Living to be 156

For the past year, I have had the privilege of being a member in “Strategic Coach,” the company founded by the top coach for entrepreneurs in the world, Dan Sullivan.

Dan has a knack of creating life-changing frameworks, worksheets, exercises and mindsets to make sure we live in a world of abundance, not scarcity; and a world where we always live into a bigger future for ourselves.

He believes that the key for entrepreneurs to get the most out of their ability is to focus on the things they do better than anyone else (what he calls our “unique ability”) while making sure someone else is doing the things that we don’t do well or don’t really like to do.

And he also teaches that there is nothing more important than the choices we make.

Note that it’s about the choices WE make for ourselves and not choices made for us…

Most importantly, we need to choose a bigger future every day and then decide what from our past gets to be part of that bigger future (and “come along for the ride”)…and then everything we do in the present supports our choice.

I don’t know about you, but I find a world like that pretty exciting.

In my last workshop, Dan talked about a concept called the “Ten Times (or 10X) Lifetime” which I found fascinating…and I wanted to share it with you today.

We often talk about “10 X’ing” our businesses…which is a way to set big goals…and while “10X” is all too often about money, always remember that you can also 10X your influence or your contribution to the world as well…

Then add this: What if we let go of the limiting belief that we will only live to a “number” that the actuaries say we will live to (i.e. until we are 75 or 80…maybe a little older if we are lucky) and started embracing a world where you have many more years available than you ever imagined?

The exercise has many parts to it…but after going through it, Dan got his “number” to 156 and I got mine to 103…

And once you have this new number, the work only begins in terms of not just living to a ripe old age but also making a bigger difference in the world with all those extra years you have just been given…

Yes…I also think that staying sugar free and gluten free will help…as will lots of exercise…and of course a mindset which is all about abundance…

Why go through this exercise?

Because it creates more opportunities regarding the projects you will start NOW and it will put you on the path to only hang out with the people you will want to “play with” in your second, third or fourth career…

Some concepts to consider:

1) Retirement (from Dan): Rather than see this as the time to “stop working and go fishing” what if it was to “retire completely from the things you don’t like to do or are not good at AND retire from people in your life who bring you down and are not living into a bigger future with you?”

I would guess in that scenario you would have less time to fish and more time to create.

And I implore you to figure out how your work can be your play because when the lines are blurred, your life will actually have more clarity.

I wrote about this concept in one of my earliest posts about “The Myth of Work-Life Balance…”

2) Legacy: I’ve been thinking a lot about “legacy” this past year…since it’s been a more profound year in terms of the number of mentors and friends I’ve lost.

I guess that was part of the “perfect storm” that created the “Titans” event for September.

But thinking about “what you want to be remembered for while having a great time doing it” seems to be a better prescription to get to 103 and contributing until the end.

3) Life is Long: My mentor Marty Edelston said this a lot…kind of a play on “Life is Short.”

I did a post some time ago called “The People You Meet on the Way Up…” which partially addresses this idea of “Life is Long”–but more in terms of how you treat people.

But now that I just extended my life by an extra 25 years (at least), it’s even bigger than that–there are now so many more possibilities than I ever thought possible.

The world of “retire at 65 and maybe live until 80” doesn’t feel right anymore…

I’ll still be conscious of treating people well every step of the way…but now I get to do it until 2061–with much more impact.

4) Don’t hold back: One of the most important “stories” I tell when I am on stage is the one about your funeral (and mine).

People will be very sad at our funerals…they will cry, they will talk about what great people we were, and share how much we will be missed.

But remember…at some point near the end of the service, someone will turn to the person next to them and say:

“I’m hungry. Let’s go to Denny’s.”

Marty used to also tell me that “we only go through life once so we might as well be the world’s best”…and to do that, you must be choosing your future and you also must think about it being long rather than short.

Hope you had a great July 4th…isn’t independence (and free speech!) grand? 🙂

Until next week,

Brian