ve been doing. Don’t let your past determine your future.

You can draw that proverbial line in the sand and say this is what I want my life to look like 3 years from now. That’s most of the coaching that I’ve done over the years is working with people who have professional degrees, physicians, attorneys, dentists, accountants, engineers who feel trapped, but they aren’t.

We’ve had some really, exciting transitions with people like that into new opportunities. It doesn’t mean we throw out what they’ve done or negate the value of what they’ve done, but we find interesting new locations that can really change dramatically what it is they’re doing day to day. And oftentimes, it not only gives them a sense of being more on track, more being in their own zone of genius, but also opens up other opportunities for success that they had never even anticipated. So, I commend you on doing that.

Now what you need to do and this is pretty straightforward. Take a look at the skills that you would need to be successful in what you want to do and determine if you have those skills.

My family and friends expect a discount at my business. How should I handle that?

This is a great question because it relates to any kind of business you may have. And what my encouragement is, make sure you’re making a profit from everyone. This is a business, not a charity.

Now I’ve seen this abuse so many times. When I was selling cars years ago, I learned real quickly that I needed to build in reasonable profit when selling to family and friends because guess who the first ones are to come back around if something goes wrong.

Don’t give discounts where you’ll end up resenting it because it takes directly away from your ability to make money on your business.

Quotation: 

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Resource:

November 14th – 48-Day Dream Life Blueprint – 48Days.com/dreambig

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